Games often create a world full of wonder and imagination. In these virtual worlds we meet characters, forge alliances and friendships. Games can let us escape into another world that we can form an emotional connection with. Sometimes a single tear drops from the corner of your eye as a character you’ve come to love sacrifices themselves, perhaps you dropped the controller while laughing as a boss battle starts with a singing pile of turd (Conkers Bad Fur Day) or maybe the music and action has come together perfectly and you feel that adrenaline rush as you perfectly cut down enemies like some kind demi-god Samurai.
The great thing about gaming isn’t always within the game itself, sometimes they bring you and your friends closer together working as a team or maybe you’ve had a great time stabbing friends in the back with multiplayer in the Assassin’s Creed games.
We asked the staff what their most Emotional Gaming Moments were. What are yours?
Steve B
My most emotional gaming moment? There are so many to choose from. There was the first time I played the original Half-Life, where it’s world drew me in so strongly that I finished the whole game in one sitting. Then there was that sad, sad day when I lost my Level 90 Hardcore Amazon in Diablo II. How about when my Team Fortress 2 clan won its first tournament, or when my World of Warcraft guild got the server-first kill of Ragnoras in classic WoW?
But no, now that I think about it, it all pales in comparison to a single League of Legends game I played this past summer. Let me set the scene for you. The players were myself and my three best friends. The setting was a familiar one, on the loosing side of a League of Legends match that had gone on for far too long. We were literally pushed back to our nexus, whilst the other team hadn’t lost a single turret. It is exceptionally rare for League of Legends games to turn around once one team has momentum, but we made a shocking discovery. ‘They are all physical carries, and they keep buying phantom dancers. We should just build thornmail!’ For those unfamiliar with the game, thornmail is a defensive item that reflects damage back at their attackers. Our opponents had gone for extreme ‘glass cannon’ builds, that do tons of damage but have little defence. We decided to turn their own build against them.
Needless to say, it worked flawlessly. We made a stunning comeback, and for a while, it was pretty evenly matched. Then, with one final push, we crushed them.
It was the single most epic game of League of Legends, nay, epic game FULL STOP that I had ever played. I had to quit League of Legends shortly afterwards, because I knew I would never experience a game as good as this one.
Whenever someone mentions League of Legends around me and my three faithful teammates, someone inevitably says ‘Do you guys remember that one game of League, where we were pushed back to the nexus and won?’
For me, this is gaming. Working with a team of players to beat another team, through strategy, skill and teamwork. Single player games are a nice little distraction, but for me, I gotta play with people. I just gotta.
KRS 2
The most emotional I ever got in a game? I don’t even have to think about this one. All the tears can go into the final chapter of Odin Sphere on PlayStation 2. One of the greatest games ever made, with beautiful art and character design, I think it’s a real tragedy that more people haven’t heard of or played this game. Putting that aside, the game is split up into 5 different “books,” each one representing a character whose story you play through.
However, once you finish the final characters story, you unlock a sixth book titled, “Armageddon.” The book delivers you exactly what it promises, the end of the world known as Erion, and you get the joy of seeing the world you’ve explored being destroyed by a rising ocean, an army of the dead, an army of fire people, a three-headed beast of the apocalypse, and the king of all dragons.
But you know what? That’s not even the saddest thing! One of the final bosses is actually Ingway, one of the main characters you meet in the story. Why does this matter? Oh just the fact that one of your character, Mercedes, can be forced to fight the man that she loves.
Despite winning the battle and reverting Ingway back to a human, she soon dies in his arms with her last words revealing that she loves him. After dying, Ingway is left alone to mourn her, cursing himself for not realising he loved her too and wishing heaven would strike him down. I get emotional thinking about it!
And of course, once you finish using the wrong characters, you see the sun setting on the horizon, leaving nothing but darkness, as the last person in the world dies:
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Senior Stiv
One of the most emotional moments I’ve witnessed in a video is when I entered Mexico in Red Dead Redemption. As soon as you reach the other shore with Marston’s “friend”, Irish, he hops on his horse and starts riding into the Mexican countryside. The camera begin to pan out as the landscape opens up in front of him and the red dusts of the Mexican desert reflect the setting sun.
I’ve played a lot of open world games, but none have ever been able capture the beauty of it quite like this moment. When Jose Gonzalez’s “Far Away” starts playing I nearly shed a tear at all of the beautiful elements converging at once.
Anthony
I guess the most emotion I’ve expressed towards a video game was back in 1996, when I was only five years old and I was playing Ghostbusters on the old SEGA Master System II.
Now back then SEGA Consoles didn’t have automatic checkpoint saves or saving options. So you pretty much had to complete the game through a single play through, otherwise if you died you’d be transported back to the title screen and had to start all over again from level one, not really a delightful experience. Anyways so I was on the brink of completing Ghostbusters after exactly 23 tries and exactly five hours of gameplay. I had made it past the giant marshmallow man and survived a ghost infested apartment with two players left, which I made it with both of them to the roof for the final confrontation with Gozer the Gozerian.
My cousin had come over to chill and he sat next to me while I played Ghostbusters. For some ridiculous reason I don’t know why? I find when I get to an important part of a game I have to go for a pee break, happens to me all the time. At that exact moment when I’m about to complete the game, the pee pee goblin hits me. So I asked my cousin to pause the game because I’m busting to go to the toilet.
Now on the Master System II console you can’t pause from the control pad, there’s a large white button on the console which you manually have to press to pause your game. I don’t know how? Or what he was thinking? But instead of pressing the pause button my cousin slides the power off button, and all that was displayed was a black screen.
As soon as I saw that black screen I literally pissed my pants in shock that all that effort of getting so far had just been shut down. A silence hit the room, before I let out a huge NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Which followed with tears, then me beating my cousin up and then me going Godzilla on my toys kicking and throwing them at the wall, which eventually lead to my ass getting beaten by my mama.
So that’s the most emotion I’ve ever displayed in my gaming career, pissed my pants, beat my cousin up, Godzillard my toys, got my ass handed to me by my mama.
Dan
Gaming has been a big part of my life since I was little, happily sitting playing Bubsy or Super Mario All Stars on the Super Nintendo. At least until the Super GameBoy came along, then I was able to play Pokemon on my TV? Seeing my Blastoise and Mewtwo combo up on the cathode ray tube was quite breathtaking.
Fast-forward a few years to high school and I have fond memories of my friends and I spending time playing Age of Empires 2 at an Internet cafe. We would always start a free-for-all map and forge secret alliances if someone was getting too powerful. Instead of an endgame destroy everything and scorching their entire town, we would leave them a few workers and a chance to rebuild.
I love that human element of playing with friends and having them betray you, only to turn the tables with a double or sometimes even a triple cross. The shock you inflict on a mate when their army is out and you pull yours out of the battle at the last-minute and attack his base is priceless. If you then have your allies (who have promised to defend you whilst your army is out) start attacking your undefended workers you now have a great story to laugh about over a couple of beers and maybe a black eye.
What are some of your emotional gaming moments? Have you ever raged, cried or laughed yourself because of games. Let us know in the comments below if you’ve stood in awe of a game’s scenery or the music has brought you in and created the perfect mood for the moment.
If your emotional gaming moments happened when you were younger, check out our Childhood Video Game Memories article and re-live the good old days.
