7. The first time your entire family died in Oregon Trail. As a fifth grader; this game was the greatest. You basically take your family through the wilderness to get to the west during pioneer times in the United States. The shocking moment in this game was when your family died off due to some strange illness that a fifth grader couldn’t comprehend. Why the hell did my family just die from Dysentery? What the hell was Dysentery? These moments shocked me, and also made me quite angry when I was in fifth grade.

6. Mortal Kombat fatalities. Who can forget the first time that you ripped out Sub-Zero’s heart with Kano’s fatality? The fatality moves were extremely disturbing for a 13 year old kid. It was one of the first games that you could fight to the death, and then rip their beating heart out of their body. You were only given a few seconds to pull off the fatality move, and it was an excellent way to rub it in your friends face when you beat him.

5. Grand Theft Auto: Hot Coffee. This is one of those moments in video gaming history that probably won’t be forgotten. The Hot Coffee Mod didn’t shock gamers as much as it did society. It is something that any gamer recognizes, and most non-gamers as the mod that made Grand Theft Auto get pulled from shelves; while making parents shudder across the globe. The code was always in place for the nudity, but the developers didn’t intend to flip the switch to activate the nudity. The Hot Coffee mod basically flipped the switch, and caused an uproar in society.

4. The Unveiling of Samus Aran. By the time Nintendo released the original Metroid, I was already one of those Nintendo minions. I played any game that got even the tiniest bit of hype. I read every issue of Nintendo Power, and even ripped out the posters to hang on my wall. Keep in mind, I was very young here; not an 18 year old college freshman or anything. Metroid was another masterpiece by Nintendo that grabbed my attention, and forced me to put long and hard hours into it, until it was finished. Samus Aran, the protagonist, was the ultimate badass. He worked alone, and traveled through the unknown to beat each mission. In the finally, I was absolutely dumbfounded when Samus finally revealed…herself. Up until this point, women were only featured in games as objects that needed saving. This was a huge jolt to the normal video game gender roles. Samus Aran is still one of the greatest female video game characters of all time.
3. The End of Hyrule. I have always been a follower of the Zelda series. When Nintendo unveiled Wind Waker, I was a little taken back by the new design, and play style. Being the dedicated Zelda fan that I am, I gave it a try. The game was a nice change for the Zelda series, and I quickly learned to love the new game. While many will dispute that this isn’t one of the greatest shocking moments in gaming history, it really brought a huge piece of Zelda history to an end. In the beginning of Wind Waker, I was stunned to find out that the lands of Hyrule were flooded by the gods. Hyrule had appeared in every Zelda game until this point. I knew every nook and cranny of Hyrule from all of the Zelda games, and now it is gone. On a possitive note, at the end of Wind Waker, Zelda sails off to find another Golden Land. After all, Hyrule was beginning to feel a bit small.

2. Lord British Dies by Firewall. Probably my favorite game of all time is Ultima Online. To me, this is the game that started the MMORPG era. I had put more hours into UO than any other game to this day. There was so much to do in the world of Ultima Online. For me, it reigned king until the Trammel/Felucca expansion came out, and much of the fun of UO was lost. Way back in beta, Lord British (Richard Garriot) held a little meeting to talk about the game to whatever testers showed up. He was standing along side Lord Blackthorne in the game, and a group gathered accross a wall from him. One of the beta testers known as Rainz cast a firewall on Lord British, and due to a bug, killed him. He got so mad that he unleashed tons of Daemons on the crowd killing most of them. Rainz was later banned from the game for violating the beta tester terms and conditions. This is by far the greatest moment in the history of MMORPGs.

1. The Death of Aeris. There are three video game series that will never die. Zelda, Mario, and Final Fantasy. You can ask a person who despises video games (God forbid), and they will more than likely know about the Zelda, Mario, and Final Fantasy series. The reason for this is simple, these three series have popped out more quality video game titles than any other. One of the greatest gaming moments of all time happened in Final Fantasy VII. One of the most memorable and beloved characters in the Final Fantasy series was Aeris Gainsborough (Aerith was her original name in Japan, but was changed to Aeris in America due to poor translation). At the end of Final Fantasy VII Aeris was killed by Sephiroth, and this moment is considered by many to be the most shocking moment in video game history. Rumors still emerge now and then that she will somehow be resurrected in future Final Fantasy titles.
Edit: I stand corrected. Aeris dies in the middle, thanks for the hundreds of reminders.

Sources:
http://www.wikipedia.org
http://www.aschulze.net/ultima/stories9/beta.htm
http://www.mobygames.com
http://www.gamespot.com
http://ian-albert.com/misc/gamemaps.php

In order to help you in your quest to add some Ajax code into your site; I have scoured the net for the ten best tutorials, and examples.

1. Ajax Tutorial: Ajax What is it Good For?
   1. This site covers not only how to code in Ajax, and to implement it into your site, but also the history of it, and how it came to be. It is a good place to start.
2. Rasmus’ 30 second Ajax Tutorial
   1. This is a quick and dirty introduction to Ajax. It doesn’t go in depth, but in 30 seconds (ok, a few minutes) you should be able to comprehend it; if you have coding knowledge.
3. Ajax: Getting Started
   1. This is from the Mozilla developer center. This is also a somewhat basic introduction to Ajax, but it is quite nicely laid out.
4. Interactivity with Remote Scripting
   1. This is just like the first two, basic, yet understandable. A good read if you are still having trouble understanding Ajax, and remote scripting.
5. Ajax Examples
   1. This site isn’t so much a tutorial, as it is a comprehensive list of Ajax examples. The author lists real world uses of Ajax to give you ideas on what you can use it for in your sites.
6. Ajax (programming)
   1. Wikipedia usually has a plethora of information and links for many, many topics. This is also true for Ajax programming. There is some great information here, and make sure to check out the external links at the end of the wiki.
7. Ajax in ASP.NET
   1. If you are an ASP.NET developer, than this is the place to take a look at once you understand the basics of Ajax. Microsoft is busy working on their own implementation of Ajax; called Atlas, but it isn’t ready yet.
8. Ajax with J2EE
   1. Another tutorial of Ajax, this time implementing with J2EE.
9. Ruby on Rails
   1. There is a very active group of developers that swear by Ruby on Rails. It is a framework that accelerates the development of Ajax. It is considered a very fleshed out and easy to use version of Ajax. As a bonus; Ruby is incredibly easy to learn to code in.
10. Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications
    1. It’s probably best to actually include the article that coined the term Ajax. It doesn’t have code examples, but does give a nice walkthrough of how Ajax actually works.