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[Sakar]

Half-Life 2: Episode 2 was a big one for me

[:^)]

bowel movement.

[Twitch]

F-Zero is probably a high contender.

[Mittens]

+1 for Max Payne, "One Chance" was very depressing and also, even though it's meant to be a macho 'bro' game, i found the scene where Tai shoots himself in 'gears of war 2' very moving at the time

[oyog]

The first time I saw a roller coaster crash in Roller Coaster Tycoon, not knowing that could happen, and finding out 40 people had just died made me feel kind of sick.

The same was true the first time I tried to create irreversible global warming in SimEarth when I was eight or nine and watched as Earth turned into a clone of Venus and everything died off except eukayrotes and prokaryotes and then even they couldn't survive the intense heat and the atmosphere was something like 3% dust particles and then all that was left was a ball of molten rock and an atmosphere that would rain an ocean that would last all of a million years before boiling off again and I knew there was nothing I could do. 

Man that was devastating.

Now I really want to try for industrial level carniferns.

[DavidCaruso]

The most emotionally moving gaming moment for me was 1CCing Armed Police Batrider.

But since this topic is basically asking for "scenes in games that made you feel sad," I can't really say much. I don't really get as emotionally attached to characters in videogames as much as many other people do, I mean I'll play through Fire Emblem scenarios repeatedly until I don't get any party members killed off or avoid killing civilians at all costs in Deus Ex but that's not related to character attachment so much as my own performance ingame. The closest is probably Mother 3, but it wasn't at any of the usual parts people mention (it was at the beginning of Chapter 4, which marked a pretty jarring shift in the entire game world). For some reason Salamander 2 moved me a lot too when I first played it (I think it was because of the music).

[brothers74]

so the most moving game i ever played was "yume nikki". its a japanese horror game about a young girl. it has no plot but a few scenes. it has no dialogue and not much challenge. you have to look at the enviroments and just from looking at this, these wordless scenes, you can see what sort of person the main character is. and it becomes a heartbreaking story about loneliness and sadness and abuse, and it makes the ending all the worse. i cried.

i will still cry listening to the flute music in the doctor's office in the subway. so much emotion in such little and abstract expression.

[AshfordPride]

The first level of the second Ouendan game makes me cry.

Every time.

First of all, I get a little emotional on nearly every level.  I either start giggling or I tear up a bit.  I think everything is so earnestly funny or heartrending that I can't help myself.  But man,

  I love how his family comes together for him, how he goes from bemoaning his family in the beginning to telling his interviewers how much he loves them.  It really reminds me of my own family, and how they've always been there for me whenever I needed it.  Without a doubt, it's probably the least likely video game that has ever moved me in such a way.  I literally feel a lump in my throat watching this. 

[SundownKid]

Mother 3 was hands down the most moving game I ever played. You wouldn't expect it to be, but the graphics are animated perfectly, so perfectly that the campfire scene works when it wouldn't in a game with less attention to detail. And then Chapter 6 was totally not what I was expecting. I haven't found a better game when you look at how the different parts of it combine.

The first level of the second Ouendan game makes me cry.

Wow, that's interesting. I couldn't translate it, so I had no idea what he was actually saying.

[AshfordPride]

Wow, that's interesting. I couldn't translate it, so I had no idea what he was actually saying.

I don't speak any Japanese either, which makes it even more interesting!  I can get the gist of things.  The guy is going to a job interview, but like in the last game his family is causing him trouble.  His little brother helps him get his papers together, he then forgets his wallet, only to remember his mother had given him some cash before he left, and then when asked about his family he says something enthusiastic about them.  It's just so wholesome and simple.

[Belimoth]

Ocarina of Time, of course. Everything being different when you go to the future was devastating to me as a child.

EDIT: Also, Shadow of the Colossus. The horse thing was telegraphed from a mile away but just the sheer vastness of the world was stirring. I teared-up a little when I realized I had been playing for hours without advancing the plot at all.

[AshfordPride]

You know what was something about Mother 3 that I thought would have just been crushing?  There are unused sprites where it is revealed that Kumatora is the final Magyspy.  Who turned out to be the real final Magyspy was pretty sad, but...  Man, if it was Kumatora I think I would've been really sad! 

[SundownKid]

You know what was something about Mother 3 that I thought would have just been crushing?  There are unused sprites where it is revealed that Kumatora is the final Magyspy.  Who turned out to be the real final Magyspy was pretty sad, but...  Man, if it was Kumatora I think I would've been really sad!  

LOL! I don't think it would have made sense, though, because the Dark Dragon seemed to have resurrected everyone, anyway.

[Serapth]

I have no mouth and I must Scream!

Five fatally flawed humans including a failed suicide victim, a gluttonous murder and an ex-Nazi war criminal surgeon all have to conquer their flaws to continue, all while being played by an insane AI. What more could you ask for???


In more modern times, probably The Darkness.  Between the girlfriends murder and the WW1 level with the suicidal relative, powerful stuff at times.

[vinheim3]

Either Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core, Tales of Symphonia.

[Mattivc]

Remember that one of the first time i felt bad for a character dying in a video game was in one of the early Brothers in Arms games.

But that works only to a point as that character dies regardless of my actions as the player.

However i remember i was actually scared of getting certain characters killed at the end of Mass Effect 2. Especially as i force my self to continue playing regardless of how much i might hate the consequences of my actions in the game. So i don't allow myself re-do a part of the game when i don't like the outcome.

That is the problem with getting emotional response from the player when something bad happens, when they can just go back and redo the section to get the outcome they prefer.

Luckily Tali survived. But Grunt, you died a true Krogan death

[KM]

Them Krogans, always fighting, always dying.

[archagon]

Surprisingly, the game that has moved me the most is also one of the simplest I've ever played: Jason Rohrer's Passage.

That, and Curly in Cave Story.

This one was pretty amazing too.

Why are video games such a great medium for exploring death?

(Going farther back, I agree with Max Payne — soundtrack really helped — and would like to add Zelda: Link's Awakening, particularly the final cutscene.)

[KM]

Terranigma, Silent Hill 1, Final Fantasy Adventure/Seiken Densetsu 1, FF9, Chrono Cross, BoF4, Phantasy Star 4. I'm probably missing some.

[Ego_Shiner]

Cave Story, Wind Waker, the Megaman Zero games