Most Atmospheric Scene in a game?

[VaLiancY]

I'm sure there are more but one that really hits me in the head is Halo 1, The Silent Cartographer mission. A lot of ambient noise with birds and the ocean behind you and you go farther up and you see these trees. Ironically, its so peaceful yet you have to kill everyone in the complex.

 

[Zingu]

F.E.A.R: Extraction Point was extremely scary, if you thought the first FEAR was scary, wait till you play this expansion pack.

What was really creepy-scary-cool was the hospital level, although nothing REALLY happened, it scared the **** out of me. When you had to enter the SURGERY ward and those bright lights in the dim operation room would start swinging around on their own or the xerox machines that would unexpectly be printing the same blurry image over and over non-stop with their scanning light beaming out into the darkness...

...that level scared me witless, the whole game was really scary, but it really peaked at its highest point in that segment of the game.

 

[PsYcH0_Ch!cKeN]

So I finally played Riddick. It was good, but sadly the signs of it being a console game shone through far too brightly. Things like only having a single weapon scroll key, a single lean key, not being able to drop from ledges/railings with the crouch key, annoying and counterproductive 3rd person camera views (they always point away from where you need to be seeing), menus that require left/right to scroll through instead of having a list of categories or even better, different keys for different menus (map, inventory, collects, missions, etc), a lot of context sensitive controls that rarely do what you want when you want it, and so on and so forth.

It reminds me a lot of Fahrenheit in that regard - great production values, but designed for a console and ported to PC as an afterthought. This isn't the thread for it so I won't rant, but this is just another example of consoles dumbing down PC gaming. Developers really need to go back and completely re-engineer their console games if they want them to pass muster on the PC.

Other than that, it was definitely very atmospheric. With the exception of the "consolified" issues, a couple of bugs (a number of missions were impossible to complete because key characters got stuck on their pathing) and the unlimited spawns technique they used for the aliens and the dwellers (knowing that the enemies will never stop swarming you is annoying and an immersion killer - yes CoD 2, that goes double for you), it was an enjoyable experience overall.

Oh, did the last few levels feel rushed to anyone else? The break from triple maximum security. It's very short, relatively easy (once you get past the first little bit) and then there's that one extra little battle at the end which was incredibly basic and seemingly pointless. After the immense effort to escape from lesser levels of security, getting out of the hardest of the hard was a walk in the park followed by a short jog to the car...

 

[Hamburgerphil]

Some VERY select moments of the Brothers in Arms games are good.

Playing HL2 very slowly, taking your time to soak everything in is a very atmospheric experience. Also, some of the Iron Crescendo battles have been absolutely insane. Leading a 10 man bayo charge across the final bridge of Berezina and being the only surviver = awesome.

The Call of Duty games had some pretty good moments too, although spread too far and wide in between the crap.

 

[Ska Wars]

Mafia - Most the game really but parts that really stand out are the assassination in the brothel, which leads to the roof top chase, which leads to the funeral shoot out, which leads to the Police chase. Jesus I felt like I'd been beaten up by the end of it.

The ambush at the restaurant was classic too.

H&D2 - The bridge assault in Sabre Squadron was great as was the holding the Oasis. Hearing your first mines go off and having to leg it over to the breach to machine gun the enemy was great.

Vietcong - The radio relay defense/extraction. Flying in with a MG blazing then being dropped ontop of the hill battling off dozens of VC, in the pouring rain and having to drop your gun and swap to Shotgun or nade launcher as ammo runs dry, now *thats* a gun fight.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R - the army and monolith guys ripping each other apart as the meltdown begins. Especially with the realistic damage mod, that gun fight gets real intense real quickly.

Call of Cthulu - having no gun for ages is freaky enough, but when armed when are smashing the **** out of your hotel room door and you're forced to feel through windows and roof tops you practically have a heart attack.

OFP - playing the IRA custom mission with my flat mates on LAN was ace. One group plays US rangers assigned to wipe out an enemy convoy, another group plays the hostages in the convoy who have to survive the ambush and gather arms, and the third group play SAS charged with clearing the beach head after flying in on helos. Then you all regroup to assault a huge defended castle. Add in usable mortars and you've got one hell of a battle! Sooo tough though, we never finished it, even when we figured out how to use the mortar and had two of us relaying targets

Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter - finally reaching the embassy just to have it explode in your face. Then taking to the rubble to hold out the enemy assault, including those ****ing pain in the arse tanks! having to laser target them just to have a shell hit me in the face drove me insane! One hell of a gun fight though, especially when you have to carry VIP2 to the chopper while under fire and then get told theres no room for you and you have to wait for another

 

[2ltben]

D+1 from BIA: Earned in Arms, where the opening has you and the rest of your squad in a ditch next to a crashed jeep that's being fired on. Then a runner slides down a hill into a puddle to give you your mission. That opening was just awesome.

And Ska, as far as HD2 goes, Spaghetti Airport was just a great mission.

The first time you run across a Bandit patrol in the middle of the night in Stalker, especially in the dark zones where you actually can't see them, and the higher the difficulty the better. You just have to find whatever cover you can and pop off a few rounds at the flashlights whenever you're not being pinned. And you can't just sit there because they'll eventually work their way around you and kick your ***.

 

[Ska Wars]

And Ska, as far as HD2 goes, Spaghetti Airport was just a great mission.

I found that mission one of the least Atmospheric to be honest. Although fun as hell, at no point did I really feel like "This is all going to go wrong, fast." Alot of it was just clearing rooms, and waiting for the enemy to come through the door one by one. Once you raided the armory it was just a case of getting onto the roof to take out the light tank.

H&D2 though is probably one of the greatest WW2 games for one reason alone, hat collection

 

[Grobut]

What was really creepy-scary-cool was the hospital level, although nothing REALLY happened, it scared the **** out of me.

Thats usually the case, the most scary and unnerving moments i can recall from games have never contained any combat, the suspence of beeing somplace creepy, but nothing happening to release that suspense has allways been the scariest.

Once the combat starts, you forget about the creepy and just run on adrenaline, its not the same.

Thats the trick to making scary games, building suspense! but many have failed to grasp that concept unfortunately..

 

[Karabiner98k]

H&D2 has a lot of moments. It feels like you're creating them yourself too, because it isn't really linear like MoH and the rest. Best moments for me were on H&D2:SS on the Brest mission, sneaking to the submarine pens with a knife, and lying down on the bridge mission with a sticky bomb waiting for the tiger.

 

[Ralfst3r]

Half-Life 1 and the whole feeling the complex was getting exterminated and abandoned. Gogo Black Mesa Source!