Two of My Craziest Video Game Moments

Some crazy stuff happens in video games. Many gamers have fond memories of in-game moments that–even for video games–were insane.

For myself, I have had a few insane moments in-game. They are as follows.

1. Par 5 Off the Cart Path, Over the Creek and in the Hole — Tiger Woods ’99

Tiger_Woods_99_PGA_Tour_Golf_(E)-1

Perhaps my favorite thing to do in Tiger Woods was to see how far I could drive the ball. On certain holes, in order to maximize the distance of my drives I would play the cart path in order to get the huge boost the ball received from making contact with that virtual concrete surface.

I can’t quite remember the course I was playing (I want to say it was Scottsdale), but on one of the par 5’s on the course there was a cart path that cut across the fairway, followed by 30-40 yards of fairway, followed by a creek, followed by another 10 yards of fairway, and finally the green.

Every time I played the hole, I aimed for that cart path. On this particular occasion I hit it.

What happened afterwards was magic…

After striking the cart path, the ball skipped ahead about 30 yards or so, landing hard right in front of the creek. At this point I could tell the ball had enough momentum to easily clear the creek.

Once it cleared the creek it hit solidly on the fairway and still had quite a bit of momentum. I could tell the ball was headed onto the green and so I was already very proud of the fact that it was an incredible shot.

However, the ball kept rolling. And, it was headed right for the pin. It was like there was a magnet in the hole and it was attracting the golf ball.

Finally, the ball hit the pin (making a video-game-esque clanking noise) and fell into the hole. And, I started screaming…

2. Last Second Steal and 3/4 Court Buzzer Beater — NCAA March Madness ’99

NCAA March Madness '99 [U] [SLUS-00805]-front

This is by far my favorite in-game moment of all time…

As a back story, in March Madness ’99 I always found the worst rated team with the most freshman (in this case St. Bonaventure) and tried to take them to a national title four years in a row.

About 20 games into my first season (all the players were freshmen at the time), I found myself locked in a battle with the opposing team.

While I don’t remember the rest of the game very well, I will never forget the last 10 seconds. I was down by 2 with 10 seconds left on the clock after making a basket. The opposing team was inbounding the ball under their own hoop.

Unfortunately, back then there was no intentional foul button (at least I don’t think there was, and if there was I foolishly didn’t use it). So, my only hope was to spam the steal button on the ball-carrier and hope it either fouled him, or I actually got the steal.

Well they inbounded the ball and brought it up court, and all the while I was hitting the square button (steal) on the ball-carrier like a mad man. By the time the ball-carried had reached the 3-point arc on their side of the court, I must have hit the steal button about 100 times.

The clock was winding down, there was about 4 seconds left when one of my desperate steal attempts landed. I tried to call a time-out, but I had none…

2 seconds left…

I only had one chance but to throw up a 3/4 court prayer. As I let the shoot button go and watched the ball sail through the air, I thought “well, I got the steal, but that’s game.”

However, to my surprise, the ball found it’s way into the hoop!

I went insane. I started jumping up and down screaming. I ran through the house. I showed my Mom the replay (she didn’t care). It was the greatest play in virtual basketball history.

I might never have another in-game moment quite so awesome as that one again.

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