What's the most exciting thing about gaming for you?

[Barry Admin]

I'm just kind of wondering if there's anything that remotely compares to getting the dub in a battle royale game. I'm still hyped from an incredibly close Apex match 10 minutes ago, and watching back I realise now my two teammates had died in those final few seconds, and I only secured the final kill with a cunt-hair of health left. I'd popped one shield cell right before engaging and  was wondering whether I was turtling too much, but it saved the day.

There are so many decisions to be made in a BR at any time, so many things that can go wrong, and so many areas where you can just suddenly end up in a firefight. God, it's exhilarating as fuck, and an incredible rush when you emerge victorious. Poor old Jelly tends to get woken up quite a lot when I get a win.

How about you? What are the moments in gaming where you scream and yelp?

[Kryton]

Pulling of a Silent Assassin kill in Hitman 2 is incredibly satisfying. No witnesses, make it look like an accident. Go home for tea.

Pulling off the finishing goal after say a 7 minute over-time neck and neck 1-1 match in Rocket league is also terribly exciting as by that point the control pad is slippy with sweat.

Watching a long-game plan coming to fruition in Crusader Kings II as I slowly kill my enemies and conquer territory through a grand scheme of assassinations, back-stabbing and lies. A different type of excitement I suppose but very satisfying.

[madhair60]

Lately it's been a blast hacking the various "Classic Mini" consoles so I can replicate the libraries of the NES, SNES, Mega Drive etc with near-as-dammit the original controllers. Seeing all the original boxarts on the menu and knowing I can select and play them, very satisfying.

I don't really care for online gaming much, but getting a nice streak going in CoD is always fun. They make it fun just to play on most maps, even when you're losing.

I suppose making progress in Dark Souls/Bloodborne is a nice feeling. You've had to actually think and execute a plan, and it is a testament to the brilliant design that you never feel like you're "breaking the game".

[bgmnts]

Getting a parry in Street Fighter Third Strike.

[The Culture Bunker]

As I'm playing it again at the moment: bringing all the troops home from a bastard hard mission on XCOM2 feels very satisfying, especially if it involves just about making the evac before getting hit big time by reinforcements.

[Bazooka]

Grinding mobs in (insert jrpg) for an hours so my party doesn't get wiped out in one hit from a boss.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Doing a burnout in Burnout: Weaving through the traffic at breakneck speed, with split second timing. I'd love to try it in VR, but I worry that I might have a heart attack or, worse yet, start shouting excitedly, like a big pillock.

[Utter Shit]

I don't think I'd been properly excited about a game in years until RDR2 came along. The thrill of seeing this beautiful, perfectly-realised world was something else. I think what draws me into games like that and GTA5 is the feeling that the world exists whether I'm there or not.

In GTA that was achieved by the sheer number of people around, all of whom could be interacted with (albeit in a very shallow way for the msot part). RDR2 achieves the same thing but in a different way - it's the scale of the world, and the detail which allows you to see so far off into the distance. Taking time to appreciate the view at the top of a hill and seeing wagons rolling past or animals roaming around - the fact that they're too far away to interact with really builds the feeling of this being a living, breathing environment regardless of whether you're interacting with it. It's really the only game I've been really passionate about in years, certainly the only one I've written about at length on here.

Or just, I dunno, a new signing scoring on his debut in FM. Lovely.

[Dewt]

It's all less specific for me. Just losing myself for several hours is what I love. Full absorbed by game.

[Blue Jam]

Exploring in open world games and finding something properly unexpected and jaw-dropping.

All the scary bits in all those nasty horror survival games I like.

Escaping from a hairy moment by the skin of your teeth.

[bgmnts]

Passing a skill check in a conversation.

[Inspector Norse]

Looting a peasant's house and scoring Old Goat Hide, Blunt Axe and Ashes.

[Ferris]

Disengaging brain for a few hours and feeling my baseline stress and anxiety disappear for an hour. Ahhhhhhhhh.... bliss

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Although there were possibly one too many of them, the big arena battles in Doom 2016 were nonetheless a pure adrenaline rush - especially after years of rather anaemic, slow paced "tactical" shooters. The rhythm and flow of it all is as close to perfection as any game I've ever played. Everything is geared towards making you run around like a furious git.

[NoSleep]

I still can't stay away from Urban Terror, a free FPS based on the 21 year-old Quake 3 engine and still going. I only ever play Capture The Flag and the most fun/exciting thing that happens is when a random bunch of strangers starts pulling together as a team. It doesn't happen every time and I often lose interest if my teammates are only in it for themselves. But when it does all come together it doesn't even matter if you don't win if you were struggling together. Always warrants a "gg" in those circumstances.

We should get a bunch of CaBbers on Urban Terror. It's free and playable on almost any (Intel) computer, Mac or PC, new or old. Good mix of fun and realism (mostly the former).

www.urbanterror.info

[Dewt]

Although there were possibly one too many of them, the big arena battles in Doom 2016 were nonetheless a pure adrenaline rush - especially after years of rather anaemic, slow paced "tactical" shooters. The rhythm and flow of it all is as close to perfection as any game I've ever played. Everything is geared towards making you run around like a furious git.

You might enjoy the latest episode of NoClip with the game director Hugo Martin. He is very wise about game design and very open about mistakes in Doom and what they are changing in the sequel

https://noclippodcast.libsyn.com/22-doom-eternal-with-hugo-martin

[Blue Jam]

It's all less specific for me. Just losing myself for several hours is what I love. Full absorbed by game.

This is it for me too, probably. Losing myself in really beautiful first-person open-world games like Prey, SOMA and Subnautica. I played RDR2 in third-person but that too. I love unexpectedly stumbling across rock carvings, UFOs, bits of ancient civilisations, books and music etc, finding bits of lore and getting a real feel for what the people who made them and the world they inhabited were like. Of course none of these worlds are real but when they feel real it can be genuinely thrilling.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

On a more abstract level, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice made me excited for the potential future of the games industry. The idea that things don't have to be regimented into lumbering multimillion dollar AAA stuff and lo-fi indie stuff. I don't expect the Papers Please bloke to make the next sprawling open world epic, but it seem like the limits on developers' ambitions aren't as restrictive as they once were.

You might enjoy the latest episode of NoClip with the game director Hugo Martin. He is very wise about game design and very open about mistakes in Doom and what they are changing in the sequel

https://noclippodcast.libsyn.com/22-doom-eternal-with-hugo-martin

I am indeed enjoying it. Thanks.

[bgmnts]

Knowing that Obsidian are still around.

[Dewt]

This is it for me too, probably. Losing myself in really beautiful first-person open-world games like Prey, SOMA and Subnautica.

Oddly enough, ambling around an open world is usually not one of the main ways I'm likely to lose myself in a game. It's far more likely to be something with tight gameplay and a slimmer narrative (narrative isn't even essential)

Not that it can't happen with open world games.

[Dewt]

On a more abstract level, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice made me excited for the potential future of the games industry. The idea that things don't have to be regimented into lumbering multimillion dollar AAA stuff and lo-fi indie stuff. I don't expect the Papers Please bloke to make the next sprawling open world epic, but it seem like the limits on developers' ambitions aren't as restrictive as they once were.

Agreed. Look at how big a splash Undertale made.

I am indeed enjoying it. Thanks.

Good!

[Dewt]

Oddly enough, ambling around an open world is usually not one of the main ways I'm likely to lose myself in a game. It's far more likely to be something with tight gameplay and a slimmer narrative (narrative isn't even essential)

Not that it can't happen with open world games.

Thinking about this more: it seems to be that one somebody's (or a small team's) vision imprints on me and I can connect to what they were doing in the game, whether it's gameplay or narrative. It's like personal exploration but somebody else is doing most of the driving for you.

[seepage]

the cheap thrill finding cheap tricks, usually involving overwhelming amounts of smoke/artillery/archers. Smoke & missiles at the end of Dark Sun; archers in Sword of Aragon; safely picking off things from a distance with artillery in e.g. Dawn of War; Nomads [IIRC] in Master of Magic; lobbing missiles through windows in XCOM; summoning a never-ending screen of undead in Baldur's Gate.   

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

When you fire a shotgun and their head explodes.

[solidified gruel merchant]

Biking down mountains in gta V can really get the adrenaline going. With a nice sunset.

[peanutbutter]

- Burnout 3 boosting your way through a whole track
- Super Hexagon when the shape starts changing
- Lumines when you're almost out and just start chaining the absolute fuck outta things to clear the screen

[bgmnts]

Beating a boss you have spent at least 10 tries on.
Finishing a game on the hardest difficulty.
Managing a stealth/pacifist run (looking at you Dishonoured/Deus Ex.)

[Bazooka]

I found a glitch in Morrowind that allowed me to use a trainer to level up to level 300 and something (the cap is meant to be 75) kept having to make more gold so stopped there.I was a god before that point but to know I could level up to infinity and beyond was nice.

[Famous Mortimer]

I'm down for Urban Terror, NoSleep. But chances are our times of availability won't match.

For me, it's getting that seemingly impossible achievement on a game. I very rarely bother to 100% a game, because often the mechanics make it a ballache and I'm just not that into playing the same level a hundred times to get a thing. But acing all the stuff on Resident Evil 4 so you can get the suit of armour and tommy gun, and have them actually affect future playthroughs, was great fun. Or getting 100% on Tomb Raider: Legend, because it was just so smooth to control. Or, my favourite, getting the pacifist / stealth achievements in "Deus Ex: Human Revolution". Just working out the right path through a packed room was so satisfying, and I did the same for "Mankind Divided" too, but that one had all those boring-ass VR-esque mini-missions you needed to do for 100% and I couldn't be bothered.

In summary: breezes

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

The recent Deus Ex games were a pain in the arse if you wanted to do a no kills/no alarms run because there was no stats screen. You could easily go through the entire game thinking you were getting those achievements, without realising that you'd voided them in the first hour by triggering an alarm, or a sleeping body had fallen into the water.