10. The Apocalypse – The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
Majora’s Mask was definitely the darkest game in The Legend of Zelda series, and the omnipresent Moon is a testament to this fact. The Moon was a terrifying presence, a constant looming threat looking down on Link as he attempted to save Termina from the Skull Kid. Just moving the camera upwards to see it glaring back at you was frightening enough, but then watching as it rocketed towards Termina under the influence of Majora’s Mask, threatening to wipe out the entire planet in its wake, made for one of the most memorable moments in the entire series.
9. “Would You Kindly?” – BioShock
BioShock’s narrative is considered one of the strongest in gaming history, and for good reason. When you discover that you’ve been brainwashed by Fontaine to do his bidding, and you were performing the tasks he set upon you due to his repeated utterance of the trigger words “would you kindly?” and not of your own free will, it was a bitter pill to swallow.
The showdown with the “enemy”/your illegitimate father Andrew Ryan, wherein you beat him to death with a golf club, is distressingly brutal, and his poignant parting words to you – “a man chooses, a slave obeys” – solidified BioShock as one of the most interesting and thought-provoking series in modern gaming.
8. Black Mesa Train Journey – Half-Life
Half-Life doesn’t begin with a tutorial; it begins with a train journey. A long train journey. While travelling on public transport doesn’t sound like the makings of a great video game moment, it’s the way developers Valve present it that makes it so special.
As you travel through the Black Mesa facility, you have no idea what its purpose is, or what you are doing there. Seeing through the eyes of the voiceless Gordon Freeman, you observe advanced machinery transporting boxes, you pass a suited gentleman in an opposing carriage (your first sighting of the elusive G-Man) and you listen as a faceless, robotic voice reels off information. It’s the calm before the storm, as it were, and it immerses you completely within the game’s world without you even really realising it.
7. Meeting Yoshi for the First Time – Super Mario World
Everybody’s favourite friendly green dinosaur, hopping on Yoshi’s back for the first time in Super Mario World was a joyous feeling. Eating Goombas, gobbling up fruit, stomping on Koopas and watching as they exploded into a cloud of dust – it just felt so good. Yoshi has now become a familiar face for Mario fans, but the memory of when we first got to meet him still lingers long in the memory.
6. The Train – Uncharted 2
The train level in Uncharted 2 is one great moment after the other, with little breathing room in between. The Uncharted series has always made us feel like we were playing an Indiana Jones movie, and this had never been more apparent than when we found ourselves traversing through a seemingly endless amount of carriages in order to retrieve the Phurba dagger from Lt. Draza.
This train sequence took players through a variety of different weather conditions, saw them having to fend off a helicopter attack (twice) and forced them to covertly deal with swarms of enemy soldiers, all while dangerously clambering across the moving locomotive. Make no mistake, this moment is a strong contender for the best level in video game history, and a more than worthy addition to this list.
5. Aeris Dies – Final Fantasy VII
Perhaps the most infamous death scene in video game history, the death of Aeris Gainsborough in Final Fantasy VII brought a tear to many an eye back in 1997. After she leaves Cloud and his companions behind in order to set out for the Forgotten City, Cloud eventually finds Aeris praying at an altar. As she lifts her head to smile at him, Sephiroth drops down from the sky, impaling his sword through her torso. She slumps forward and, just like that, she’s dead.
But Final Fantasy fans didn’t accept that she was dead, and to this day the rumour persists that it is in some way possible to revive her. However, these rumours remain unfounded and Aeris remains dead, and the only thing left of her is the memory of this great video game moment.
4. Finish Him! – Mortal Kombat
In case you didn’t already know, then let me be the first to tell you – Mortal Kombat is a violent series of games. So violent that it caused something of a panic in the western world, with parents and politicians alike fearing that it would lead to some sort of pre-pubescent global uprising, wherein the world’s children would begin trying to kill everyone and everything they laid their eyes upon after playing it.
That didn’t happen, of course – what instead happened was that the world’s children spent all of their free time inside their local arcade, desperately trying to figure out the correct button combinations to perform each characters’ Fatality moves. There have been very few moments in gaming as satisfying as that moment when you finally managed to pull off a Fatality, and certainly none greater in the fighting game genre.
3. Psycho Mantis – Metal Gear Solid
Arguably the most memorable boss battle in gaming history, Snake’s encounter with the psychic Psycho Mantis left many gamers scratching their heads back in the late ‘90s. However, what elevated Psycho Mantis into the video game villain hall of fame wasn’t anything to do with the difficulty of overcoming him, but rather the odd dialogue you shared with him.
Psycho Mantis could read your mind, apparently. He proved this by telling you what games you had been playing recently, before “moving” your controller with his telekinetic powers. This was just a trick, of course, as in actuality the game was just reading the saved data on your memory card and vibrating the controller along your floor, but many gamers’ initial playthrough of Metal Gear Solid left them more than a little baffled by Mantis’s “psychic” abilities.
2. There’s Always a Lighthouse – BioShock Infinite
BioShock Infinite‘s plot had its problems (its pan-handling of black heroine Daisy Fitzroy being its most prominent, what with her immediately turning villainous and bloodthirsty the moment she finds herself in a position of authority), but it’s also one of the most bold and downright brave tales we’ve had the pleasure of experiencing not just in gaming, but in any other form of entertainment, too.
While there are a myriad of moments that linger in the memory when the curtains close on BioShock Infinite, its conclusion is something that truly floored players, as Elizabeth put the pieces of the puzzle together in front of our very eyes, effectively turning the entire concept of the BioShock series on its head as she informs us that “there’s always a lighthouse, there’s always a man, there’s always a city.” The image of the sea of lighthouses, each leading to a different universe, evoked a plethora of contrasting theories and opinions, leading to a level discussion more intense than anything we’d previously experienced in the medium.
While BioShock Infinite‘s themes of jingoism and religious extremism captivated, shocked and, as mentioned above, frustrated us within its first half, by the time it reaches its conclusion its narrative had performed a tail-spin, masterfully introducing us to a convoluted multiverse in which we were now informed that all these characters we’d been introduced to since the first BioShock resided within. Developer Irrational handled this transition so adeptly, though, that it worked like a charm, arguably being the most interesting story yet told in the world of video games.
1. World 1-1 – Super Mario Bros.
For many, this was where their gaming adventure began. Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System captured the imaginations of children worldwide, and introduced us to many features that would become staples of gaming’s most enduring series. Jumping on our first Goomba, picking up our first Koopa shell, head-butting our first coin box, collecting our first mushroom – World 1-1 was filled with memorable moments, and as such the entire level deserves top honors on this list.
That opening screen, the one you see in the above image, is so deeply embedded into our psyche that no moment, no matter how great, could possibly topple it. No one could have predicted in 1985 that this singular screen would be recognized decades later as the beginnings of a revolution in the entertainment industry, but that’s what Super Mario Bros. and Nintendo achieved. From here on out the industry only got better, advancing at a rapid pace until, eventually, it became the most financially viable entertainment medium around. Super Mario Bros. was the game that forced a whole heap of naysayers to finally recognize that the video game creators may actually be onto something.
It all started at World 1-1, and we haven’t looked back since.
Paul Tamburro is an Associate Gaming Editor of CraveOnline. Follow him on Twitter @PaulTamburro.
