Halo
The sense of sheer wonder after crash landing on the anomaly(heh). The beautiful scenery with Halo itself stretching off into the distance was nothing short of jaw dropping, and then "Warning! I've detected multiple Covenant drop ships on approach..." *gulp!*

Portal
Escaping from a thorough baking and figuring out how to use your portal skills outside of the test chamber environment. 

Left 4 Dead

Rather than the first 4-man escape, or the first moment of relief after a narrow run to a safe room, I think it's the first time you throw caution to the wind and run back out of the safe room to recover a teammate.  

There's no elation like making it back in with him limping in front of you after overcoming frankly ridiculous odds, especially when the game makes the concept of leaving the safe room seem like total suicide.

Gunstar Heores

Seven Force.  Treasure make the Megadrive sing.  All rattling along at breakneck speed, from wall to ceiling and back again, laughing in the face of rubber stamp minecart stages.

Panzer Dragoon Zwei

Sticking with boss fights, I was a massive fan of the guardians of both the forest and underwater levels.  What iconic videogame bosses should be - epic battles to look forward to, neither cheap nor too easy to dispatch until you've learned their patterns, and another example of developers wringing minor miracles out of the host system. 

Final Fantasy VII

Gold Saucer.  My first turn based RPG iirc.  The amusement park came as a welcome respite from the mounting oppression of turn-based battles.  In hindsight it was light on content, but I loved this entire section.  Tifa, I choose you.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

The final dungeon, with rooms you rotate manually, linking doorways together and forcing you to carefully plot your path.  As is the norm in Zelda titles, the last dungeon requires mastery of your complete toolset, rather than just your most recently acquired item.  Probably the highlight of an already exceptionally good game.

Yeah, board game Gunstar level is amazing. Such an amazing game.

Aaroncupboard wrote:

The Darkness

Jenny's death and Jackies subsequent suicide. One of the most emotional moments I have ever encountered in a game.

Fantastic moment. The Darkness is still I think one of the most underated games of this gen. The interrogation scene with you strapped to a chair is also quite something. The voice actors pull of phenomenal jobs.

Zone of the Enders 2

The battleship segment everyone remembers. Then the great Zakat!

Webbins wrote:

Team Awesome on OpFlash again. After G's creative truck getaway had to be aborted, it was literally just four men absolutely legging it to the extraction point down a hill from the pursuing PLA. The two wheeled truck crash was just perfectly unscripted, and was a fantastically tense end to the mission.

I honestly think I'll still remember this fondly in 30 years time. Such a great example of why videogames are great, but also a reminder that very few games can provide these moments.

Mario Kart DS/3DS - Waluigis Pinball. For sheer spectacle this is the best Mario Kart track ever.
Final Fantasy VII - Gold Saucer. Its like Disneyland, of the future, with no queues.
Resident Evil 2 - Opening section (the streets). It genuinely felt like the world had gone to hell.
Counter Strike Source - The Office. I've put days into this one level.
Hitman Contracts - The Hotel. I can go on a rampage, I can break into peoples rooms or I can have a heart attack when I see a freakin ghost!

Ninja Gaiden 2

Chapter 10 - The stairs. A stand out moment in an otherwise slightly underachieving game. You run towards this ancient temple and find yourself climbing these huge stone steps. A few ninjas start coming from the top, which is nothing special, but as you start to fight them more keep coming. And more, and more. You end up completely surrounded and involved in an epic battle, which with NG2's weapons (one of its strong points) and enemy damage system is visceral, spectacular and exhilirating.

Rtype level 3 spectrum.

Rtype level 3 on the spectrum ffs! Amazing it played ..

Revenge of shinobi.
Beating Spiderman then having to beat batman.

Zelda ocarina of time.

Spending 4 hours fishing. Doing nothing else.

Wii bowling.

The first time I move the wiimote to see my mii doing the same.

Bad Company 2

Arica Harbor Rush - First set of crates in the base down the end of that long highway. On defence, it was an epic tank versus engineer battle, getting involved in sniping was always a mistake. On attack, I liked to zoom in on the quad bike like a ninja, use the jump to get into the base, then set the crate and nip into the next portacabin with a Carl Gustav and slaughter the defenders as they turned up to defuse.

Second set are in the town. Focus on the crate in the lockup garage, it can't have the building dropped on it. Anything can happen, tank versus tank, snipers on top of the building sites, blasting through the buildings using rockets or grenade launchers. On attack you want into that lockup and have your team spawn on you, hopefully with med packs and motion mines. On defence, you've got to keep a line of sight on that crate and be ready to throw grenades in if anyone gets in. Motion mines and ammo are key.

Third set is the end of the bridge, neither crate is in a building that can be destroyed. On attack, you want to flank up the beach or down from the town through the small buildings. More obvious team members will be trying to snipe from the building site or fighting there way down the road. Best to sneak into the railway carriage then crouch in the back and wait for defenders. Nice to be able to set the crate in the bus from outside the bus. On defence, you'll be crouching in the rocks and dying a lot, it isn't about K/D though, it's about winning. Remember and mine that road, then laugh as the enemy Humvee flies through the air.

Fourth set is the harbour. If they hold the bridge, swim. If they're waiting for that, swing right and grab the TOW launcher and fixed LMG, then shoot the bridge defenders from behind. The defenders can be cut off from the crate in the carriage from here, if you can't kill them, spotting them gives your team coming across the bridge a big advantage. Push on to the palm tress and again you're getting in between the defenders spawn and the crate. I don't know if there was a good tactic on defence here. Kill a lot of the enemy probably.

Fifth set is the building site. Rocket the fixed machine gun to start your attack, it's always spectacular. Blasting the defenders inside the building with rockets and grenade launchers is always good. Smoke works here too. On defence, you have to stay next to the crates and have a ready supply of motion mines and ammo. Wander off to fight over other buildings and you'll lose.

Best FPS map ever for me.

Red Faction Guerilla Taking down one of the massive bridges is a glorious moment. Takes ages to do but it just cascades down when you hit that final key point in the structure

Super Mario Bros Finding my first warp zone. First time I felt like I was cheating without typing in a code. And some serious Dark Soulsness when you hop into the zone 8 pipe.

jdanielp wrote:

Rez, Area 5 - "Fear is the mind killer"

Classic track, wish you could do the level in "travelling" mode for if you're a bit too, erm, incapacitated.

Goldeneye

Four player split-screen deathmatch on bunker, no guns allowed, proximity mines only. Hours of fun and some incredibly devious mine placements.

Guitar Hero 2

Completing Free Bird on expert.

Sonic and Knuckles-Sonic 3:Getting all the emeralds, completing both games then fighting metal sonic.

Banjo-Kazooie:
Click Clock woods level. What a great idea for a level, using all four seasons of the same map, then changing things in one season to effect the others.

Burnout Paradise:
Just driving really really fast in that open world for the hell of it. It was also the first game I played in HD.

Never seen that before. Awesome.