Your most intense gaming experiences

[Gamerforlife]

The most recent example for me would be the final duel against Ganondorf in Twilight Princess, there were no real tricks to beating him but just how skilled you were with your swordplay. There are a few more examples of stuff like this I remember...
Resident Evil 4 - Avoiding Salazar's bodyguard while waiting for the elevator to arrive, he is a total bitch.
Super Mario Bros. Lost Levels - The entire game was like this.
Street Fighter games - Anytime I had to face Akuma, actually 3rd Strike not so much but the Alpha games and Super Turbo this is true.
Megaman 2 - Navigating through that one part of Quickman's stage with all of the forcefield things closing up above you, any one of which means an instant death.

Ah, you fought Salazar's bodyguard the RIGHT way. I have to give you props, I never had the nerve for it. I always just bought a rocket launcher from the merchant beforehand, froze Salazar's bodyguard and blew him to bits. It's almost like cheating really, but it works.

Ahh so many moents like those ,but the first one that springs to my mind ( seeing as I'm a huge MGS nut) is the fight against The BOSS at the end of MGS 3, tense as hell hiding and waiting for that bitch to drop her gaurd. Loved every second of it

I never played MGS 3, but the fights against Sniper Wolf and the final chase sequence with Liquid Snake in the first one were intense. I loved Sniper Wolf by the way, my fave character from that game.

Here's three more from me:

Level 4 of Panzer Dragoon Orta
It's like a crazy rollercoaster of a level, with constantly shifting camera angles, bullets, enemies and massive warships everywhere, and TWO boss battles at the end. I tried getting an S rank and 100% shot down ratio on this stage and I can't count how many times I almost thew my controller to the floor. I think this was the most intense, cinematic and action packed level in the game.

Zone of the Enders 2
Pretty much the whole game is intense. One stage has you fighting a boss in the dark, with your only way of detecting his movements being the directions of your onboard computer that you must VERY quickly react to. Another awesome stage has you taking part in a HUGE battle between two armies. You have to race back and forth across the battlefield and employ your best attacks to keep your army from being slaughtered. Another level has you chasing down a train and having to destroy it(while fighting off enemies) before time runs out. This is just an awesome epic game.

Final Fantasy 12-Yiazmat
I know some people hate this game, but it has its moments. This is an optional boss fight that is not only very difficult, but literally takes HOURS to defeat. This isn't the only optional boss in the game that can take more than an hour to defeat. This is the levels of insanity that this game can reach for those who want to say that they truly, "beat the game".

Since we mentioned RTS games, there's some insane levels in Star Craft: Brood Wars. The army always starts out with more bases and enemy units than you, and they constantly attack you while you're struggling to build up your meager forces while also finding some way to fend off those attacks.

[tHePhAnToM!??!]

i was going to post some of the games but you guys already said them.
Fighting Anubis in ZOE2 was just.....i felt like i had to do it or else.
As for the Boss in MGS3- definitely a good one.
I really enjoyed fighting the last boss in Shadow of the Colossus.
It was really intense because of the fact that you saw how weathered his body was but he kept on going for the woman he loved.

[fastbilly1]

The first time I played Aliens vs Predator Gold, I choose human - stupid me.

Several tournaments have been harrowing and brought a cold sweat down my body, several UT2k3 and TFC tournaments come to mind right off the bat. Something about avanti and doing a double conc between two heavies to the third capture point does that.

[Daniel Primed]

I too have imersed my controller in much sweet with the playing on Resident Evil 4. Ah yes, good times.

The sweat has been gushing out over SF Alpha 3 which I have been playing quite a bit of recently.

As for other titles, yeah there are piles of games. I think that generally it is your more intense games like you fighters an FPS titles that really get your palms sweaty.

[ImportBoy]

I very much recall the final fight in Shenmue II (DC version; against that big fat guy) - and having to pull off a couple very hard QTEs after you defeated him in combat. If you missed any of the QTEs you had to start the fight all over again.

[Mozgus]

I very much recall the final fight in Shenmue II (DC version; against that big fat guy) - and having to pull off a couple very hard QTEs after you defeated him in combat. If you missed any of the QTEs you had to start the fight all over again.

That was right at the end of disc 3 right? Didn't you face the fat guy multiple times before and failed miserably? Yeah it was epic.

[The Apprentice]

Beating Sigma for the first time in Megaman X.

[emilles]

First time through the last act in Ninja Gaiden for the NES was one of the biggest challenges from my early years. That was the first game that ever caused me to throw the controller across the room--it hit one of my sister's statuettes and broke it; I never admitted to doing it. When I finally beat the game I felt a real sense of accomplishment. Very few games have delivered the same feeling since.

Battletoads for the NES is just plain difficult throughout. Doing the speed bike stage with two players is not cool. Both have to execute perfectly; if one screws up, both have to go back to the check point. No fair!

The Floyd stages on Jet Force Gemini were tense. You had to be so precise in your flying pattern to get the gold medals. I remember doing those stages over and over. When I finally got the medal I was very pleased.

License tests in Gran Turismo 1 were very strict, especially the international license. I remember racing those over and over as well. If I made a major error, I would just start over cause I knew I wouldn't make it in time. But if I made a minor error, I had to keep racing because maybe it was small enough that I would still pass. Very tense trying to race without making any mistakes, most of which you could make during the real races and recover from based on the strength of your vehicle. But the license tests were setup with a stock vehicle and a very tight timeframe. Passing one was a major victory. To this day, there is one of the tests that I have not passed. My best time was one tenth of a second slow. The feeling I had after pulling off what I thought was a very successful lap only to be one tenth of a second slow can mildly be described as anger/frustruation.