! ALERT ! (Great escape moments)

[Jim Halisstrad]

Everyone has close calls in video games.  Eventually though most people pull of this rare, almost magical escape.  What is your most Bad-Ass escape moment.

Mine would have to be Super Metroid.  One day, loopy off of lack of sleep,  I decide see if I could beat metroid under my best time.  Which was 2 hours and forty three minutes.    There was a catch though... No saves, no breaks.

Well, I start beating this game like a red-headed step child and before to long I was making Mother Brain into a fine dusty mist.  Woo!  Then of course the Alarm blares out and you know it's time to GTFO.

Thats when my vision blurred, my bladder filled, and sleep deprivation achevied maximum hurt.
It took me FOREVER to get up the Ubber shaft.  I even fell all the way down from near the top.

Needless to say, when I made it to the top, my time was very short. 
But it gets better, I get outside and almost to the ship when I realized I left behind the animals.

Retard Moment.

I went back to get them.
And I made it back to the ship with two seconds (and change) to spare.
I closed my eyes and laid back and succumbed to sleep.

My roommate (who I didn't know watched me play through the later half of the game.) said I beat my time.

By a whole freaking four minutes.  *laughs*

[Blazehawk]

For me it would probably be the map in Half-Life 2: Episode 1 where you have to wait for the elevator to come while all sorts of critters are trying to eat you in a dark basement. My flashlight battery died, I was running out of ammo, and I was surrounded, but somehow managed to jump between enemies and haul ass into the elevator when it finally came.  All kinds of stuff was banging on the elevator doors trying to get at me. I thought I was going to have to reload my save for a bit. 

[xHaZxMaTx]

My Call of Duty game autosaved at Pavlov's House right before I died, so every time it loaded, I would die.  I'm not really sure how I got out of it, I must have gone prone really quick or something to avoid the shot, and I buggered out of there as fast as I could to find some health.  I died about 20 times from the autosave before that happened.

[Kitsune Ascendant]

about 9/10s of mine have to do with f-zero gx. my current fave is the final track on emerald cup-master. I'm dead last, coming in to the final turn, on my last life. I boost and I boost, and right as the wall narrows, I hit a wall. as I fly over the other wall into the void, I'm thinking "ah, shit!" (do keep in mind that f-zero gx is famous among the people who play it for being amazingly hard). but then suddenly, mere tenths of a second before I would have crashed, the game says I've finnished. in fourteenth place. that was a 16 place jump in a matter of seconds, and was just enough for me to take home first overall. I was buzzing like a hummingbird for a good hour after that one.

[tenlaius]

hm..i got a few

Need For Speed: Most Wanted
i compelteed all i believe it was..8 milestones i needed for the next blacklist racer.  I took a turn to see a roadblock of SUV heavy's and a spike strip to their left.  I decided to ram the one in the middle..and somehow it went flying, yet so did i..towards the spike strip.  At almost last second another cop hit me, which made me barrel roll away, but i managed to avoid capture.

Dirge of Ceberus
I was fighting Omega Weiss on hard mode
I had him down to like his last 1/16 of health before he attacked.. now by this time i was all out of potions and such and didn't have a phoenix down.  I quickly got up, then into a corner.  right as he swung at me i shot..and by a split second i hit him first.

[Tapewolf]

The first time I played System Shock 2, I decided to explore the cargo bays, which were protected by a set of armoured gun turrets.  Unsure how to get past them, I decided to quicksave and rushed through them, making it inside just barely alive.
A few minutes later I had managed to dodge my way past the nasty little psi monkeys (who I honestly thought were armed with guns at the time) and promptly found myself trapped on the first floor of a cargo store crawling with nasties, about three packets of crisps healthier and saving in a different slot.
"Well that was fun, let's try and do it properly!" I thought and hit the quickload key.
It was at this point I discovered two important things about SS2 - firstly, when you enter a new map it overwrites the quicksave (leaving me just past the gun turrents with no health to speak of) and two, the weapons repair skill is pretty much vital.
A couple of attempts to run back out past the gun turrets convinced me that I was actually in a better position half-dead and stranded up in the cargo stack, so I erased the quicksave and tried to escape.  This was when the laser gun broke down.

I was still pretty early in the game so I just hadn't had the need to teach myself the weapons repair skill.  I did just about have enough ability to maintain it, but not repair it and besides I was out of tools anyway.
I'm not quite sure how I managed to recover from this now.  I think I managed to obtain an auto-repair device from somewhere in the cargo bay, which I was then able to restore enough functionality in the gun to allow me to make a break for it.  There is a resurrection machine in one of the cargo bays - reaching that would have allowed me to survive long enough to find medical kits and suchlike to patch myself up for an escape run past the turrets.

[Sid]

...isn't the Cargo area also the spot that has these C3PO-ish diplomat suicide droids in large quantities?

My fav moments most likely come from Deus Ex 1. First one being the escape from the facility you end up in after you get captured, the second one (if I recall correctly) being the scene where you exit some sort of underground complex while being chased by That Other Bionic Dude (who apparently is either invulnerable or just ridiculously strong at that point).
The first one especially since it once again lets you decide how you want to weasel your way out of the complex. My approach is usually "Start with stealth, use LAMs and the sniper rifle once you get bored."

My least fav moments are in Metroid Prime Hunters. For example:
Having to backtrack through an entire level. Within 5 or so minutes. And (if I recall correctly) having to go through a short ball-mode maze. After a boss fight. AND encountering THREE Hunters on the way (including the sniper AND the one that can split up). I tried it twice and then went back to Mario Kart and later on to New Super Mario Bros. But I swear. One day, those *bleep*ers are going down! *shakes fist*

[Tapewolf]

...isn't the Cargo area also the spot that has these C3PO-ish diplomat suicide droids in large quantities?

Yes, although I seem to recall that it varies from bay to bay.  I can't quite remember which one I was trapped in now, it might have been the one with the welding robot.  Either way, that feeling of terror and helplessness is one of my fondest memories of that game.

My fav moments most likely come from Deus Ex 1. First one being the escape from the facility you end up in after you get captured

I skipped that one because it's scripted.  I am currently working through DE again, and I have a few more evil secrets to add to my collection, like paying for entry into the nightclub with a dead MJ12 trooper.  I'll detail my current favourite later.

The second one (if I recall correctly) being the scene where you exit some sort of underground complex while being chased by That Other Bionic Dude (who apparently is either invulnerable or just ridiculously strong at that point).

Walton Simons chasing you out of the Ocean Lab?  That sounds about right.  Especially if you can get him to start drowning - watching him flail around in the water is quite amusing.  Fortunately, unlike in RTCW, only JC can climb ladders :twisted

My most recent escape in DE was when my brother and I decided to escape from the entrance to the catacombs in Paris.  The location is protected by a force barrier to prevent you jumping over the gates, but it only extends so high.
At his suggestion, I climbed up the wall onto the roof of the house using LAMs (i.e. high explosives - this was extremely difficult) and jumped off, sailing over the wall using Class IV Legs to cushion the blow.  Then it was a matter of running like heck from the 'decorative' military robot.
Most of the houses are mock-ups of course, but the skyscraper you get airdropped onto is quite interesting.  If you walk up to it, you suddenly explode for no satisfactorily explained reason. 

[Sid]

The second one (if I recall correctly) being the scene where you exit some sort of underground complex while being chased by That Other Bionic Dude (who apparently is either invulnerable or just ridiculously strong at that point).

Walton Simons chasing you out of the Ocean Lab?  That sounds about right.  Especially if you can get him to start drowning - watching him flail around in the water is quite amusing.  Fortunately, unlike in RTCW, only JC can climb ladders :twisted

Yes, I think that's just the one. It's been eons since I last played the game. Deus Ex is by far my favorite game in terms of AI-WTFs, anyway. I don't think there is another game where guards seriously say "Eh, I guess it was nothing..." while standing next to their dead/exploded/unconscious/burning buddy.

My most recent escape in DE was when my brother and I decided to escape from the entrance to the catacombs in Paris.  The location is protected by a force barrier to prevent you jumping over the gates, but it only extends so high.
At his suggestion, I climbed up the wall onto the roof of the house using LAMs (i.e. high explosives - this was extremely difficult) and jumped off, sailing over the wall using Class IV Legs to cushion the blow.  Then it was a matter of running like heck from the 'decorative' military robot.
Most of the houses are mock-ups of course, but the skyscraper you get airdropped onto is quite interesting.  If you walk up to it, you suddenly explode for no satisfactorily explained reason. 

I played DE before I developed my "Hey, let's try to break the game/sequence" urges. Totally gotta try stuff like that later. And LAM-climbing is tons of fun! ...even though QuickSave really is one's best friend there.

[bill]

Oh dear lord. Grand Prix Legends is pretty much "Drifting - The Game", except that 4-wheel drifting in a 1967 Formula 1 car is insanely dangerous. I've had my share of drift overtakes, 4 wide overtakes, and sliding on the outside of Burenville to overtake several cars, and desprately trying to slow down before Malmady.

[Tapewolf]

Yes, I think that's just the one. It's been eons since I last played the game. Deus Ex is by far my favorite game in terms of AI-WTFs, anyway. I don't think there is another game where guards seriously say "Eh, I guess it was nothing..." while standing next to their dead/exploded/unconscious/burning buddy.

Yes.  I had so much difficulty trying to get the guards to notice when I threw their colleague's stiff down on top of them.  Thief 2 really seems to have got that down pat.

I played DE before I developed my "Hey, let's try to break the game/sequence" urges. Totally gotta try stuff like that later. And LAM-climbing is tons of fun! ...even though QuickSave really is one's best friend there.

Tell me about it.  My brother and I were climbing the statue of liberty the other day.  I accidentally removed the gas grenade he was standing on.    A very bad business, that.

For AI mess-ups there's Akbaa at the end of Arx.  In fact, it was probably one of my most amazing escapes.  I was there at the end of the game, having frittered away all my skill points on magic and technical skills, being totally and irreparably unprepared for non-magical combat.  Short of massacring the entire game population in the hopes of gaining enough skill points to raise my power level 'cubi-style, I was utterly buggered.
Desperate times call for desperate measures and I discovered that Akbaa couldn't see you if you ran up the wall and sat there.
In fact he doesn't know what to do and just floats around, allowing you to pick him off with arrows.  Which is how I won the game

The other good lets-crash-the-AI game was worms.  I had a long-running series where I pitted my team, from star trek, against the computer's highly intelligent Genesis team, lead by the evil Peter Gabriel.  I can't remember what the initials in the team ranking stand for now, but the Trekkies never lost.  Sometimes it was a draw, but they never, ever lost.  After about 25 matches I decided to quit while I was ahead and began pitting 'Top Gods' against Emerson, Lake, Palmer and Noone (Ian: "You used a band with ONLY THREE PEOPLE IN IT!?!").

Anyway.  The computer on HIGH is a formidable opponent, so to prevent a dreaded loss of the game, I took to cheating.  The game would generally follow this course:
1. Play normally until the computer trounces you
2. You are left with one sole surviving worm buried away inside a mountain. The computer has three of its worms left alive.
3. Blow away as many of the computer's worms as you can with airstrikes
4. When you have only one or two enemies alive, e.g. Gabriel and Hackett, wait for them to enter a dip in the landscape and create a girder over their heads, trapping them.  This will totally banjax the AI - they tend to move very slightly before skipping turns.  IF they teleport, keep doing it until they can't.
5. With the enemy worms confused, wait until Sudden Death mode comes on, then drill your way up to meet them with the Uzi or shotgun.  It can be used both for mining and to deal the killing blow.

And that's it basically - I generally consider it a last resort, but it's saved my ass on so many times I've lost count

[bill]

Not actually sure if this is a "Great escape", but it's the moment in online gaming that I'm most proud with.


Game - CounterStrike 1.6
Map - De_Dust (ff enabled)


The round looked to be going well for us at first. At the site, the Ts made a pathetic 2-person rush, with the bomb carrier. We disposed of them with no casualties. However, we fractured up. And, eventually, the Ts broke through on the underpass, and the tunnel. To cut to the chase, it was me, cooped up in the bombsite, against 9 terrorists with 1:30 remaining. I did have four things going for me, though.

• First, the bomb was at the bombsite. If it wasnt, the Ts could have just planted at the spawn site, completely ignoring me.
• Second, the bombsite is not that bad of a position to defend. There are two entrances, both visible at once.
• Third, I had an AUG as a weapon. The shortscope makes it great to defend areas with.
• Finally, "One More Red Nightmare" was playing on the speakers. Musical motivation FTW.

This was a public server, so I knew that I really didn't have to worry about a coordinated assault. However, the Ts came in in quicker fashion than I would have liked. Still, I managed to get 4 or 5 of them. However, there were still a few left, and they likely had gotten wise. If the server allowed flashbangs, I likely wouldn't have made it. The Ts came in, 2 from the double doors, and 2 under the arch. Suffice to say, I got them all. I got a hearty round of chatspeak commandations from that round.

[Drake Manaweilder]

not exactly an escape per-se but there was this one time I was facing Sephiroth in KH II on proud mode...

Okay, I managed to get Sephy down to his last 4 bars of health, (the point where he basicly gets incredabally pissed off) and i had just used the last of my healing items, and i was running low on HP so I took a risk and cast curera on my self (sucking up my remaining MP) i say to my self: "okay, just don't get hit untill your MP recharges" (on proud mode Sephy devastates you in one hit)

He lands his most powerful hit on me 3 seconds after i say that.
I have 1 hp left, 4 bars to go, no magic, no items, and he begins to launch fire balls with 10ft explosion radius at me.

So, i'm jumping like a fricken' jackrabbit for what felt like hours panicking and willing my MP to charge faster, when he finally stops his spell casting, and starts  flying at me, 12ft sword raised.

my mp re-charged i jumped, avoiding the slash and healing my self.
I went on to defeat him, but that was the most intence battle I've ever had in a game.
(i'm shure that other Kingdom Hearts II players are familliar with this situtation as well)