Have you missed out?

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We've done a 'best gaming moments' feature before, and it was miles better than any other 'best gaming moments' piece you could have read elsewhere (if we do say so ourselves). But it was after a lengthy pub conversation that we stumbled across a strange new seam of game moments, so good we felt they deserved an article all of their own.

These moments are special, in that their greatness never made any real impact in 'best gaming moments' features the world over. They are forgotten moments, personal moments - moments that you'd tell your friends and family about around a roaring log fire, while you rocked gently back and forth in your chair.

These are the personal moments that make us unique; without them, we'd be nothing but husks of meat, fit only for use as batteries and food by an aggressive alien race.

Here then are our most private gaming moments, our most intimate memories, and those things that made us feel like we were alone in the world. The stuff that made us feel special. We're not just talking about that bit in Duke Nukem 3D where you walk in on the alien having a shit, either -everybody's seen that.

We're on about bits of games that we all loved but never really spoke about. The ones that instantly dissolved into the disused parts of our cerebra, the ones we have to properly explain because everybody seems to have forgotten they happened. These are gaming's semi-forgotten triumphs, and we're ready to sing their praises...

The Chronicles Of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay
Standout Moment: The triple-max security prison level

"Cold storage for cons," reverberates Riddick's gruff voice as you awake from cryo-sleep in a white circular techno-chamber, hardly big enough to swing a robotic cat. The futuristic prison yard is decorated with four calming words - 'Ocean', 'Sunset', 'Tree' and 'Flow', and is dominated by an ominous mechanical arm in the centre that picks up and drops off prisoners from their cryo coffins.

I love this bizarre level in Escape From Butcher Bay - it jolts you out of your shooter comfort zone and into a waking nightmare, where you're only permitted two minutes of exercise before the drugs kick in again and you collapse to the floor asleep for another day.

After trying different things in your Groundhog Day window of consciousness, such as hitting the other prisoners you exercise with (you're quickly executed if you do that), you eventually hit on a plan. To escape, you have to hide in the other prisoner's cryo box just before the robo-grabber drops their lifeless body into it, then quickly push them onto the floor, allowing you to be transported to freedom. Well, to the Mech-guarded Cryo Pyramid storage facility in the next level anyway. Ingenious stuff.

Condemned: Criminal Origins
Standout Moment: The shopping mall and its freaky mannequin inhabitants

Contrary to gender stereotypes, I detest shopping. So when my entrance to a run-down shopping centre is greeted by a blood-stained Christmas tree, eerie festive music being piped through the speakers and creepy mannequins adorning broken displays, I know things aren't going to turn out well.

After a period of sound effects which get my nerves jangling, and fleeting glimpses of what appears to be the store mannequins running past my peripheral vision, I eventually round a corner only to be confronted by another mannequin. Only this one's most definitely not static and appears intent on killing me. Disturbingly, when I head-butt it, the plastic face falls away to reveal flesh underneath.

It's just one of the many superbly designed set-pieces in a game that builds levels of tension like none I've ever experienced before. And it's all complemented by some of the most atmospheric sound effects you're ever likely to hear in a game.

Bizarrely, Condemned never seemed to make much of a splash on PC, and thanks to this scene being just over halfway through, some people just didn't make it that far. What they missed out on is, much like the rest of the game, a master class in tension created through creepy level design and haunting sound effects. Not to be missed.

Painkiller
Standout Moment: The very last level, in the lowest pits of hell...

Not many people got to the end of Painkiller. It's not a bad game, just a very long game that doesn't change much as you plough through it. As much fun as it is nailing a screaming zombie's ragdoll body to a wall, there certainly isn't much impetus to finish the whole damn thing.

Which is a shame, since it means that so few people have experienced the out-and-out insanity of its closing level.

The premise is that we're in the very depths of hell and about to face off against the cataclysmic big-bad that is Lucifer - itself quite an anticlimactic boss battle - when he actually turns up and needs smiting. But the dark one lives in an amazingly produced freeze-frame panorama of warfare: medieval arrows hang suspended in the air, smashed bricks and mortar hang before you as they explode from the sides of WWI trenches, an upended warship is captured at its most vertical moment before slowly plunging into the waters below...

After such an intense game, it's a strange and vaguely haunting level, with odd ambient sounds of battle resonating around each area - an atmosphere only mildly spoiled by a gang of rubbish ghost monsters you're expected to mow down.

Towering over the entire level, meanwhile, is a nuclear mushroom cloud frozen in time, with chunks of masonry and fire being hurled from it in every direction. Today, the graphics may not be as amazing as they once were - but for being so utterly unexpected, as well as so historically underappreciated, this level earns a little corner of my gaming heart.

Final Fantasy VII
Standout Moment: Killing Emerald Weapon, which was extremely hard

I'm slow to get involved these days, but Final Fantasy VII was the first game of its type I'd ever played. Hypnotised by the pace and progression, I played it straight through in under 70 hours, never really getting too involved with the side-quests. I loved FF7. This was my happy time.

When I found out I'd missed out on two playable characters, all the best weapons and near-impossible bosses, I did what any genuinely stupid person would do: I bought the walkthrough book and played it through again. Every side-quest was angrily explored. I press-ganged Vincent and Yuffie to join my team. I explored wrecked ships and I reared a golden chocobo, just to visit some old fart in a cave.

I was going to suck every venomous drop out of this infuriating game, but there wasn't a moment when I ever considered the importance of enjoying myself. This was my furious time.

The last thing I did, before entering the final crater, was fight Emerald Weapon. The toughest boss in the game, my preparations and power-gathering had taken well over 100 hours. I beat that shit, and I'm one of the only people who bothered to do it - but I was an automaton, a non-player playing a semi-game, following the instructions of an official guide. Was it any less of a victory for that? My Earth Harp says not, losers.

Thief: Deadly Shadows
Standout Moment: Cleaning out what was believed to be a thief-proof museum

Ask anybody to name their favourite moment from Thief: Deadly Shadows and they'll blub the words: "The Cradle, boo-hoo-hoo, I was so scared. You know you don't even see that many monsters in it but it was still scary, how amazing is that?" Well, I think due attention hasn't been paid to one of the final levels in Ion Storm's sneaky thievery game - the one in which you completely clean out Wieldstrom Museum.

Throughout the game, snippets of information about the museum are dropped, specifically about how the architect continually boasts of its security. The headlines read: "Museum proves thief-proof. Would-be thieves dead."

This is more vault than museum, and it's full of the greatest and most valuable treasures the game has to offer. And being the master thief you are, you're going to do more than just pocket an ancient coin or two - you're going to swipe anything that's not nailed down with really big nails.

We can still picture the curator opening up in the morning to find an empty museum and a dozen unconscious guards who have no idea where all the shiny things have gone. There's no other point in the game that makes you feel like the first noun in the game's title more than this level does.

Aliens Vs Predator 2
Standout Moment: Face Hugger and Baby Alien levels

It seems that my eulogising about Monolith's thrilling fright-fest knows no bounds. However, breaking with tradition, I'm not even going to mention the stunning, terrifying Marine campaign or the brilliant Predator vs Marine multiplayer games. Apart from the fact I just have. Damn! OK, starting again from... Now.

Lurking in one of the game's dingier corners was a very confusing Alien campaign that comprised crawling through vents and becoming totally disorientated by your wall-walking abilities. However, before it all got, well, a bit crap, there came two of the most original FPS levels you're ever likely to play.

The first one cast you in the scuttling role of a Face Hugger, looking for a victim to jump on and impregnate. But that was just for starters. It's what came next that was the true moment of genius. Encased in a crimson cell with a heartbeat resounding through your headphones and unable to move, you'd slowly start to realise where you were.

Hammering the fire button, you'd begin hacking through ribs, cartilage and skin, bursting into the world to be greeted by the dying gasps of the security guard whose chest you'd just smashed open. Oh, and if memory serves, you also got to kill a cat and watch your little alien teeth chomp with your internal eyes. Brilliant!

PC Zone Staff