Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Games That Made You Go... Woah

Joined
Aug 11, 2013
Messages
1,181
Location
yer mum
Oblivion made me go "WOAAAH, so this is the future we chose".
 

No Great Name

Arcane
Joined
Jan 24, 2014
Messages
572
Location
US
... I was so uncomfortable by not getting any instructions or markers.

Ha, that's funny. I remember a dialogue box popping up telling me to go to Chorral to deliver the necklace and a giant marker pointing to Chorral on the map immediately after leaving the sewers.

Regarding the actual thread though, for me it was in Vampire: Bloodlines when I went on that one mission to find Dr. Grout at his mansion. When I found what was left of Grout's remains, that's the moment where I started to become suspicious of every single character in that game because things were just not adding up.
 

ERYFKRAD

Barbarian
Patron
Joined
Sep 25, 2012
Messages
28,237
Strap Yourselves In Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Stalker, gothic, and BG2 because it was the first time I played anything related to DnD.
 

Outlander

Custom Tags Are For Fags.
Patron
Joined
Nov 18, 2011
Messages
4,479
Location
Valley of Mines
Divinity: Original Sin Wasteland 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Gothic 1 demo, for the same reasons as OP (but for real, not for lulz)

There weren't no more 'woah' moments since then.
 
Joined
Apr 3, 2006
Messages
1,386
Pools of Radiance once I realized it was non-linear/open world. Non-linear and tactical combat. Tactical combat with graphics not just text. It was so next-gen.
 

Comte

Guest
Pools of Darkness my introduction to Gold Box games in my youth
 

Markman

da Blitz master
Patron
Joined
Dec 31, 2002
Messages
3,737
Location
Sthlm, Swe
Serpent in the Staglands Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I'd say Vietcong was the last game that made me go whoa. They did so good in that game on atmosphere and sound it was just insane. Dueling a guy in multiplayer and running to stab his ass with a bayonette on my AK-47 while he's reloading. Oh the feels.
Im scared to play it now not to ruin the memories.

Not to say I dont enjoy games now, just this year had a big chunk of fun with Rayman Legends, Blackguards, even liked those scripted run sections on Tomb Raider(even last level was really well designed, imo), also Warlock 2 now brings me some satisfaction. Nothing that makes me go WHOAA but satisfies a bit of that gamer joy and reminds me why I love to play video games.
 

Crane

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jul 8, 2013
Messages
1,245
Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath
Dreamweb firstly because of ryan's diary, then because of the soundtrack, then because of how graphic the game is. A side note: I really liked Ryan's voice acting for some reason, even though most people think all the voice acting in dreamweb is pretty bad, Ryan's really worked for me.

Come to think of it, are there any other games that included supplemental writings (novellas, diarys, etc.) that were actually good? I can think of many games that try to do that stuff in the manual, but that's normally really short and pretty bad. VtM: Redemption had a short story in the manual which sucked.
 
Last edited:

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
14,980
Dwarf Fortress. Don't think I need to explain why.

Roguelikes. Too many to list. Most of them have some sort of unique mechanic that shines above anything else you've seen in the genre outside of that game. Though Nethack was my first and 'What do you wish for?' was a pretty big moment for sure.

Alpha Centauri after researching some of the more alienating techs.

Plenty more, too lazy to list.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
33,052
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Baldur's Gate 2. Back when I first played it I didn't have that much experience with RPGs, and BG2 just felt right. The atmosphere, the engine, everything seemed awesome. Loved it.

Morrowind. It really blew me away at the time. Wow, that beautiful open world, so many skills, so many different equipment slots, that freedom of exploration... and I still love it to this day.

Age of Empires 2. The graphics were lovely, the campaigns solid, the gameplay great, and RTS was my favourite genre at the time.

Thief. I have never been a stealthy player before, but Thief made me one. And now it is probably my favourite game of all time. The gameplay, the atmosphere, the setting... perfect game.
 

:Flash:

Arcane
Joined
Apr 9, 2013
Messages
6,453
The Need For Speed
The racing game we played before that was Lotus III. Then a friend had a Pentium and said "I have this new game" ... and ... Whoa!

Another World. When getting the first view of the city

X-Wing Alliance. The one mission where three Star Destroyers jump right in front of you.

Ultima IV. I've told the story.
Ultima V. Realizing everything that has been sold to me as progress in RPGs had already been realized in the 80s, only better.
 

Galdred

Studio Draconis
Patron
Developer
Joined
May 6, 2011
Messages
4,346
Location
Middle Empire
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
It happened quite a lot to me :

Laser Squad : When I first played it at my cousin's house, I fall in love with the Action Points/ reaction fire mechanisms, the mission based structure, and the loadout allocation. Then I could not find the game at all until like 10 years later.

Civilization : I played the first one to death. It was one of the last games to come to Atari ST (and the loading times were atrocious).

Warcraft 2 : I developed another obsession for this game, as I still had an Atari at the time, which prevented me from playing it, or any RTS for that matter (there were strategy games that were in real time, but no RTS).

Lords of the Realm 2 : The ancestor of the Total War games. Too much micromanagement, but at the time, it felt good. I really liked dropping boiling oil on castle besiegers, and leveling castle walls with catapults.

Fallout 2 and Baldur's Gate : My first PC RPG (I only played RPG on Atari before, mostly Dungeon Master clones), and they both were amazing in their own way. I imagined RPG greatness that never came after that (although PST had a glimpse of it, and BG2 was quite an upgrade over BG).

XCom : I got to this one pretty late, but it made up for not finding Laser Squad (although it lacked the multiplayer of Laser Squad). Fighting these squad battles over a reason made the gameplay even more compelling.

Kohan: An RTS that blended concepts of supply, formations, units, and traditional RTS concepts. The ideal blend of traditional strategy games, and RTS, not too hectic so that APM was hardly a concern, and it felt like a RT HOMM. Too bad it had a subpar sequel, and no game to take over this niche.

Warhammer 40K: Chaos Gate : "The emperor orders you to die!" Nuf said. My first encounter with ironman mode, and I really loved the way it affected the game.

Shogun Total War: Lords of the Realm 2, without the overburdening micro management, and awesome visuals : That felt like a dream come true. Too bad they made the sequels micro management heavy.

Independance War: Edge of Chaos : semi Newtonian physics, semi open gameplay, piracy in space? Wow. Sadly, it was the end of the space sim genre.

Not much afterwards, as games became frozen into established genres, and surprises were few.

Edit : Forgot Operation Flashpoint. This FPS really made you feel the tension of risking your "life" like none other at this time.
 
Last edited:

Ninjerk

Arcane
Joined
Jul 10, 2013
Messages
14,323
Demo of Deus Ex. At the time i had no experience with this sort of games (i played many of the older "classics" retroactively) and i was stunned by it. I think i must have finished the demo like a dozen times, mostly because it took me forever to get the money to buy the whole game.
I probably played it two dozen times (along with UT99 Coret CTF demo), because I was probably 12 at the time and neither my mom or dad got a computer that could handle such games until I went to college 6 years later(!). Got it on a demo disc that came with now-defunct magazine Incite!
 
Joined
Dec 19, 2012
Messages
1,633
QtL7bZY.jpg
 

hiver

Guest
Oblivion.

Facepalm 3.

Mass defect 3... (well, i gave up half way through demo of the second and that was also a woah game)
 

Abelian

Somebody's Alt
Joined
Nov 17, 2013
Messages
2,289
Starcraft and later, the Brood War intro cinematic
Lords of the Realm 2
Fallout
X-COM
Heroes of Might & Magic 2
Homeworld
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom