Video games are great, that’s why we’re here! But some things about video games are greater than others. And so in the spirit of Eurogamer’s Optimism Week – a chance to reflect on just how special the medium can be, at a time it isn’t always easy to remember – we thought we’d switch tack; moving away from the big things, to the little things. Not the series we love, or the games we can’t get enough of, but those strange, weird, little video gaming moments that, for us at least, spark joy. And, of course, we’d love to hear yours too in the comments below!
When there’s a bug that makes all the ragdoll bodies in an area do a little jump
You know what I mean with this? I was playing a pre-release demo recently where a load of enemy bodies – let’s say eight-ish – were lying around on the floor after I’d dealt with them. Some new enemies burst in, fired their weapons, and for some reason the impact of the minor weapon fire made all the ragdoll bodies in the area briefly hop up off the ground and floatily crumple back down again. A bit like when you’re on a plane and it suddenly drops several feet mid-air and your stomach goes, except everyone’s a defeated battle droid. Love when that happens. – Chris
Tossing a toilet at an enemy in Control
Control is one of my favourite games of all time. I love the storyline, all of the collectibles, the music and, most of all, being able to psychically toss a filing cabinet into an enemy’s head. You know what’s better than bashing someone to death with a filing cabinet though? Bashing them to death with a toilet. For some odd reason, Remedy didn’t make it easy to actually get ahold of a toilet. Yet I promise, if you destroy a bathroom in just the right way (i.e. using Jessie’s psychic powers to obliterate the wall around the toilet to disconnect it from the plumbing), you can indeed pick it up and lob it at a foe. – Lottie
Being able to use the toilet in-game
It’s all about the little things, and having some quiet time on the toilet is one of them. Bonus points if you can interact with toilet roll or flush. – Kelsey
Weapons with fancy names
Who wants a Longsword +1 when you can have Blade of Serrated Nightmares instead? Better yet, what about a Blade of Serrated Nightmares that has a backstory as well? I cannot get enough of games that pay proper attention to the allure of weaponry. Obsidian did this really well in Avowed. Blizzard has always done it pretty well in its games. Bungie did it really well in Destiny. It makes weapons romantic; it makes them more than the stat-boosting collection of pixels they really are. – Bertie
When the food has its own glamour screen
You know what I mean. You sit with your pals at a campfire, or order a dish at a tavern. You browse the menu, then make your choice. The screen fades to black, and fades in on a steaming plate of the most incredible food you’ve ever seen. Like a Marks & Spencer advert. Your mouth waters as your characters are restored to full health. – Dom
Landing that combo you’ve practiced for ages in a real match
Spending a few hours labbing out a tricky combo can be hard, sometimes boring work. But seeing yourself pull it off in an actual match is such a rush; a real manifested example of work paying off. It’s like if doing homework and handing it in resulted in fireworks being lit in the classroom. – Connor
That Quake announcer’s adulation
Unreal might have had this too, but it’s the cinema-trailer-voiced announcer in Quake 3 I remember, probably because I played Quake the most out of the two series. You know the lines I mean: “Impressive” after hitting two railgun shots in a row, or “excellent” after killing two opponents in quick succession. Or, if you were on a particularly productive rampage, “Triple kill.” Verbal pats on the back, that’s what they were. And the best one of all? “Humiliation,” when mauling an opponent with the starter melee weapon, the Gauntlet. – Bertie
Unspoken teamwork
When you’re playing an online multiplayer game, particularly FPS ones, there are moments of pure magic where the team pulls together and somehow knows what the plan or play is, without saying a single spoken word to one another, not even by using gestures. That moment where everyone is on the same page and it just works. – Marie
Gun with a torch
How often do you actually need to use the torch on a gun in Call of Duty or Battlefield or whatever? I’ll tell you: not often at all. Completely pointless because we’re not playing a survival horror game and everything’s already lit perfectly, on purpose, because these games are for people who like and need to always be able to see where they’re going. Fun to switch it on and off though. – Chris
Level-up ‘dings’
They are like the church bells of video gaming success. I can still picture World of Warcraft’s swirl of light and hear that little kettle bell drum roll. I still remember hitting level 60 for the first time. – Bertie
‘Dings’ of the powerwashing kind, specifically
I now get such a Pavlovian thrill whenever I finish hosing something to a sheen in PowerWash Simulator, I find myself actively, giddily anticipating that glorious cash-register ‘ding’ (and yes, it annoys me immensely when I’ve still got a bit left and it happens too soon). This has not made me enjoy washing things more in real life, however. – Matt
Using much more powerful attacks than is necessary so I can feel big and strong
Sometimes it really is as simple as a power fantasy. Specifically the fantasy that I have so much power that I can annihilate you, filthy Gretchin, with the full force of an Orbital Bombardment. – Chris
Cut-scenes where it lets you wiggle the camera
If you, a video game, are absolutely going to insist I endure another of your ponderous cut-scenes, pretty much all will be forgiven if you do that thing where wiggling the control stick slightly jiggles the camera around. I haven’t got a clue what sort of psychological need this is fulfilling, but give me the option and I will wiggle the ever-living crap out of your carefully staged cinematics. And I will love every minute. – Matt
Critical hits
I don’t remember my first encounter with a critical hit. I guess it was in Secret of Mana on SNES? I’m pretty sure they were there. Then it was MMOs, where critical hits reigned – and probably still reign – supreme. But that moment when a normal damage number balloons: I can’t get enough of it. I think it’s something to do with feeling special, like I’ve broken the game in my favour somehow, and it’s doing things it doesn’t normally do. It’s a way of injecting something extraordinary into ordinary combat. – Bertie
The smell of the inside of a new game box
Surely I can’t be the only one that opened up the case of, say, Summoner 2 on the PS2 after picking it up from Forbidden World, and gave it a nasty ol’ huff? Right? – Dom
Being prompted to follow an NPC, and being able to run past them
If there’s one thing I yearn for, it’s freedom. So, being made to walk behind a painfully slow NPC in a game makes me rattle at my cage like nothing else, even if it is perhaps important that I don’t stray from the task at hand. So whenever there’s an in-game ‘follow’ prompt, and I’m actually permitted to stray away from my guide, I rejoice. – Kelsey
Whenever FromSoftware hides an enemy behind a door
I have been playing FromSoftware’s games for well over a decade. I am wise to its trolling. Yet somehow it still manages to get me with the old enemy-behind-the-door trick and I still find it hilarious, ragdolling into oblivion with a laugh and grin. – Matt
Football Manager bicycle kick
Sometimes you play so many matches in a row the world starts to fade into sludge. Then a little stick man turns on the spot with awkward video game animatronic magic and does a bicycle kick – a move so ludicrously not-normal to look at, so completely opposite to where a human should be at any moment, anywhere, let alone in this minute, wooden form – and you’re alive once more, suddenly seeing in vivid colour. Everything’ll be alright; this little guy just went upside down. – Chris
Gesturing to people in multiplayer games
Point; laugh. Point; dance. Sit down. Clap. Such simple pleasures; such quietly impactful connections. Bow. – Bertie
Glowing effects of rare drops
In games when you get something really rare, oftentimes they’ll be glowing and super colourful. In games like Borderlands or RuneScape it blasts off the background and pops off the screen. Orange is the best colour, obviously. Though purple comes in a close second place. – Connor
A really great title screen
Sometimes you just know a game’s going to be good – great, in fact – by its title screen. Granted, it’s a precise quality hard to explain, but you can always spot them: the ones that’ve had just a bit more love put into them, a bit more attention. And somehow you just know you’re in for a treat when you see them for the first time. Fireproof Games’ Ghost Town is the one that got me most recently, with its VR-ified South London car park; plopping you beneath a towering concrete council block as the rain lashes down, mist crawling across the litter-strewn tarmac at your feet, and a squelchy synth immediately setting the 80s mood. It’s the ones that go a little bit harder in the spirit of what’s to come, that make me love the promise of a great title screen. – Matt
Reading a really, really good review of a really, really good game
A bit inside baseball this one but listen: you read a lot of stuff about games in this job, to the point where a lot of games writing can kind of wash over you. Then you get the perfect game with the perfect writer and this alchemy happens. The game is alive on the page, you’re swept along with the writer as they go, and all the magic of what people are capable of making and capable of feeling is all mixed together into one, and you remember this stuff is all just a total privilege to be around. – Chris
The ‘snap’ when you connect the Joy-Cons to the Switch 2
It’s such a satisfying sound. Like cracking your knuckles or a bone breaking. – Lottie
Monster Hunter’s ‘SoooooooOOooOoo TassSSSSty’
I still cannot believe Capcom thought taking this out of the series with Monster Hunter World was acceptable, but at least it eventually saw the error of its ways. – Matt
Thinking for a really long time without actually doing anything
There’s a lot of immediate reward in video games because of the nature of them. But there are also lots that let you sit there staring at a fullscreen map or spreadsheet or whatever while you just think about what to do. I’m always delighted when a game gets me doing most of the playing in the mind. – Chris
The Halo headshop pop
Using the Magnum and taking down a Grunt in one headshot is one of the best feelings in the FPS genre, if not all of gaming. Turning on ‘Grunt Birthday Party’ makes it even better. If you know, you know. – Dom
Headbutting the irritating Egg Thieves
Na Na-Na Na Na-BAM. Satisfaction! – Marie
Active reload
I am someone who struggles to enjoy shooty games unless they’re set in some fancifully offbeat world that particularly grabs me, so I did not expect to enjoy the very grey, very drab Gears of War 2. But I loved it! Partly because it’s bloody ridiculous, with some outlandish, ridiculous turns that I think I might still count as some of my favourite-ever gaming set-pieces. But mostly I think it was because of Active Reload – that thing where you hit reload twice in a row and if you time the second one properly you (I think – it’s been a while) speed up the process. It’s such a simple thing and turns a familiar action into a rewarding split-second micro-game all of its own, which somehow never gets old! And to this day I wish more games borrowed it. – Matt
Spotting an Easter egg or reference to other media
The satisfaction of recognising an Easter egg or reference to other media – be it cinema, literature, or a random viral meme – when playing a video game makes me feel super smart and cool. Then being able to say, ‘Hey, I know what this is!’ and go about pointing it out to friends and other players gives me the same hit of dopamine as watching The Lord of the Rings with someone who’s never seen it before, and being able to tell them about Viggo Mortensen’s broken toe all over again. – Kelsey
A ‘perfect’ level up in Fire Emblem
You dispatch an enemy with a critical hit with your Levin sword, that telltale fanfare plays, and you see your level-up screen pop into view. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Every stat goes up by one. A single tear falls from your eye. Thank you, Donnel. – Dom
Drifting round corners cars and karts and stuff
Hell yeah! – Chris
Looking at the environment slowly like I’m piloting one of those old E3 demos
I can’t be the only one who does this. It usually happens when I see an amazing vista, or a stunning backdrop in a level, or if a big spaceship flies across the horizon. Looking at these things and slowly panning the camera across as if showing a big crowd of onlookers how fancy the game looks is one of my not-so-guilty pleasures. – Connor
Getting an extra life off-screen
It’s 1998, and you’re playing Crash 3: Warped on your CRT TV. It’s raining outside and all the lights are off in your bedroom, your pale face illuminated only by the glow of the TV. You jump on top of a crate you feel like you shouldn’t be able to get on top of, feeling smug.That cha-ching of an extra life registers, and your Bandicoot-faced counter in the top right of the screen goes up by one. – Dom
The Bloodborne parry chime
Or as I like to call it “Gehrman’s Theme”. – Dom
Interviewing someone really smart (but not the transcribing or writing absolutely not)
The interviewing vs writing up the interview process is a well-known proxy for the “me reaping vs me sowing” meme in game journo land and that is absolutely correct. I can confirm that transcribing, never mind actually doing writing, as a writer, is total torture and you can’t make me do it. But interviewing people! That’s magic. An hour-long conversation with a genius – and almost everyone who makes games is some kind of genius – is about as invigorating as it gets. Until you hear your own horrible voice and mumbled, waffling questions played back to you right after. – Chris
Nintendo Switch game card taste
Look, I only give it a little lick. I don’t have a problem. I’m fine. – Lottie
Impossible spaces
There’s a whole bunch of cool stuff video games can do that other mediums can’t! But I am an absolute sucker for anything that leans into impossible spaces. If you want to go stylised like the Escher-esque labyrinthe of Manifold Garden, that’s fine by me; if you want to give me the tools for impossible traversal, as in Portal, I’m down with that too. What I really love though are the sneaky ones; the subtle shifts some games – especially horror ones – do when your back is turned. It’s why I absolutely love the original Layers of Fear – a whole spooky house that refuses to stay still: rooms looping in on themselves, corridors to nowhere, ceilings that suddenly concertina into the infinite when you look away and turn back. I want it all. – Matt
Analogue movement
You know the kind: when you gently press the thumbstick on a controller you walk a little bit, then you press it a bit more and you walk a bit faster, then you press it a bit more and you run. It’s been in games for years but it always amazes me. To me, it never gets old. – Bertie
Taking horrible advantage of the MegaTen/Persona ‘press turn’ system
Back in the old (read: PS2) days, there wasn’t so much you could do to take advantage of the ‘press turn’ system beyond lowering your enemy’s accuracy. Thank you, Fog Breath. Now, though, as you’re able to spawn more ‘press turns’ and mess around with stats even more, you can have so much fun breaking the system. Even superbosses aren’t immune, as of SMT5: Vengeance. Long may Atlus keep this joyous, silly, incredible system around. – Dom
Accidental nerd contact in the street
I was wearing an Overwatch Summer Games T-shirt walking around Brighton the other day – it’s a collector’s piece nowadays – when I caught the eye of a person walking by me. “Cool T-shirt,” they said. They knew. They made my day. – Bertie
When the game’s title pops up halfway through the opening mission
This is the kind of thing that, in theory, I should hate. I’m really not a fan of being yanked out of my carefully crafted immersive experience to, say, endure the kind of five-minute non-interactive cut-scenes that big blockbuster games are still absolutely smitten with. And nothing quite says HI, JUST POPPING IN REMIND YOU YOU’RE PLAYING A GAME than suddenly yanking away the camera halfway through the opening mission for a sweeping cinematic shot of a vista that’s suddenly imprinted with the game’s title in hundred-foot letters. Gets me every time though, and I almost always want to clap. – Matt
Also, when a game shouts its own name on the title screen
This one, sadly, is a bit of a dying art – even Resident Evil, which is probably the series I most closely associate with the whole enthusiastically-saying-the-game’s-name-on-the-title screen stopped it a long time ago. There’s something wonderfully nostalgic about it all though (I’m assuming it’s a practice that started in arcades when games needed to blink and bellow as much as they could to get everyone’s attention) and it still gives me a bit of a thrill to hear it today. And bonus points, of course, if it only happens once you press the start button. Talk about a thrill! – Matt
The audible click after building Lego
It doesn’t matter which Lego game I play, the subtle small clicks that lead up to the larger ‘this object is finished’ click when you’re building something never fails to itch a specific part of my brain. – Marie
Helping a confused stranger with a problem, and visa versa
Have you ever been exploring a multiplayer game and found yourself totally lost? I have, and I’ve met plenty of people in the same spot. Striking up a conversation in a server chat about these issues, then getting help from kindhearted players willing to take the time to lend a helping hand,is one of gaming’s great pleasures. – Connor
Healing other people
I like to help. – Bertie
Getting an outfit just right
Character customisation is hugely important for a lot of people, myself included. Mixing and matching different bits of clothing or armour, slapping on a new colour scheme that compliments the look, and going out in the world is a fantastic feeling I can’t get enough of. – Connor
Excitement
Remember when Silksong came out last year and parts of the internet broke? Remember a trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6 airing for the first time? Remember when Sony had that legendary E3 conference and announced a Final Fantasy 7 remake and Shenmue 3 and something else I can’t remember? It’s off-the-chart excitement that’s way out of proportion with the game that eventually comes out, but it propels us. It’s fun. It’s nice to be excited, I think. – Bertie
