WoW probably holds the most cases of this for me.

World PvP was one front. Early on, just winning fights felt good. Then, as I got better, it felt more normal when it was an advantageous matchup for me. But the peak for me was during TBC, I was leveling my rogue and a hunter jumped me as I was mining. This was pretty much a worse case scenario, especially because the hunter was lvl 70 (max at the time) and I was still something like lvl 65. But even at the same level, a) a hunter is a natural counter for a rogue, and b) I was mining so I didn't even get the stealth advantage.

So there was a lot of dopamine when I ended up getting to finish mining that node and the hunter had to walk back to his corpse after I beat him anyways.

Also a lot of dopamine from finally beating raid bosses that my guild had been stuck on for a long time. Vael in BWL was the peak for that one IIRC.

Red dead redemption 2 really made me feel thankful for experiencing the story. It was a different kind of joy but it was very sad too.

Staying up all night playing GoldenEye.

Life is Strange, with the final decision of Bae vs Bay. It made me quit the game for two days before I came back and decided (Bae forever). I love a good, story-impactful decision. That might be weird in this context, but it was so great, and that enjoyment came entirely from the game.

Rock Band 2. Bladder of Steel achievement playing with a full band of 4 (locally).

It's playing the entire setlist of 84 or so songs all the way through in one sitting. Without pausing or failing.

We did it with all instruments on Medium, but we did it! (I could pass anything on Expert, but maybe not all the way through. My friends were borderline Hard players at best, so Medium was the only way we'd ever be able to do it together)

Dialing in to a local BBS to play 4-player deathmatch DooM 2, circa 1995.

A few years back, testing out new zombie infection game mode in indie VR FPS, 12 of us on the server including the dev. I'm last man standing, everyone else is infected, making scary zombie noises as I pick them off with my trusty bow and arrow. I eventually succumb to the inevitable and get piled on, they're all too distracted making brain eating noises to notice the martyrdom grenade fall to the floor...

That was peak gaming for me.

Getting to the top of the mountain in Celeste. It may not be the hardest challenge in the game (screw you Farewell), but just arriving there with the soundtrack swelling felt so good.

Completing the golden path in Tunic.

Any number of silly things in FFXI that at the time probably felt immensely important.

As a millennial, I'm probably not alone when I write Red Alert, Atlantis, Diablo and Fallout 2 on a computer without internet connection. Also endless demos from PC Gamer CDs.

The more unusual game I want to add is Warlords 3. Got it as a Christmas gift from my cousins boyfriend (he was maybe 20 years older than me). Probably because he wanted someone he could play shared screen PvP with. Spent a lot of time with that game. The same guy also gave me a pirate copy of Diablo. I should probably give him a call today and thank him.

Also playing Tibia on a 33k dial up connection was special. A very laggy and expensive experience. Always afraid that mom would just turn off the connection because she had to make a phone call. And the true horror I felt when I encountered another player or a new monster deep within an unexplored dungeon. I didn't like WoW when it came out. Probably because of emotional bluntedness that free PvP in combination with gear + xp loss causes.

And I'm still chasing the dragon.

24 hour Civ 5 marathon with beer and the boys in my college days.

Playing Halo co-op with my wife.

Meeting my wife on Elder Scrolls Online has got to be number one, but we didn't even play the game very long to be honest lol.

I don't know if these are the most joy but some good memories.

When I first saw Mario 64 in Toys R Us I was awestruck. Just unbelievable. Mario in 3D.

When I was playing Ocarina of Time I was hunting Poes in Hyrule field on Epona. I fell asleep because it was late. When I woke up the game was still running. Nothing overheated. Nothing killed me in game. No loud jarring noises. I wasnt late for anything. I just woke up and started hunting Poes again.

A friend and I were staying up late playing one of the early Kings Quest games where you can dial a 900 number to help you if you got stuck. This was back when save points were maybe once every 10 minutes if you're lucky. We had gotten to a really verbose riddle that we were supposed to have found a clue for earlier in the game but missed it. We just figured out the riddle and guessed it on the first try. It was an unbelievable triumph.

KOTOR. just existing in a Star Wars world and becoming a Jedi. really have no idea why we can't have another Jedi RPG, do you not like money Disney?

Clutch team killing in Rainbow Six Siege. A rare occurrence but so much adrenaline.

Hillcrest in The Last of Us 2. Never have I had so much fun trapping and hunting people down. It really brings out the psycho killer energy.

I don't know if that's count, but I spent one Summer almost every night playing on an almost dead private WoW-Server with my Brother and my best Friend. Since we were only 3 People and the Server was almost empty, it felt like we had the whole World for us. This was such a fun time back then......

I was in the military and we had this big conference table that could fit a good 12 people at. About once a month our boss would give us the key for the weekend and we'd play Unreal Tournament, Quake 3, and Red Alert 2 for 12-18 hours straight while pounding back Mountain Dew Code Red.

Probably back on dota1 before matchmaking and meta and all that crap, you could play any hero in any role on any lane and everyone was mostly just having fun

Actually learning to fight effectively in kingdom come deliverance.

Or maybe beating those swarm motherfuckers in the first homeworld... First 2 examples that come to mind.

Ace Combat 4 and 5 both made me feel awesome, then sad, then vengeful, and then awesome in their campaigns. They start as casual arcade styles, throw in some grief, grow the antagonists' justification, then the skies start speaking Latin and you systematically destroy some megabase. I was fairly young, so now sad Spanish guitar riffs cause me grief when thinking about Yellow 4 and 13. Is that joy? The memory of a fairly casual arcade game weaving in a heartfelt tragic war story?

At risk of making this my only personality trait, Far Cry 2's desert at night was a treat for me. I seek out similar experiences in real life now. It didn't necessarily create that desire, but it was my first open world game, if I remember correctly. It didn't make me jump for joy, it just made me feel serene.

I'm sure it was driven by the memes, but Portal 1 gave me a great sense of accomplishment. It was mild reaction skill with some decent logic puzzles. The build up, the turn, the fight, the final song. Quite a trip.

Overall most joy might go to Forza Horizon 1. First open world Forza title, first (for me?) open world racing game with decent driving mechanics, excellent variety of cars, hit me at my peak interest in house music and other EDM, showed me Colorado scenery I'd see IRL 10 years later, and the campaign was focused around the Woodstock of a [cars X EDM] festival. I wish that was real and I wish the scene would be respectful. But, unfortunately, you can't control 300 drivers and prevent them from one-upping each other and making it dangerous and disrespectful. And you gotta pay for parking everywhere nice. See: h2o, ocean city Maryland.

Mass Effect, almost certainly with plenty of honourable mentions to other games.

Peak is the Dramatic Scene at the end of ME1 after the final boss. Really really moved by events on Tuchunka and Rannoch.

Favourite moment outside Mass Effect, JC Denton saying "You're gonna burn, alright"

Far cry 2 team Deathmatch first team to 100 kills win on clearcut.

I got 55 of the required kills and was banned from using the 50cal sniper on all future games.

Once when I was 8, a friend brought over his PS1 and Metal Gear Solid. We played pranks on the guards in the zone that has a bathroom using claymores and Nikita missiles and called snake the Toilet Stalker. Peak 8 year old humor, I couldn't breathe from laughing.

Another in High school, visited my older sister in the dorms and the boy floors were having a massive halo Lan party since all the rooms were connected. I had never played a console shooter before but the guys were really welcoming and wanted me to join anyways. One match came down to a 1v1 with me and one of the good players, I almost got him with the sniper but lost. I wasn't too bummed but afterwards everyone on the floor cheered me up. I stomped the same guy later that night in warcraft 3 and that one felt good.

Hard to say what’s the absolute best one, but some highlights:

Finale of Ace Attorney Justice for All; when you finally have the change in circumstances needed to pin the real killer and send them into a genuine panic.

Pizza Tower, final boss third phase: When Peppino sees that Pizza Face is sending him a Boss Rush, and flips his shit, annihilating each boss at lightning speed.

Ghost Trick, Phantom Detective: The final “4 minutes before death”, and multiple last revelations

Most of these are memories of story-driven moments nailed in by very solid soundtracks, which has very much convinced me how important music is to these games.

Passing the controller around the room playing God of War 3 on Wednesday nights.

I was probably 10 when my best friend (at the time) and I would play Super Contra on the NES for hours. We loved everything about it. We'd get as far as we could. We'd give each other lives. We could sing the soundtrack. When it was game over, we just restarted it.

Those days were simple and beautiful. I don't think another game could give me anything like that experience, since it wasn't really entirely about the game.

Vermintide 2 dlc where Saltzpyre gets a piglet as a hat. Best goddamn $5 I've ever spent on dlc. His little legs and his butt wiggle around when you move and ofc the purity seals are on point.

Also way back in DCUO when fire tank was busted AF I kept summoning fireballs that I would then Chuck into my buddy trying his best to actually complete whatever task we were doing.

Also Also max difficulty helldivers 2 against the robots on Mavelon Creek. It was a struggle to survive more than 10 seconds out of the drop pod and it was some of the funniest shit I've ever played.

Okami. That game was an absolute joy to play and the visuals and music were beautiful. My wife even mentioned that I seemed calmer and relaxed while playing it.

One day a couple of months after World of Warcraft Burning Crusade came out I was woken up by my friends playing the game. I had left on either Teamspeak or Ventrilo the night before and about 3-4 friends jumped on the following morning. I signed on soon after that and played for hours.

I think that's the last time I've been woken up by people whom I like and immediately began the day with a group activity that involved joy.

I once stole 20 billion Isk from a guy in Eve Online. I was hard for days.

Finishing Mass Effect 3. Multiple times :)

Smashing and being smashed with my mates at worms with couch-coop

Multiplayer halo 2 across the LAN in my house

LAN party instagib ctf 1 hour 0-0 and winning it in overtime

Rocking a battlefield 2/3/4 server online with a squad of mates all using voice comms, and nobody playing a sniper

I love gaming

The Second Dream quest from Warframe

Kerbal Space Program: progression from being unable to get a rocket into orbit, to collecting a surface sample from all 5 of Jool's moons in a single launch

• Getting to the final boss of persona 3 as my first SMT game, feeling actually scared irl, fighting it for over an hour and then getting wiped out when it had zero pixels of hp bar left. The party AI was sabotaging me and I was coming up with new strategies in real time to counteract it, it was great
• The final dungeon of FFIV-2 (yes I agree most of the game is shit). I had to finish it in one night because it was the end of spring break and I was driving back to college the next day. My real world scheduling was good but I didn't plan for it to be the longest final dungeon in FF history. Luckily this was the best part of the game and I played for 12 hours until sunrise, delirious while taking down the final boss and getting to see the credits roll.

You haven't experienced true joy until you and your best friend chainsaw the same locust in Gears of War at the exact second the chorus of "Lavatory Love Machine" by Edguy starts (2 minute mark here: https://youtu.be/-y3CMlvrkN0?si=_rAHP6KoXgeYwV-k).

Rank, taking out 2 full teams while my dead teammates watched and cheered. With health that even a sneezed would kill me.

My hands were shaking and my heart rate high AF, fucking diamond Apex.