Buying new graphics controllers and installing them back when PCs were monochrome through to CGA, EGA, VGA, XGA etc.
Light guns in the 80s with the family, then duck hunt.
Donkey Kong game and watch in the back of the car on long ass road trips...and swapping out batteries to be able to keep playing.
Best mate from down the street and we both had a NES, going at Ice Hockey and SMB after school. Zelda solo and making hand drawn maps.
Highschool sleepover for a bunch of boys back in the SNES days and a newly released Street Fighter II pulling an all nighter with winner stays on. I still remember my mate Ryan and I were just going through all the characters seeing who was better at each and then the sun rise hitting our eyes through the window. SFII in the arcade holds an equal crown as my favourite gaming moment.
Building my high school's 2 computer rooms worth of PCs and networking on coax while configuring games for kids to play at lunch or when their work was done in class. Also having a backdoor with all sorts of access, my teacher knew and was cool with me.
LAN party weekends with my stupidly large CAD grade monitor back in the 90s. Lugging that around was worth it though. All back on coax days too. People would sleep at their desk, know no one there but still scratch and claw to get a place to BYOD and play.
4 player coop N64 with my flatmates and friends of that era, a couple of us worked in a PC/gaming store back then and had access to any PC or Nintendo game. Often nights before retail release too. Mario Kart, Mario Party, Diddy Kong Racing were just on fun fun fun and competitive competitive. Guys and girls all wanted in on the action. Fucking awesome splitscreen couch action.
Holding out for my first Halo 3 ranked 50 as I wanted it in objective first. I had teetered between 49 and 48 for a long time. It finally ticked over and I recall that sense of achievement today still. The other 50s fell later in the following days rapidly.
Halo/gaming LAN parties at my place annually, COVID has slowed that but we'll return this year. The first Halo buddies IRL meeting of that original 7 of us who only knew each other online in Halo was something else, we've expanded and shrunk over the years. Shooting each of them at paintball as we mix that in for our LAN weekend. Now I think of it, getting a "Halo assassination" on Curse during paintball in an open field with me in the one bush surrounded by an advancing enemy team he was on.
MS force feedback wheel and F1 racing on PC back in the day. That wheel was freaking awesome and had real fight to it.
The look on my son's face and half a dozen of his mates sleeping over for them to challenge me to 1v1s in Apex (firing range setups) and just falling to me one after one. The repeat performance and full blast mode in any Halo of their choosing and 1v2s to just hand them their asses still. A couple of his mates are better than me now at Apex but none better at Halo. Still a crowning gaming dad moment I'll cherish.
That Halo 2 cliff-hanger, motherfucker.
Destiny Vault of Glass, amazing to experience with a solid crew going in blind for days/weeks to work through RAIDs. Hats off to Bungie.
My Nana at 95 years old playing Wii bowling and getting 3 strikes in a row on her first go around. She stopped playing and her quote to the family was "I have achieved it all, I have nothing else to prove". What a lady. Schooling us in gaming at 95.
My son taking out a $200 headset prize in a Fortnite tournament after making 3 runs at it over a weekend event with 20,000+ attendees there for various games.
Playing It Takes Two with my wife and daughter, rotating our trio through a 2 player coop game was hella fun. Family CTR racing is a blast. Rayman Legends as a family is truly amazing.
The Nintendo minis, those little machines brought back my childhood to reexperience through my kids. Those games just hold up with kids today even against current gen stuff. Nintendo hold a very special place in gaming.