The prison escape in the first Deus Ex, when you learn where you really are. I guess for some people this was easy to figure out beforehand, but when I first played it at age 15 it was a shock to me.

Showing my age here, but I'd pick Ocarina of Time as the first game I feel like I had a profound reaction to. At the end of the game, when you defeat Ganon and save the princess, how does she reward you? by sending you back in time to be a kid again. I mean, I understand that it was supposed to be a gift, but it just felt like it was erasing the heroics that you had done for her and the entire kingdom of Hyrule.

Second, I would pick God of War (2018). As a father, that game knew exactly what to do to reel me in and make me care about the characters.

Walking into Leyndell in Elden Ring for the first time realizing this might be the greatest game of all time.

For me, that moment was in Kingdom Hearts 2. I hadn't played the first game (or the second game) and didn't really understand the concept of sequels that continued a story. My parents had gotten me the game probably because it had Disney characters in it. But this moment stuck with me nonetheless.

It was the game's first boss fight, the Twilight Thorn. Everything leading up to it and the fight itself was just utter cinematography to my young eyes. I wasn't even able to actually beat the fight (and I was the older brother, so I didn't have anyone to help). But it stuck with me for years. I ended up getting a PS4, the first console I bought with my own money, for the sole reason of playing the Kingdom Hearts collections.

There was nothing quite as intense as a ServerSmash in Planetside 2. Which means ~800 people doing joint ops on a single map and everything is highly coordinated.
I think blob fights in EVE are even larger, but this was a first person shooter and also rather arcadey, not a thousand spreadsheets fighting at a server tick rate of 1 ^^

My guy, you spared those slaves lives of abject torture and misery by sinking that ship. There was nothing immoral about what you did; it arguably would've been even more fucked up to keep them alive as they would have been recaptured and put through all of that all over again. You absolutely did solve the problem explicitly by using force.

Even if it was, you had no way of knowing the developers clearly didn't take into consideration the fact that people would purposefully raid slave ships to save the slaves anyway.

Just because it didn't go as planned doesn't make what you did wrong. What matters is your intent and only your intent. Things don't have to go perfectly or even correctly for force to be justified.

🤦 Why the fuck people feel guilty for using force in such contexts is beyond me.

Probably different to most people but I remember the first year of Uni summer holidays I spent playing Fable 3… which ended up being the entire 3mth holiday. I realised in real terms I just moved from one part of the cd to another and hadn’t accomplished anything else with my life in that time, no hobbies, friends or shared experiences.

I packed up my Xbox and refused to play another game for about 10yrs. Now I have a much better balance with games and my life

Genshin Impact had an event where you had to deliver food to customers. The customers would be in the most out of the way places, and if you managed to find them, they would reject the food for the stupidest reasons. Many players complained about the difficulty, but maybe it was a commentary on how delivery ~~boys~~ partners are treated.

Kicking a window through because my brother beat me at Pipemania.

I know it's not the answer you're looking for, but I've played an awful lot of games, and none of them have ever done this for me. I can't imagine I'm in a tiny minority in that regard.

The first season of telltale the walking dead. The ending with Lee and Clementine had my newly Dad self crying.

When I started playing Horizon zero dawn, for first dozen hours I was in the state that fears the machines and sneaks everywhere.

Aloy's voice still terrifies me, I wish there was an option to turn off her random monologues.

Two come to mind. The first was when I was about 6 years old and walked in on my older brother playing Sim City 2000 on our family computer. It was the first time I had seen a video game of any kind. Before that, I thought computers were just boring machines for doing adult work. Seeing him playing a game on there changed my life, I've been a PC gamer ever since.

The second was when I beat Super Mario Bros on GameBoy. It was the first game I've ever beat fully and it was an incredible feeling. Took me almost a year to do, incredible grind at that age.

In Rain World interacting with Moon especially if you don't know what is going on then go back once you can communicate with her.

OneShot. The main story does something interesting early on to draw you in, then with the post game content I have just never felt so connected to a game. it's hard to describe without spoilers. I started the game in the evening then there I was at like 2am "I can't sleep until this world is free". you just really feel like you personally have a part in the story.

Stray. Honestly the entire game.

I am a cat dad to 3 cats and I rescue anywhere from 1 - 5 alley cats every year. I take them in, clean them up, get them spay/neuter and their vaccines and find them homes.

That game captures cats so incredibly well. The entire game was a pleasure, but there are a few moments that stick out to me.

Spoilers

At the beginning when he falls and is separated from his friends.

The way that the guardians react to him.

The desperation of being so incredibly close to freeing them and so nearly being thwarted.

But most of all, when his friend dies and when the ceiling opens.

And last but not least, at the very end he sniffs the air and smells his friends.

So some god amongst men on YouTube did the painstaking work of figuring out where stray fell, and where he exited and found that stray exited only a 20 second walk from where his home was, and towards his home is the direction he took at the end (but the game doesn't tell you this).

That game was the most wonderful and amazing experience I have had in a game since I can remember. I cannot recommend it enough.