The Obligatory Moments

Every gamer has their moments, and every gamer/writer has their moments post. This is mine. I was conjuring the intrinsic value of video games and the stories they tell. More importantly, the lessons they tell. And as I was pondering, I thought "That's all well and good, and I've harped on that for years." This time around, I want to be able to just, reminisce. My gaming history didn't start with an NES or Atari. My first game was Crash Bandicoot 2. That crazy marsupial, I'm still unsure if bandicoots are such a thing. Chasing down Cortex wasn't the hardest of levels but it was certainly satisfying to bring that madman down, after throwing me to the strangest fiends I had seen yet. But this was only the beginning. Fast forward to the moment I finally beat Songi in that blasted forest in Legend of Legaia, wiping his lackeys across the ground on their faces. A minor instance, I know, but satisfying all the same, it was so difficult and I had no clue how to play RPGs. When Kairi was separated from Sora I was choked up, after everything we had been through defeating the Heartless. But some of the greatest moments were shared whilst playing with friends. During an all-nighter, my roomates and I played Halo 3 through the campaign on Legendary. I gotta go into detail for those unfamiliar. The whole area is breaking up. In order to prevent the Gravemind, essentially a sentient fungus that assimilates all sentient life (hence it's sentient...ness), Master Chief has to cause a wildcat explosion triggered by lighting the unfinished halo installation on the Ark. As the installation breaks up around you, you're forced to race across falling platforms in warthogs avoiding falling bits of the installation and the various enemies trying to escape as well. In four player coop, you have two jeeps, but if one falls and dies, that team has to wait until the other stops at a checkpoint near a new jeep for them to rez again. This only happens twice. So my friends and I are leapfrogging to the end, we've passed the last checkpoint, we're trying to reach the ship before the halo ring goes up. A platform explodes and sends the other team sailing. My gunner and I are it, trying to reach the end, we're all tired, we want to go to bed. And someone shouts, "Do a 360 into the ship." Soon it becomes a shouting match "Don't do it! You suck at driving! Just get there!" Ignoring it all, I race down the final hill to catch speed, hit the jump, and just before I run out of ground, I jerk the wheel, slam on the brakes, and start to spin, clearing the platform. In mid air as we near the ship, I pull a 180, and it still looked classy. Suddenly, the cut-scene, and the room explodes as we cheer. We made it and did it with style. I miss those kinds of moments. The moments when waves of Locust are chasing us down in multiplayer, and during the 25th wave, both my team mates die, and from the other room they hear me shout "you've got to be kidding me!" Or the long winded discussion my roommates had about the end of Mass Effect, and disagreeing completely on the character of Saren, when finding out months later, the reason their opinions differed entirely was because their choices had led to two completely different Sarens. These moments make gaming epic, when all else fails. And I love it. Whether it's killing dragons, successfully tanking for a crew from across the world, or laughing at something stupid with my siblings, games offers a chance to connect over story telling like never before.