More SPOILERS on the off chance you've never played Starcraft through the end and want to:

I agree 100%. For a RTS game, the story line for Starcraft really grabbed hold of me. And add on top of that the fact that Tassadar was one of the few characters who seemed to be consistantly 'good' throughout the game, showing him piloting the carrier toward the overmind was emotional stuff.

Also, in Brood War, DeGaulle's (sp?) ending cinematic was also good stuff. Damn, all this is making me want to reinstall and go back through all the Starcraft missions.

Also, someone mentioed Skies of Arcadia. Another 100% agree, tons of good moments in there. My favorite though has to be when you are in the Blue country (can't remember specifics any more) and the battle royale breaks out between the two fleets. I'm sure there were tons more I can't remember now.

Alot of the WC3 scenes, where the prince gets taken over bye the liche king and kills his friends/family,

and FF7, i played it for two weeks straight when the girl i was madly in love with told me she was a lesbian and would never love me like that. To heck with chicken soup, the soul needs video games.

^agreed with a vengeance

Amen. That was the only time in any video game, ever, that I just stared at the screen and cried.

When spiderman "broke up" with black cat...
Damn near cried.

When Alex takes Dyne's sword in Lunar SSS

There was this time when I was being chased by this yellow duck looking thing. And then I grabbed the sword, which was shaped like a ->. Just when I got ready to stab the dragon, the black bat came and stole it from me.

Damn that black bat!!

Haha, your post reminded me of this (hover over "e-mail" to see). It's pretty humorous.

I gotta go with the Max Payne peeps on this one. The story and gameplay compelled me enough to play through both versions 3 times. Max Payne 2 Spoiler: The third time through Max Payne 2, the ending changes and Mona survives getting shot in the back. That made me happy.

And the big KOTOR 1 Spoiler: You're Revan!Made me shudder.

Aeris.

Also, when my battery died on Zelda 1. ARGH!

another vote for FF VII - Aerius' death and the very last scene (flashing back to the beginning).

Each and every moment in System Shock 2 when Shodan would talk to you. Creepy shit. Also, being low on ammo and knowing that the door you're in front of holds some baddies in check, yet you must go through. That was the first game to ever make me not want to play, yet I kept going. That was an incredibly atmospheric game.

Runner up would be in Resident Evil 2, playing on a 5.1 surround sound system. Having completed most of the police station, thinking it is safe to walk around, and then the licker leaps through the one way mirror in the interrogation room. Holy fuck that scared the crap out of me. The controller flew from my hands and I proceeded to die gruesomely. Also the first time in the game you see a licker. It is crawling on the outside of the window and disappears from view.

Great games, those.

MORE SPOILERS







Why do they have to kill Fenix, not once, but TWICE??!?!? And they always seem to kill off any damn Protoss hero that's not an ass. I also loved the intro to SC:BW and the ending to BW with Du Gualle in both scenes.




In addition, any Fallout scene really got to me, really beautiful game :crazy:

Metal Gear Solid Three. Five minutes into the final boss fight. You think sniper wolf gives a good death speach? Beat MGS 3. I was damn happy when I won.

The first time you play through Earthbound, you really don't have any idea exactly what you're going after. You know that you need to complete the Sound Stone's melody in order to defeat Giygas, but you don't really know how it's going to work or what exactly is going to happen when you finally do play the song in its completion.

The payoff is excellent. Ness enters his own mind and destroys his doubts, his apprehensions, his past failings that nag and persist and slow him down. The entire Magicant sequence was the most thrilling part of the game, I thought, from when you're first trying to figure out where you are to the final climactic sequence in which Ness realizes his own power and you see his HP/PP sliders going berzerk and his stats increasing like crazy.

I can't help but admire the fact that APE did all this long before a cinematic game was even technologically possible. All they had were 16-bit sprites and a flimsy synthesizer and they can still get my blood pumping more than Sephiroth's stab or Malak's revelation can.

(Darth Malak, that is. I just noticed that he shares a name with a Final Fantasy Tactics character - another excellent game but I can't quite isolate any one moment of it that impacted me as much as the Magicant sequence of Earthbound.)

As for Fenix of Starcraft...I think most of us knew that he was going to come back as a Dragoon. That's the Zealot's reward for nobly sacrificing himself in battle. I wasn't so sure he was going to get whacked as a 'goon but the fact that they saved the Zerg campaign for last gave them the freedom to kill off any Terran and Protoss hero characters they wanted to...which they did.

Silent Hill 2 had a bizarre emotional ending Spoiler: ... when you find out that James killed his wife and she didn't really die from cancer. The whole game he talks about how in love with her he is, how SH was "their spot" and you can tell how it was killing him inside when he mysteriously received a letter from her.. desperately trying to find her through the whole game. Then to find out that he went nuts and suffocated her - wow, that's pretty twisted. I think that really kicks in at the end as the apology letter his wife wrote to him is scrolling on the screen. Depressing fucking ending.

phantasy star 4-

the death of alys
and the ending (everyone going their seperate ways)



oh, and i never really liked aeris, so i was pretty glad when she got sliced.

The whole Suikoden series (I, II, III and hopefuly IV too, it got out yesterday!) really does it for me. I can't even name a speicifc moment, the storyline is so well done that you really feel the characters, both in sad and exciting moments.

Oh, and about

It's because sacrifice fits so well the Protoss. I mean, it's a stereotype race of noble, honorable warriors.. I can't imagine a Protoss hero retiring with his wife on a peaceful farm after the war, y'know.. they HAVE to die a noble death in battle ;)

Half-Life:
--Walk into a room. Hmm, nice and quiet in here. Then you hear the black ops running around. Freaks me right out.
--If you get killed by an alien grunt and just sit there for a few seconds, it'll walk up and start eating your corpse.
--Damn freaky administrator. Always showing up. Being a freak.
--The 3 big... knife heads. in the missile silo.

The last 15 minutes or so of Metroid II took me through an emotional rollercoaster. I felt a great sense of accomplishment beating that.

The ending to Secret of Mana. Especially significant because I always played as the sprite.

Bionic Commando: Take that, ya lousy Hitler knockoff.

Someone's already mentioned GTA:VC, that was a great ending.

Phantasy Star IV had a lot of great moments. Alys is also my favorate character, like, ever.

Shining Force. The ending was pretty good. I don't think I've ever seen a better credits sequence either.

Blood: A lot like Max Payne, sort of. You've already lost, but there's something to be said for revenge.

Theif: From when you get your eye taken out to the end. Most of the walled city was also damn scary.

The opening of Descent 3. They pull you in, cut you out of the drifting ship, and just dump it in the sun. They can't do that! That's my ship damnit! :(

Doom II. I forget what episode. The earth is evacuated except for you and all you can do is sit there and wait to die.
Then they throw in some more lines of text that totally ruin it.
Also, theres not a lot of videogame bosses I find scary, but Cyberdemons are one of them.

Wow, that's a lot. Well, I'm a geek. :p

In Diablo 2, when I realized I was wasting my life away.

the times when the vid game characters bust out into song and dance are the ones that get me. the boat scene in lunar was cheesily addictive. there shoudl be games where they use real music (not just sports games). moulin rouge rpg anyone?

not really a particular scene but for some reason the theme/ending song to Kingdom hearts does something to me, losing its effect now that i hear it on tv every 1/2 hour for the kh2 gameboy game