Id have to say the most recent game that did that was The Last of Us. That opening was unexpected and it hit like a truck. From start to finish, Naughty Dog really knocked it out of the park. Challenging my emotions throughout, challenging my skills as a gamer. The acting is the best Ive had the pleasure to behold in a videogame. The soundtrack fits it perfectly and damn, that ending.

The Last of Us is probably breaking into my Top 10 of all time.

Before this Id say probably something between a few other games.

Mass Effect had me gripped on the universe. It just did that futuristic, Sci-Fi space bollocks right. I cant quite explain it better than that. It just felt right.

Metal Gear Solid 4 was the game I wanted more than any other, ever. It probably blew me away primarily due to the hype surrounding release at the time, but when youre reaaaaaaally at the end of the story. When youre crawling through that damn microwave filled hallway and you know the end is just a few minutes away... It hits you. When youre fighting Ocelot, man to man, with those damn tunes playing from Metal Gear games of old, its just the top of the entire series. Simply incredible at the time, not sure how it would hold up today.

Valkyria Chronicles. Beautiful videogame with a brilliant cast of characters. Really didnt see the "hit" coming that blew me away. One of the very few times Ive ever had to hold back the tears... And any videogame that can make you do that is something special. Fell in love with it. Hate SEGA for refusing to put VC2 and 3 on PS3.

Quite a few more did it before this generation also. Metal Gear Solid 3 being the main culprit.

Ys: Memories of Celceta

Sleeping dogs. I was expecting nothing special. But in the end it proved to be a better game than GTA V.

With The Last of Us. That was the last game that 'blew' me away º

Infamous:ss it just looks and control so perfectly!

before that, I would say far cry 3 on pc.... Or tlou on consoles.

I would say tlou but looks like is too mainstream, so I'll go with VVVVVV: great gameplay and awesome soundtrack.

Ni no Kuni was really close but ultimately, it was 'just' a very enjoyable and refreshing experience. The last game to really blow me away must've been BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, which I didn't expect much from and which I bought kinda randomly. I had heard good things about it and thought it might be worth a try... But that's about it! I'm glad I did try it though because I absolutely loved it. It wasn't really anything special, it was just pure fun and it even managed to entertain me with its story.

For me it was definitely the First Souls game in that i mean Demon's souls the whole penalty for dying just kept bringing me back asking for more, and motivated me to keep going and putting the game in my completed library just to prove to it that i could beat it did the same with the spiritual successor.

Blew me away, as in I was very impressed by the game and perhaps did not think it would be that good, I will give examples of some of the first games that comes to my mind.

Shadow of the Colossus(PS2). I had not played ICO before SotC and did not know much of this game. All I knew was that it's a game from a pretty small studio and the game looked interesting. But surely this game really "blew me away". Really loved it. And while I played ICO after SotC it didn't blow me away or anything. If I had played ICO before SotC the tables could have been turned, most likely.

Uncharted 1(PS3). Surely this studio had a lot of years on it's history, and some already famous franchises like Crash and Jak. But Uncharted really gave me a great experience. And while I enjoy Uncharted 2, 3 and The Last of Us more than Uncharted 1, with the other three games I more or less expected to be "blown away", so I wasn't. I just got what I expected more or less.

Zelda: Ocarina of Time(N64). While I really enjoyed the other previous Zelda games this first step into the 3D-world and the great story really blew me away. Such a great game and pretty much still one my favourite games of all time.

Banjo Kazooie(N64). Did not know much about this studio and then this game popped up. Didn't expect anything from it but it was so good. And while I enjoy Banjo Tooie more, I expected it to be better, so it didn't blow me away or anything.

Battlefield 2(PC). While I had plated BF 1942 but didn't like it too much really, it was good but not great in my opinion, this game(BF2) really surprised me how great it was when it came. Such an awesome game until the latest updates where they removed some of the best, as they described them, bugs. The ability to duck and shoot fast and then get up again.

Battlefield 3(PC). Since I thought that BF 2124 really sucked in comparison to BF2, this game once again blew me away. I thought that the online multiplayer kind of sucked, or at best was average, but the single player campaign was awesome. Truly awesome.

And there are a lot of other games that blew me away, but I kind of expected them to be great. As Resident Evil 4, I expected it to be a great game. Perhaps I didn't expect it to be the best in the series ever kind of great, but still great. And same goes with Metal Gear Solid 4.

Zelda: Minish Cap(GBA). I didn't expect it to be as good as it actually was. I didn't enjoy Capcom's previous Zelda's this much so yeah this game kind of blew me away too.

In the Next Gen/Current Gen(Wii U, PS4, X1)-era, nothing has blown me away as of yet.

For me personally, it would have to be the Last of Us. The story was incredible. Loved the relationship between Joel and Ellie, and I really started to care for the characters (Really loved Henry and Sam too!) I also enjoyed the gameplay. It was fun to sneak around and quietly execute your enemies, but time to time I would get caught and have to end up killing them in a firefight, which was cool too because of the lack of ammo.

I found myself having to scavenge ammo from environments/dead people whilst trying to hide from survivors who were already after me. Very tense, especially on survivor where almost every firefight you found yourself having no ammo or really low health and no bandages to heal yourself.

Just a really incredible game. Was sad to see it finish...But it did have a very surprisingly amazing multiplayer! Had a ton of fun with that too. Naughty Dog is awesome ^^

Edit - Also, Uncharted 3 blew me away graphically! I played it after playing TLOU, and didn't think it could look any better but WOW...Uncharted 3 is the best looking game I've ever played. Especially when you first uncover that city and you walk down the stairs whilst looking at the big view of the city. I actually said "wow" in real life because it just blew me away. I know it's not all explorable...but it looked epic nonetheless.