I am entering in the contest.

Oh boy, where should I begin? Halo series has meant the most to me growing up gaming. Combat Evolved was the first mature rated FPS game I got my hands on. I remember getting the first starting weapon being the Magnum from Keyes, being able to fire away at my first enemies of the game that were grunts, then exclaiming "oo-rah!" from escaping The Pillar of Autumn via escape pod and man oh man was I in for an unforgettable experience! Literally the rest becomes history...

So flash forward & my proudest gaming moment had to be around the time when Halo 3 was still early in the Xbox 360 life cycle. I end up completing the Halo 3 campain solo on legendary difficulty after I got to experience the story the first time on, shall I say, a more laid back adventure difficulty. It was frustratingly hard, even for kid me growing up who could lose their temper like *snap* that, but I did it. Going through that last home run stretch in the warthog as Master Chief with Arbiter never felt so amazing. To this day, everytime I go back to playing Halo: The Master Chief Collection on PC with my buddies, I always reminisce my Halo 3 experience.

I wish everyone an awesome weekend and good luck to all other participants too! Love this community so much! <3

My proudest moment in gaming was undoubtedly completing DROD3, 100%, all by myself.
DROD is (imo) the apex of puzzle gaming, and DROD 3 is probably the hardest of the lot.
Believe me, completing all of the puzzle room is much, much harder than you'd expect - unless you have alreayd played the game, of course, then you know for sure!

My proudest gaming moment was playing through and finally finishing Challenge Mode for Ratchet & Clank Going Commando. I thought it would be easy since the game told me I was carrying all my stuff from the original save but noooooooooooope. The enemies got spongier, I got squishier, and it was all around really hard for me as a kid. But I stuck with it. I actually had to plan ahead and think what weapon would be best for the situation. I had to learn how to not get hit to maximize the bolt multiplier and earn enough money for the mega versions of weapons. It was the game where I learned how to strafe and, by extension, circle strafe. All the skills I learned led up to me earning enough bolts to finally buy one of the two super weapons of the game... The Zodiac. And after getting buyer's remorse due to how underwhelming it was, I earned enough to buy the RYNO II, which is just cool and awesomeness combined. Suffering through the early hours of Challenge Mode, and plowing through the final level with the RYNO II together with the skills and weapons I earned was the most amazing feeling. Finally facing the Protopet in the end, and gunning it down with everything I had was the first time I screamed at winning a video game, that my mom actually scolded me for that. Playing through Challenge Mode really gave me an appreciation for the game, to learn about the tools of destruction I had. I used to hate the Lava Gun as it wasn't a machine gun like the Heavy Lancer, but when I thought of spinning around while firing my mind was blown away at how effective the weapon was. (Then got really confused when it evolved into a projectile weapon? What???)

I have had so many awesome gaming moments over the years, but I think I never would've had those without finishing Going Commando in Challenge Mode. I have had to master the mechanics, the weapons, everything the game had, and beating that blue rat at the end is so euphoric. I will always remember and cherish this moment forever.

beating horsez 2 blindfolded without deaths

Finishing Ocarina of time as a kid and literally feeling like I'd finally saved the world.

learning how to play mahjong to get 100% completion in yakuza

FF10 - chocobo racing, lightning, blitzball, butterflies, and beating Dark Shiva legitimately. I couldn't stomach any more grinding and am still burned out from Spira that I haven't returned to 10-2 yet.

Showing my age a bit here, but proudest gaming moment by far is getting to Dangerous rank in the original Elite on my Acorn Electron!

For ranks Dangerous, Deadly, and Elite you could send in a redemption card with a photo of your rank (on the TV screen!) as proof, and Acornsoft (the publishers back then) posted you a pin badge with the rank on it.

So I ended up with a badge saying Elite - Dangerous on it which coincidentally is the name of the latest iteration of the game.

Still have the original badge too (somewhere)! :)

ps. you can tell I still like Elite from my Avatar!

My proudest moment was when my mother challenged me to drive like a normal, civilized person in GTA 5 after seeing me killing everyone at every turn. She told me to drive without killing anyone for an hour. I did it.
I'M SOMTHING OF A CIVILIZED MYSELF

On PS1: Saving all Mudokons in Abe's Oddysee (99) and Exoddus (300) without getting insane.

My proudest moment by far was seeing people play and actually enjoy the mod I helped to make for Unreal Tournament 2003/4. Good times. :)

Summer vacations with a junk of a PC at a subpar condo by the beach... I don't know how, but someone had provided me with a Flight of the Amazon Queen copy, which was something of an obscure game (we're talking pre-gog days). I had no walkthrough, and definitely no internet access, available. I loved adventure games due to their stories and 'slow' gameplay but I had never beaten one without a friend's tip or a walkthrough. I actually did it. I could still taste the salt in my mouth (no bathtime until I had progressed at least two puzzles) when I beat it, and I was really proud of myself for finally beating a 'thinking man's genre of videogame' (don't laugh, that's how kids think). From then on, I beat many adventure games without a walkthrough, but I'll always remember my first. As for Flight of the Amazon Queen, ScummVM emerged and the game became freeware, allowing me free access to one of my childhood memories (It is also provided by GOG for free, so any Lucasarts fan reading this, check the game out).

My proudest gaming moment has to be reaching the end of all the main Rayman games (1 to 3) and beating their marathons and final bosses when I was younger.

In 1995, long before Dark Souls and Cuphead set the mainstream bar for difficult games, Rayman 1 was released by a French company called Ubi Soft, and it combined gorgeous fully animated cartoon graphics with a hard as nails difficulty.

The game's main antagonist is only meetable after you reach 100% completion over 30 levels, and even then, you have to pass a 3 level marathon and a remixed rematch with all of the game's previous antagonists.

Rayman 2 has more than 20 huge levels, and its final boss combines the game's two biggest marathons with a full fight that takes place through the machinery of his fortress while riding a rocket. The entire level allows few mistakes, especially during the last segment that sees you escaping at full speed from a self destructing ship.

Rayman 3 keeps the theme going with a huge tower that houses various challenges and a boss fight that takes place across 3 consecutive phases that must be replayed if you lose at a given point. Extra points for the really unique soundtrack that plays during the encounters.

Playing and completing all three of these games at an early age was definitely a challenge, but a welcome one, and one that took several tries and restrategizing every time the developers threw a new type of obstacle.

Hopefully, Rayman 4 is a possibility one of these days? Especially with Cuphead and Rayman Legends being popular.

All the best GOG, and many thanks for these amazing contests and sales. I love your model of enhancing and bringing old games back into the fold.

Best recent memory was beating Doom 2016. That final boss fight is a long one. I'd especially love to win a copy of Kingmaker.

Thank you for the contest!

As a kid I loved point-and-click adventures (I still do). Most of the games I had on my first PC were adventure games. Unfortunately, I was never able to finish some of my favorites. Getting stuck in a puzzle during the pre-Internet era without a walkthrough to look for a hint, having an untrustworthy PC with a tendency to overheat and more than once lose everything in my hard disk, and eventually shifting to other interests, meant that I didn't know how gems like Monkey Island 2, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis or Simon the Sorcerer ended. I never abandoned them entirely, and nowadays I know that I was on the verge of reaching the end more than once, but as I grew up they slowly became a memory of good times but also a regret that I hadn't lived the full experience.

Fast forward to 2017 and I got into gaming again. I started buying on GOG these old games from my childhood, and all of a sudden I had a second chance to go back to the adventures that remained unfinished in my personal story. And one after the other, I started replaying and eventually finishing all of them. It was like settling a debt with myself, while also feeling overjoyed each and every time I closed a chapter of my book of unfinished business. So, my proudest gaming moment is finishing some of my childhood favorite games during the second life they had during my adulthood.