Everyone's had them. Those moments in a video game which make you simply say "Whoa". Whether it's because of some really incredible game design or something epically cinematic or even something tragic everyone has stopped and stared at the screen, jaw dropped more than once in their time. This list is ten of my most memorable moments, moments which shocked and stunned me and made me smile from ear to ear. So, let's get going.

Starting off relatively small, one of the first games I ever played on the PC was Worms 2. I won't tell you about how awesome it was but there were two things in particular which I loved about this game. One of them is the Holy Hand Grenade. A large golden orb which you hurl across the level at the enemy, the grenade doesn't arm until it stops moving, leaving a trail of sparks in its wake. When the fuse runs out a heavenly voice shouts "Hallelujah!" before an almighty explosion leaves a biblical crater and more often than not, a dead Worm. This didn't hurt enemies. It smited them. The Super Sheep has some impressive explosive force too but instead of being thrown across the battlefield, it at first acts like a regular Sheep. You let it go and it hops and baas merrily along until you make it don a red cape and it flies off into the sky. You control it's flight and steer it to almost anywhere on the level to blow up hard to reach enemies. Awesome stuff and the only two things which would improve Worms on XBLA.

When I was 4 years old my parents bought a SNES with quite a few games. One of those games was Star Wing (Star Fox outside Europe). I had spent the first few days on my SNES playing Super Mario World and Zelda: A Link To The Past but when I saw Star Wing in action I couldn't help but be impressed. This game didn't look anything like the others I had because it was 3D. In this game I wasn't going across the screen from left to right but I was flying through the level, going forwards in my 3D Arwing. The game itself was incredible too. It had solid controls and a brilliant soundtrack but none of that mattered to me back in 1994. This was the first time I had seen such a thing and it blew my very young mind.

My one and only regret with this game is not playing it back in '94. Instead I played it on the Virtual Console but it still left quite an impression on me beyond that of many current and last-gen games. It is simply one of the best video games ever made and I enjoyed every minute of this stellar title. At the end of the game you face Mother Brain who has some kind of grotesque body which you do battle with. However, Mother Brain hits Samus with a Hyper Beam and charges another as the wounded Samus kneels before it. When you think hope is gone and that Samus is going to be killed a saviour appears. The baby Metroid, rescued at the end of Metroid 2, swoops in and absorbs the beam from Mother Brain, saving Samus's life. It then gives this power to Samus, enabling the use of the Hyper Beam, before it dies, making Metroids extinct. Such a noble sacrifice that came when all other hope had gone left me stunned. I had no time to stop though as Planet Zebes starts self destructing and it's a desperate race to your ship to eape the catastrophe.

The Zelda series is reknown for incredible boss fights and Twilight Princess is no exception. There is one boss fight which stands out the most for me and that is Argorok, the boss of The City in the Sky. To start with, the actual dungeon itself is a city floating thousands of feet above the ground. Not content with that, you then climb to the top of a huge tower where you face a huge dragon called Argorok. To defeat him you have to climb *even higher* (surely there's a lack of oxygen of something at this height?) and use your two Clawshots to swing around the dragon to attack its weak point. To top it all off, this all takes place during a lightning storm. Epic, incredible... Definately made me say "Whoa".

The first time I ever played Resident Evil 4 (one of the finest games ever made) I was dead with ten minutes. I had followed the rural trail and gotten to the village but when I was spotted I took refuge inside an old house. I blocked the door and windows and grabbed the shotgun upstairs as well as the grenade but when the enemies refused to stop flooding in from everywhere I was backed against a wall and had to hope to God I could kill them all. That was when the big guy with the sack on his head came in with the chainsaw. It was at that point I realised why I had a hand grenade. To my horror he just stood back up and he kept doing so even after several blasts from the shotgun directly into his face. With only my hand gun left and dwindling ammo supplies there was no more fight left in me. He took his cursed chainsaw to my neck with cruel pleasure in his eyes and I could only watch as blood spurted out and the chainsaw was forced through my neck. When it was done I watched my head roll away as my blood covered corpse fell to the floor. Whoa.

Halo 3 is my favourite game on the 360 and one of my favourites of all time. The campaign offers some truely epic cinematics and set pieces but the one part which made me stop and stare was on the level The Ark. After battling Covenant Ghosts, Wraiths and a ton of Brutes in between I had cleared a landing zone for Miranda Keyes' Frigate, the Forward Unto Dawn. Starting as literally a tiny speck on the horizon the ship flies in at incredible speed, its sillhouette growing larger with each second until finally it slows down to land. By now it is an enormous barrier, preventing you from seeing the sky and casting a huge shadow on the land as everything from debris and corpses to ghosts and even the destroyed Wraiths are blown away by the forces involved. The ship is gargantuan as you stand beneath it and the fact that three tanks roll out the back of it just adds to the Whoa factor of this moment.

Bioshock is a fantastic game with excellent atmosphere and one of the best stories I've ever seen in a game. Your very first encoutner with Andrew Ryan is a giant bronze statue of him in the lighthouse marking Rapture's entrance. Throughout the game you learn to hate Andrew Ryan as you learn how he abandoned his ideals and beliefs to be the ruler of his own underwater kingdom and because he often tries to kill you, at one point killing the trees which provide all of Rapture's oxygen. When you finally reach Mr. Ryan's office you see him calmly playing golf. He adresses you very civillay considering he's been trying to kill you. What he tells you is one of the most unexpected twists I've ever experienced. Ryan tells of how you are being controlled by the simple phrase "Would you kindly...", a phrase Atlas, the man 'helping' you has been saying all throughout the game. The revelation that you are no more than a puppet on practically anyone else's strings is coupled with Ryan's sadly futile attempts to make you reject the slavery you have been born to, which results in him demanding you kill him to see if you refuse to kill the man who is infact your biological father. That's when you hit him with the golf club he puts in your hand. Three times. On the third hit the end of the club is wedged in his temple and the club itself has snapped in two. His body kneels before you for a brief moment before twitching and falling backwrds. In a pool of light, your father lies dead by your hand. Whoa.

Ok, who wasn't shocked when this happened? Playing as Paul Jackson, a US Marine, you invade an unidentified Middle Eastern country to find the leader of a revolution causing war in the area. When the Marines realise Al-Asad isn't in the country at all but there is a nuke which threatens to explode you and your fellow MArines begin to evacuate. However a chopper is shot down and the pilot i alive so you and your squad bravely move in to rescue her, being warned of the risk of the nuclear explosion. You load the injured pilot onto your chopper and begin to evacuate once more when you see, from the back of the chopper, the nuke go off. A blindig flash of white light followed by a shockwave which causes your chopper, as well as all the others you can see, to crash land. The game then shows the explosion from a satellite viewpoint as we hear news reports of the explosion. We take control of Sgt. Jackson one final time as we stumble through the ruins, dust blowing all around, the bodies of your teammates everywhere and as you look up at the mushroom cloud, you collapse. Sgt. Paul Jackson is K.I.A.

Portal blew my mind when I first played it. This game introduces you to the portal, essentially a doorway you can use to get anywhere. You get the Portal Gun, which allows you to place your own portals and using this you go on to solve some of the most ingenious and well designed puzzles in gaming history. So much can be done with the portal gun like crossing a room in a second or even jumping huge distances (a technique called flinging in the game). You also use portals to outsmart gun turrets and redirect energy balls. This game is simple and complex all at once and is genuinely funny and emotional too. Every puzzle wowed me with its solution and just how fun it was.

Braid. Nothing short of a masterpiece. When playing this I was reminded strongly of when I first played Portal. A game which takes an idea (time maniulation) and puts it to use in a way we've never seen before. Sure Blinx and Timeshift and others have allowed you to mess with time but not in the ways Braid does. On the surface it's a 2D platformer with puzzles, seemingly no different from Super Mario Bros. Despite the refrences and nods to Nintendo's blue and red plumber throughout the game, they couldn't be more different. The level design and puzzles in Braid are second to none, with each world offering a new take on time control, awing for more difficult and ingenious puzzles. World 6 gave me more than a few headaches but it was all worth it as the sheer satisfaction from solving each and every puzzle leaves you happy and amazed. Literally, every puzzle solution was a reward in itself just to marvel at the cleverness behind it. I have said Whoa to just about everything in this gamewhich is why, like Portal, I had to include the whole thing. Brai's story is also something of a wonder as it can be interpreted anyway you like. Braid also has one of the best endings to any game ever I personally think. It is a work of art, a genuine treasure and one of the best games I have ever played.

We all have moments which amaze us or shock us or stun us either because it's tragic or clever or just plain awesome. For whatever reason we have all been wowed by certain moments in video games and with games like Fable 2, Resident Evil 5, Left 4 Dead and Halo Wars on the horizon, Im sure we're in for many more.

List by CHRISMC64