🚀 go-pugleaf

The list grows:

CIVILIZATION: Getting to Alpha Centauri.

I'm not sure if I'd keep this, but there was such a feeling of triumph when
you finally beat the computer in the space race. Definitely a moment that
after 4000 game years, your guys are sipping sodas on a distant planet...

HALF-LIFE:The first encounter with the Marines.

As listed above, these guys were the first to use group tactics, trying to
flush you out with grenades and flank you, and all those so called tactics
you used on the dumb-as-shit creatures from DOOM and Quake weren't going to
work THIS time...

HALF-LIFE: Gordon fights the Apache helicopter on the cliff-side.

And everyone remembers this most realistic and most frustrating of boss
monsters, the very human Apache as it rained machine gun fire during the
entire game. Fortunately, that cache of rockets you find help...

M.U.L.E.: Getting a monopoly (especially food) to gouge and/or screw your
friends.

Oh, yeah, when the store was bombed by that meteor, leaving various items
completely empty. You and your friends would be around the computer, and you
got to taunt them to their face as you gouged prices like mad.

RESCUE ON FRACTALUS: The alien attack

The first time the green helmet (and later indistinguishable from human
pilots) would approach the ship, and suddenly, that ugly green S.O.B. would
pound on your windshield, trying to gain entrance - it made anyone jump two
feet off their chair. Once they started wearing white helmets, it was
nervewracking, your finger ready to pounce on the shield button to fry them
before they crashed through (and admit it - sometimes you accidentally
fragged your own men from nerves.)

SYSTEM SHOCK 2: SHODAN reveals herself.

You knew that it wasn't really Polito, especially as her dialogue got
haughty and arrogant - but still, the way SHODAN revealed herself was
ultracool.

THIEF: THE DARK PROJECT: The Woodsie Lord rips Garrett's eye out.

Be honest, you knew something bad was going to happen, and that Garrett
would get doublecrossed, but you never expected THAT to happen - to have
your main character maimed - and graphically, no less. The unease and dread
that had been building climaxed in a fantastically gory and scary fashion.
Thief II never even came close to the horror in the first.

TOMB RAIDER: Lara encounters the T-Rex in the Valley.

Seeing it lumbering at you, and being forced to find a shady spot to hide -- 
then realizing you had to figure out a way to kill that thing. That was the
highlight of the game -- and the entire franchise, since that wonder and
excitement would never even come close to that moment again.

Just added:

ASTEROIDS: Entering your high score initials.

Oh, yeah. The first time you got a high score and put your initials in -
that was immortality (til the vendor unplugged the damned thing.) But still,
it was the first electronic tag grafitti for all the world to see.

DOOM: The clop-clop sound of a Cyberdemon's approach.

Was there anything like first hearing that odd hoof sound of a Cyberdemon's
approach? From that moment on, hearing a clop-clop made you tense and ready
to have to do some major blasting.

HALO: The Warthog final race to the ship.

It's not quite the ending, but it's definitely the climax, as your Warthog
careens around and jumps gaps as the Covenant and Flood battle all around
you. There was something special and Zen about having to beat the clock to
the descruction of an entire "planet" while everyone else is just fighting
each other without abandon. A commentary on the futility of war, maybe, but
it was damned fun, too.

Rikitiki's entry:

UNREAL: Going outside for the first time.

Absolutely loved the first level of Unreal, especially going outside for the
first time. Compared to Quake 2's uglyness and Half-Life's Quake level
graphics, Unreal really blew me away in one instance.

DrD's entry:

DUNGEON MASTER: Item manipulation

I'm sitting in my friend's house and he says "Oh, it's a new game, watch
this !" He killed a mushroom monster, then picked up a piece of it and ATE
it ! He then picked up another piece and clicked in the middle of the
screen. The piece left the cursor and flew down the corridor, until it hit a
wall with a THUD. I remember thinking "Oh my God..." IIRC, it was my first
real-time, first person RPG After that, the Gold-box games just weren't the
same...

Jonah Falcon