Video games are great, that's why we're here! But some things about video games are greater than others. And so in the spirit of Eurogamer's Optimism Week - a chance to reflect on just how special the medium can be, at a time it isn't always easy to remember - we thought we'd switch tack; moving away from the big things, to the little things. Not the series we love, or the games we can't get enough of, but those strange, weird, little video gaming moments that, for us at least, spark joy. And, of course, we'd love to hear yours too in the comments below!

When there's a bug that makes all the ragdoll bodies in an area do a little jump

You know what I mean with this? I was playing a pre-release demo recently where a load of enemy bodies - let's say eight-ish - were lying around on the floor after I'd dealt with them. Some new enemies burst in, fired their weapons, and for some reason the impact of the minor weapon fire made all the ragdoll bodies in the area briefly hop up off the ground and floatily crumple back down again. A bit like when you're on a plane and it suddenly drops several feet mid-air and your stomach goes, except everyone's a defeated battle droid. Love when that happens. - Chris

Tossing a toilet at an enemy in Control

Control is one of my favourite games of all time. I love the storyline, all of the collectibles, the music and, most of all, being able to psychically toss a filing cabinet into an enemy's head. You know what's better than bashing someone to death with a filing cabinet though? Bashing them to death with a toilet. For some odd reason, Remedy didn't make it easy to actually get ahold of a toilet. Yet I promise, if you destroy a bathroom in just the right way (i.e. using Jessie's psychic powers to obliterate the wall around the toilet to disconnect it from the plumbing), you can indeed pick it up and lob it at a foe. - Lottie

Being able to use the toilet in-game

It's all about the little things, and having some quiet time on the toilet is one of them. Bonus points if you can interact with toilet roll or flush. - Kelsey

Weapons with fancy names

Who wants a Longsword +1 when you can have Blade of Serrated Nightmares instead? Better yet, what about a Blade of Serrated Nightmares that has a backstory as well? I cannot get enough of games that pay proper attention to the allure of weaponry. Obsidian did this really well in Avowed. Blizzard has always done it pretty well in its games. Bungie did it really well in Destiny. It makes weapons romantic; it makes them more than the stat-boosting collection of pixels they really are. - Bertie

When the food has its own glamour screen

You know what I mean. You sit with your pals at a campfire, or order a dish at a tavern. You browse the menu, then make your choice. The screen fades to black, and fades in on a steaming plate of the most incredible food you've ever seen. Like a Marks & Spencer advert. Your mouth waters as your characters are restored to full health. - Dom

Blocking projectiles with a sword

Does not, and will not ever, get old. Bonus points for magically reflecting them back at the aggressor. - Chris

Landing that combo you've practiced for ages in a real match

Spending a few hours labbing out a tricky combo can be hard, sometimes boring work. But seeing yourself pull it off in an actual match is such a rush; a real manifested example of work paying off. It's like if doing homework and handing it in resulted in fireworks being lit in the classroom. - Connor

Defenestration (and all forms of pushing people off and out of things)

Tactical Breach Wizards is the obvious example. But there's also the delightfully shunty Into the Breach, the 300 kick of Assassin's Creed Odyssey, the Force-lobbing of Star Wars Jedi, and the Force Unleashed games before it. A lot of this is just downstream of "systemic design", but that's besides the point. The power here is in the game-breaking instant defeat of your enemy. And in the fact it's fun to kick, throw, shove, and generally punt things around. - Chris

That Quake announcer's adulation

Unreal might have had this too, but it's the cinema-trailer-voiced announcer in Quake 3 I remember, probably because I played Quake the most out of the two series. You know the lines I mean: "Impressive" after hitting two railgun shots in a row, or "excellent" after killing two opponents in quick succession. Or, if you were on a particularly productive rampage, "Triple kill." Verbal pats on the back, that's what they were. And the best one of all? "Humiliation," when mauling an opponent with the starter melee weapon, the Gauntlet. - Bertie

Unspoken teamwork

When you’re playing an online multiplayer game, particularly FPS ones, there are moments of pure magic where the team pulls together and somehow knows what the plan or play is, without saying a single spoken word to one another, not even by using gestures. That moment where everyone is on the same page and it just works. - Marie

Gun with a torch

How often do you actually need to use the torch on a gun in Call of Duty or Battlefield or whatever? I'll tell you: not often at all. Completely pointless because we're not playing a survival horror game and everything's already lit perfectly, on purpose, because these games are for people who like and need to always be able to see where they're going. Fun to switch it on and off though. - Chris

Level-up 'dings'

They are like the church bells of video gaming success. I can still picture World of Warcraft's swirl of light and hear that little kettle bell drum roll. I still remember hitting level 60 for the first time. - Bertie

'Dings' of the powerwashing kind, specifically

I now get such a Pavlovian thrill whenever I finish hosing something to a sheen in PowerWash Simulator, I find myself actively, giddily anticipating that glorious cash-register 'ding' (and yes, it annoys me immensely when I've still got a bit left and it happens too soon). This has not made me enjoy washing things more in real life, however. - Matt

Every single sound effect in FTL: Faster Than Light

I don't know what it is, but something about FTL's sounds summons the most exquisite, agonising nostalgia in me. It's just a collection of utterly perfect sci-fi noises, the archetypal door swoosh and hyperspace beowww. Maybe it's because nostalgia to me is always a bit adjacent to loneliness - you put these idealised sounds with the deep isolation of loitering in space, the risk of falling fuelless amongst the stars, and oof. Nothing in video games like it. - Chris

Cut-scenes where it lets you wiggle the camera

If you, a video game, are absolutely going to insist I endure another of your ponderous cut-scenes, pretty much all will be forgiven if you do that thing where wiggling the control stick slightly jiggles the camera around. I haven't got a clue what sort of psychological need this is fulfilling, but give me the option and I will wiggle the ever-living crap out of your carefully staged cinematics. And I will love every minute. - Matt

Using much more powerful attacks than is necessary so I can feel big and strong

Sometimes it really is as simple as a power fantasy. Specifically the fantasy that I have so much power that I can annihilate you, filthy Gretchin, with the full force of an Orbital Bombardment. - Chris

Critical hits

I don't remember my first encounter with a critical hit. I guess it was in Secret of Mana on SNES? I'm pretty sure they were there. Then it was MMOs, where critical hits reigned - and probably still reign - supreme. But that moment when a normal damage number balloons: I can't get enough of it. I think it's something to do with feeling special, like I've broken the game in my favour somehow, and it's doing things it doesn't normally do. It's a way of injecting something extraordinary into ordinary combat. - Bertie

90s mascots raising their eyebrow and folding their arms

Maybe they also tap their foot impatiently, too? For all the graphical limitations of the past we really nailed the precise body language required to make a character say, "Heh…" without saying anything at all. A decade summarised in a single pose. - Chris

The smell of the inside of a new game box

Surely I can't be the only one that opened up the case of, say, Summoner 2 on the PS2 after picking it up from Forbidden World, and gave it a nasty ol' huff? Right? - Dom

Being prompted to follow an NPC, and being able to run past them

If there’s one thing I yearn for, it’s freedom. So, being made to walk behind a painfully slow NPC in a game makes me rattle at my cage like nothing else, even if it is perhaps important that I don’t stray from the task at hand. So whenever there’s an in-game 'follow' prompt, and I’m actually permitted to stray away from my guide, I rejoice. - Kelsey

Couch co-op

I tried to find something more specific to say about this but all my ideas sounded a bit mawkish. I think that's honestly because everything about couch co-op is great. It is impossible for it to be bad. Yes, even in Army of Two, and that Pirates of the Caribbean game-of-the-movie I made my friend play with me once. And not to get too Facebook Uncle about it but it's not in anywhere near enough video games these days and we should damn well make them bring it back! - Chris

Whenever FromSoftware hides an enemy behind a door

I have been playing FromSoftware's games for well over a decade. I am wise to its trolling. Yet somehow it still manages to get me with the old enemy-behind-the-door trick and I still find it hilarious, ragdolling into oblivion with a laugh and grin. - Matt

Football Manager bicycle kick

Sometimes you play so many matches in a row the world starts to fade into sludge. Then a little stick man turns on the spot with awkward video game animatronic magic and does a bicycle kick - a move so ludicrously not-normal to look at, so completely opposite to where a human should be at any moment, anywhere, let alone in this minute, wooden form - and you're alive once more, suddenly seeing in vivid colour. Everything'll be alright; this little guy just went upside down. - Chris

Gesturing to people in multiplayer games

Point; laugh. Point; dance. Sit down. Clap. Such simple pleasures; such quietly impactful connections. Bow. - Bertie

Glowing effects of rare drops

In games when you get something really rare, oftentimes they'll be glowing and super colourful. In games like Borderlands or RuneScape it blasts off the background and pops off the screen. Orange is the best colour, obviously. Though purple comes in a close second. - Connor

Secret shortcuts

Few things are more video games than a good, secret shortcut. I was raised on Crash Team Racing's hidden blastable doors and near-impossible jumps, but they all count. It's the surprise, of course, but also the pageantry of it, the stagecraft of a wall creaking open or a special jingle playing from off-screen. FromSoft is an inevitable example here, too. And I should probably say something about Mario? - Chris

A really great title screen

Sometimes you just know a game's going to be good - great, in fact - by its title screen. It's a quality that's hard to precisely define, but you can always spot them: they've had just a bit more love put into them, a bit more attention. And you know you're in for a treat when you see them for the first time. Fireproof Games' Ghost Town is the one that got me most recently, with its VR-ified South London car park; plopping you beneath a towering concrete council block as the rain lashes down, mist crawling across the litter-strewn tarmac at your feet, and a squelchy synth immediately setting the 80s mood. It's the ones that go a little bit harder in the spirit of the adventure to come, and I love 'em. - Matt

Reading a really, really good review of a really, really good game

A bit inside baseball this one but listen: you read a lot of stuff about games in this job, to the point where a lot of games writing can kind of wash over you. Then you get the perfect game with the perfect writer and this alchemy happens. The game is alive on the page, you're swept along with the writer as they go, and all the magic of what people are capable of making and capable of feeling is all mixed together into one, and you remember this stuff is all just a total privilege to be around. - Chris

The 'snap' when you connect the Joy-Cons to the Switch 2

It's such a satisfying sound. Like cracking your knuckles or a bone breaking. - Lottie

Hardcore games with fans who are just glad you're joining them

Obviously there are lots of examples of the opposite of this, but I stumbled onto a Holdfast: Nations at War roleplay server once and everyone seemed so genuinely glad to have me, I felt terrible when I found it all a bit much and had to leave. Games that do this are magic though, existing in their own little off-universe branch, with communities like Galapagos species that've taken a different fork in the evolutionary road because they never saw the outside world. Whenever I find one I can't help but poke my nose in for a bit. - Chris

Strategy units who are a bit grumpy with you

Company of Heroes 2 maybe did this the best, but there's a bit of it in the original Dawn of War, too. Any time my little guys start to audibly roll their eyes at me because I'm doing my best Grand old Duke of York impression and sending them up then back down then back up again is always a delight. - Chris

Monster Hunter's 'SoooooooOOooOoo TassSSSSty'

I still cannot believe Capcom thought taking this out of the series with Monster Hunter World was acceptable, but at least it eventually saw the error of its ways. - Matt

Thinking for a really long time without actually doing anything

There's a lot of immediate reward in video games because of the nature of them. But there are also lots that let you sit there staring at a fullscreen map or spreadsheet or whatever while you just think about what to do. I'm always delighted when a game gets me doing most of the playing in the mind. - Chris

The Halo headshop pop

Using the Magnum and taking down a Grunt in one headshot is one of the best feelings in the FPS genre, if not all of gaming. Turning on 'Grunt Birthday Party' makes it even better. If you know, you know. - Dom

Chokepoints

Hugely underutilised moments, these. Some examples: spearmen or pikemen on a bridge in a Total War game. The Into the Breach and Kasyr Lutien maps of Dawn of War. Most of Space Marine 2. The old Bespin map of the old Star Wars: Battlefront games and, more recently, the modern Star Wars Battlefront, too. Bad North was a smashing little indie all about it. Whenever a developer cracks whatever weird science is involved in calculating the exact distance a spawn point has to be from a chokepoint, the exact tempo of respawns, the exact number of respawns a team is allowed and the exact speed at which you can mow down Battle Droids or Tyranids or whatever - that person is great, and you should let them make more games. - Chris

Headbutting the irritating Egg Thieves

Na Na-Na Na Na-BAM. Satisfaction! - Marie

Active reload

I am someone who struggles to enjoy shooty games unless they're set in some fancifully offbeat world that particularly grabs me, so I did not expect to enjoy the very grey, very drab Gears of War 2. But I loved it! Partly because it's bloody ridiculous, with some outlandish, ridiculous turns that I think I might still count as some of my favourite-ever gaming set-pieces. But mostly I think it was because of Active Reload - that thing where you hit reload twice in a row and if you time the second one properly you (I think - it's been a while) speed up the process. It's such a simple thing and turns a familiar action into a rewarding split-second micro-game all of its own, which somehow never gets old! And to this day I wish more games borrowed it. - Matt

Spotting an Easter egg or reference to other media

The satisfaction of recognising an Easter egg or reference to other media - be it cinema, literature, or a random viral meme - when playing a video game makes me feel super smart and cool. Then being able to say, 'Hey, I know what this is!' and go about pointing it out to friends and other players gives me the same hit of dopamine as watching The Lord of the Rings with someone who's never seen it before, and being able to tell them about Viggo Mortensen's broken toe all over again. - Kelsey

The way flowers bob and sway in a Game Boy game

What a wonderful, totally superfluous design choice it is to have plants dancing in the wind of a Pokémon Red or a Link's Awakening. What a way to conjure life from nothing. - Chris

Tooltips within tooltips

I remember someone at Paradox telling me about this with immense pride when they'd brought it to one of their upcoming games at the time - Crusader Kings 3, maybe. It's also in some Civ games, naturally. Anything that lets me check what that proper noun is, in a game that is essentially just a massive, interlocking pile of proper nouns, is great, and it shows a developer understands that you also really want to understand as a player. - Chris

A 'perfect' level up in Fire Emblem

You dispatch an enemy with a critical hit with your Levin sword, that telltale fanfare plays, and you see your level-up screen pop into view. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Every stat goes up by one. A single tear falls from your eye. Thank you, Donnel. - Dom

Drifting round corners cars and karts and stuff

Hell yeah! - Chris

Looking at the environment slowly like I'm piloting one of those old E3 demos

I can't be the only one who does this. It usually happens when I see an amazing vista, or a stunning backdrop in a level, or if a big spaceship flies across the horizon. Looking at these things and slowly panning the camera across as if showing a big crowd of onlookers how fancy the game looks is one of my not-so-guilty pleasures. - Connor

Getting an extra life off-screen

It's 1998, and you're playing Crash 3: Warped on your CRT TV. It's raining outside and all the lights are off in your bedroom, your pale face illuminated only by the glow of the TV. You jump on top of a crate you feel like you shouldn't be able to get on top of, feeling smug.That cha-ching of an extra life registers, and your Bandicoot-faced counter in the top right of the screen goes up by one. - Dom

The Bloodborne parry chime

Or as I like to call it "Gehrman's Theme". - Dom

Interviewing someone really smart (but not the transcribing or writing absolutely not)

The interviewing vs writing up the interview process is a well-known proxy for the "me reaping vs me sowing" meme in game journo land and that is absolutely correct. I can confirm that transcribing, never mind actually doing writing, as a writer, is total torture and you can't make me do it. But interviewing people! That's magic. An hour-long conversation with a genius - and almost everyone who makes games is some kind of genius - is about as invigorating as it gets. Until you hear your own horrible voice and mumbled, waffling questions played back to you right after. - Chris

Nintendo Switch game card taste

Look, I only give it a little lick. I don't have a problem. I'm fine. - Lottie

Impossible spaces

There's a whole bunch of cool stuff video games can do that other mediums can't! But I am an absolute sucker for anything that leans into impossible spaces. If you want to go stylised like the Escher-esque labyrinthe of Manifold Garden, that's fine by me; if you want to give me the tools for impossible traversal, as in Portal, I'm down with that too. What I really love though are the sneaky ones; the subtle shifts some games - especially horror ones - do when your back is turned. It's why I absolutely love the original Layers of Fear - a whole spooky house that refuses to stay still: rooms looping in on themselves, corridors to nowhere, ceilings that suddenly concertina into the infinite when you look away and turn back. I want it all. - Matt

Analogue movement

You know the kind: when you gently press the thumbstick on a controller you walk a little bit, then you press it a bit more and you walk a bit faster, then you press it a bit more and you run. It's been in games for years but it always amazes me. To me, it never gets old. - Bertie

Taking horrible advantage of the MegaTen/Persona 'press turn' system

Back in the old (read: PS2) days, there wasn't so much you could do to take advantage of the 'press turn' system beyond lowering your enemy's accuracy. Thank you, Fog Breath. Now, though, as you're able to spawn more 'press turns' and mess around with stats even more, you can have so much fun breaking the system. Even superbosses aren't immune, as of SMT5: Vengeance. Long may Atlus keep this joyous, silly, incredible system around. - Dom

The things you're not expected to notice

There's so much - so much - invisible labour in making video games, but every now and then you catch something and it makes you think about the person who must have made that. One corner of your base in Star Wars: Zero Company has a little empty chair with an empty bottle next to it, facing out of one of its windows. It's not a pointed, deliberate discovery or anything, just the way the furniture in that area's been arranged. But someone chose to put that chair facing that way and put a bottle next to it, to make me think, if I happened to be paying attention to my surroundings for once, that some crew member must sit there from time to time and gaze at the stars. This stuff is everywhere in games, and typically far less visible than even this. Just a picture on a wall placed with someone's intention, a vase that someone has thought about for ages - what type of vase would this character have in their home? - or a made up name for a phony book or brand that you'll only really be able to read if you take a screenshot and zoom all the way in. I miss almost all of these things, but video games couldn't exist without them. - Chris

Accidental nerd contact in the street

I was wearing an Overwatch Summer Games T-shirt walking around Brighton the other day - it's a collector's piece nowadays - when I caught the eye of a person walking by me. "Cool T-shirt," they said. They knew. They made my day. - Bertie

When the game's title pops up halfway through the opening mission

This is the kind of thing that, in theory, I should hate. I'm really not a fan of being yanked out of my carefully crafted immersive experience to, say, endure the kind of five-minute non-interactive cut-scenes that big blockbuster games are still absolutely smitten with. And nothing quite says HI, JUST POPPING IN REMIND YOU YOU'RE PLAYING A GAME than suddenly yanking away the camera halfway through the opening mission for a sweeping cinematic shot of a vista that's suddenly imprinted with the game's title in hundred-foot letters. Gets me every time though, and I almost always want to clap. - Matt

Also, when a game shouts its own name on the title screen

Matt

The audible click after building Lego

It doesn’t matter which Lego game I play, the subtle small clicks that lead up to the larger ‘this object is finished’ click when you’re building something never fails to itch a specific part of my brain. - Marie

Helping a confused stranger with a problem, and visa versa

Have you ever been exploring a multiplayer game and found yourself totally lost? I have, and I've met plenty of people in the same spot. Striking up a conversation in a server chat about these issues, then getting help from kindhearted players willing to take the time to lend a helping hand,is one of gaming's great pleasures. - Connor

Healing other people

I like to help. - Bertie

When strangers say thank you

They're down, they're pleading for help, you could definitely just leave them there but you know what, fine, I'll revive you. And then you hear a little distant "thank you!" through a mic so bad it sounds like the voice of a mouse beamed in via six different satellites from outer space, or they just do a little rapid crouch up and down, or waggle their appendages a bit. Call me a sap, but it makes me melt. - Chris

Getting an outfit just right

Character customisation is hugely important for a lot of people, myself included. Mixing and matching different bits of clothing or armour, slapping on a new colour scheme that complements the look, and going out in the world: a fantastic feeling I can't get enough of. - Connor

Excitement

Remember when Silksong came out last year and parts of the internet broke? Remember a trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6 airing for the first time? Remember when Sony had that legendary E3 conference and announced a Final Fantasy 7 remake and Shenmue 3 and something else I can't remember? It's off-the-chart excitement that's way out of proportion with the game that eventually comes out, but it propels us. It's fun. It's nice to be excited, I think. - Bertie