Throughout our gaming history we have all experienced moments in a game that impacted us in some way and would leave a lasting impression even if you never played that game again. Could be a exciting moments or even a very bad one that forever stuck with you. What are some of your most memorable gaming moments?

Guess i will start.

For me one of my biggest moments was in Final Fantasy 7. When that game came out i was hooked!! and i developed a huge crush on Aeris, i thought she was one of the most beautiful and adorable characters of all time, well i didnt have internet at the time so there was no way to know ahead of time what horrible event was coming. Anyway that moment came where Sephiroth killed her and for the first time ever in my gaming experience i actually cried, that scene impacted me so hard it upset me for days. So for the remainder of the game i was determined to get strong and get revenge on Sephiroth, then my moment came again when i finally faced him and cheered when i beat him and avenged Aeris.

Well thats one of my most memorable game moments, im anxious to see what you guys have to share.

One of the most memorable things that I've experienced was in Fallout 3. I had only played the game for a few hours at the time, and I was on my to Super Duper Mart when I noticed some of the people in front of the store were shooting at something. So, I trotted on down to help these weak NPCs when I saw what they were shooting at. This giant brown dinosaur looking freak with claws the size of swords was running towards them. I backed up and started unloading all the ammo that I had in my 10mm pistol. The giant lizard dispatched all of the NPCs with ease and started to sprint after me. By that time I had cycled through almost all of the weapons that I had and was left with a .32 pistol. I fired 5 of the remaining rounds in the pistol before the creature lay dead in front of me. What I didn't know is that the beast I had just slain was a Deathclaw, and that there were plenty more where that came from.

From then on I came to fear Deathclaws, no matter how powerful I was in the game.

Old Olney was a nightmare.

Another memorable moment was the first time i drew the Master Sword in SNES Link To The Past. Took me a lot of work to earn that sword having to get three pendants, especially the pendant of wisdom, the boss i had to beat to get it infurriated me like no other.

I'll give 3 from different eras (and to the OP, great choice with FF7...that was a great game, not my personal favorite of the series which is FF8, but I still consider it great). Secondly, I'm going to omit anything from Bethesda because I'm sure someone else will mention them here (Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim at the very least).

1. GTA III - as good as the first two titles were, this is the game that put Rockstar Games (and pretty much secured the jobs of everybody at DMA Design for years to come when they were fully purchased by Rockstar to become Rockstar North) on the map and set in motion pretty much the brand they were going to be known for a long time. It is their hallmark franchises, and one of the best selling franchises of all time. It seems that with every new release they set records. Being that this was a PS2 exclusive, it also essentially secured that consoles dominance during the 6th gen era. If you wanted to play one of the most revolutionary and dynamic games of all time, you bought a PS2 so you could play GTA III.
   
2. Valiant Hearts - this little fun title from Ubisoft was very creative, artsy, and simple with some low level puzzles. But with the simple game came an incredible story of people you never heard of, and easily forgotten, based on the real life accounts of soldiers from World War 1. Damn what a fantastic game, and the ending is a heart shredding masterpiece of an ending. This game really proves that you don't always need dynamic gameplay, or incredible graphics, or mind-bending puzzles to make a great game. Sometimes all you need is some great writing, a voice to do some powerful narrating, and a finale that will leave you a bit shocked. After I finished playing it, I instantly had to google to see if anyone was as moved with the ending as I was...and a lot of people were.
   
3. Phantasy Star - in 1987, Sega came out with this title and it has been making waves and ripples in the RPG scene ever since and can still be felt to this day, most notably with JRPGs. The features in this game were numerous and of great quality for a game of it's time. People tend to look at the original Final Fantasy as the one that really started it all, and that really isn't true. While both sold well, SE later on took pages from the book of Phantasy Star and incorporated them into their games (some of the most notable things of Final Fantasy IV and beyond were originally done in the original Phantasy Star title). This game featured an open-world over map, cities, preset characters with unique classes and backstorys, a female protagonist (the main PC), 3 different planets with interstellar travel between them, a dynamic fighting system, and an incredible story to cover it all. To this day, Alis is still on the of best crafted female lead characters ever to be put into a video game (and that's saying something, maybe a bit negative about the industry, since it was almost 30 years ago). This game really set in motion the RPG genre in video games for all that followed, western and japanese alike. While games don't take everything from this game, they all take something because it is one of the most well put-together RPG's of all time.

I had not played many games after the 80's. A smattering here and there through the 90's and early into the new century. I moved in with a guy who was into PC gaming, and he got me back into it.

For me, a moment locked in memory for all time was when I left the ship at Seyda Neen. I was gobsmacked. "You mean, I can go anywhere?" I thought. Jeez, even now I'm getting a warm fuzzy just thinking about it. Ah, nostalgia.

haha the ninja gaiden continue screen in the arcades.

also pole position 2 startup screen.

Oblivion still claims my top "video game moment" of all time. After trekking through those bloody bollocky bastardy sewers, I eventually emerged in Cyrodiil late one afternoon. And I just thought "wow". The sight was incredible. As was coming out from time spent in too many shooters where you're funnelled down a narrow route with nowhere else to go: "I can go here, and here, and even here?! Wow." I hadn't even figured out I could swim across Lake Rumare to get to the tempting-looking ruin that is Vilverin: probably as well as I would've been pwned straight away. So instead I wandered up the hill and found myself chatting to a guard in the Imperial City, who was very rude to me.

But in the meantime I was just taking in the enormity and prettiness of the landscape, and the rather pleasant apparently late summer weather.

I'd say without a doubt the http://www.zenimax.com/external.php?locale=en-us&url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRIurlkbQ2I scene in Metro: Last Light was one of the most haunting moments of a video game I've ever played. I went in completely blind and seeing that scene for the first time was just really depressing.

My moments would be:

Ys: Ark of Napishtam (PS2): Visiting Zemmith Island for the first time, the music and the environment was so breath taking the first time I got there, I didn't even want to leave once I got there, it was like seeing heaven for the first time, so beautiful.

Duke Nukem Forever: Duke's "Night Club", hey it the closest I've ever been in one of these lol .

Bioshock Infinite: That moment you first arrive in Columbia and the chapel entry area .

AVGN Adventures: Beating the final Boss with one life left---epic .

MGS 4: Guns of the Patriots: Solid (Old) Snake and Big Boss...nuff said .

Zelda a link to the past when you go into the dark world for the first time and realize you aren't even half done the game. As a kid it took me so long to get that far, and even longer to finally beat the game.
It still goes down in my books as the best Zelda to date.

Metal gear solid 4 and the completely epic fist fight between snake and ocelot at the end of the game. It took 4 games leading to that moment, but probably the most epic fist fight in any medium ever, even better than agent Smith and Neo in the train station, which is saying something.

Fallout 1, and infiltrating the master's cathedral and finally meeting the master, as well as the meeting with the super mutant lieutenant. Probably some of the most epic boss battles in an RPG game.

The final boss of Dark Souls. You go on a long journey full of suffering from both the player character and other characters in the game world alike and reach your final challenge expecting an epic battle, only to meet a god who is now a shell of his former self whose flame has burnt out. With the addition of the amazing music that plays, it just makes for a powerful moment.

that's kinda like call of duty 4, where the nuke detonates taking out your helicopter, and you awaken in the aftermath for a few moments before dying.

That reminds me of this honest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDeo21MQVFo about call of duty. Specifically the part where they mention how every single one of the games has that same scene at the end game.

Or my favourite, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E82ZkHTiVU that shows they copy and pasted the exact same scene and then changed the background for two different games. Gives me a chuckle every time.