First game I ever played

[Delphine]

Topics like this make me feel old.

Think of a favorite Disney movie form when you were a child. Now, go look up how old it is.

HOW OLD DO YOU FEEL NOW

(Alternatively, look up any cartoon you watched as a kid. Or FFVII.)

[G.Silver]

I still don't understand how that sort of technology works. It's obviously primitive - even the original, first-game-console-ever Magnavox Odyssey had a light gun - but even though I never thought much of it at the time, in retrospect, it was pretty amazing, wasn't it?

Be amazed no more! (I also wanted to know.)

The screen flashes white every time you pull the trigger (I am amazed that no one notices?), so as the TV screen turns white, which is a relatively slow process in terms of microseconds, the the game is able to tell where the gun first detected the white based on how much time has passed since the trigger was pulled. I wonder if more advanced systems are using the exact same technology, like the PSX Guncon, and I also bet that these games don't work at all on newer TVs.

[Opa-Opa]

The barrel of the gun was actually touching the glass.

That's how I played Rambo III, Shooting G, Missile Defense 3D and Marksman Shooting/Trap Shooting on the Master System as well. Sometimes with the Rapid Fire on. I never beat any of those games.

[j-man]

At the tender age of four years old. My brother got it with his Master System for Christmas, the kind that has Alex Kidd built in. I couldn't stand to even watch him play that, though; every time Alex died I cried my eyes out! But Sonic was the best thing I had ever seen and it became (like many other people, I imagine) a bit of a minor obsession. Took me a while to get past Crabmeat, but I kicked arse at the Special Stages.

I can remember being in one of those huge warehouse kind of shops when I was maybe five or six. I remember three things about the trip. One was having a fizzy drink for the first time in my life and hating it (it was Orangina, which I'm still iffy about drinking). Two was that the shop had these fucked up escalators that were flat (!) to allow trolleys to go up and down, and I thought it was brilliant. Three was a TV monitor in the games section, poised way above my tiny head, playing a demo of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for Mega Drive. I nearly shat myself, it looked so good. I must've stood there for about a half hour, looking straight up at that screen in awe until my neck hurt.

My brother got a Mega Drive and Sonic 2 for Christmas that year. It was a very good year.

[Esrever]

I think the first video games I played were Mario Bros. 2 and Bart Simpson Vs. the Space Mutants, which were both permanently installed into the wall of this local kid's barber shop called Tickety Doos. It was a strange place... you played games in the waiting room and then got to watch a movie while you got your hair cut... but of course, you never got to play through much of the game or watch all the movie before you had to leave!

[Isuka]

I pretty much own my interest in videogames to my cousins - of both sides of my family. Half of them had a Master System with Sonic 1 (and Alex Kidd and some others I don't remember), while the other half had a SNES with Super Mario World (and other forgettable titles). Most of the time I just watched them play (and occasionaly beat) the games, but they usually let me give a try - I don't really remember which one I played first, or how well I did (probably not much). It wouldn't be until I got a SNES bundled with Donkey Kong Country (plus Mortal Kombat 2 and Batman Forever) that I had games to call my own.

Oh yeah, I should've mentioned it, too. The NES was from my cousins, first system I owned was a Genesis and the aforementioned Mortal Kombat 3 cart, although Sonic progressively grew in me since a little before that, when I used to play Sonic 2 at a classmate's house, who ended up turning into my best friend.

[gr4yJ4Y]

I don't remember what the first game was that I played, but I think it was Iron Tank for NES. It was a 2-player overhead tank game. Is Iron Tank even 2-player? I think it was a 2-player game I played. Now I'm second-guessing myself. I'd seen Little Nemo and Mario Bros. played before that, but this tank game was the first game I ever played.

It wasn't even for very long. I was at one of the neighborhood boy's houses watching him play games and he asked if I wanted to play. I had wanted to for a while, but no one asked and I figured it was just one more thing I wasn't allowed to do (I must have been about 3 years old). But this one time Ryan let me play. There was a lot of pressure on me to play that game well. If I messed up he'd take the controller back from me and I'd have to keep watching. And of course I didn't do very well. And so after dieing a couple of times he went back to playing by himself.

Looking back I wonder what my parents were thinking letting a fifth grader watch a 3-year-old.

Later I got a Genesis for Christmas with Sonic 1 packed in. There was a time where my dad would play while my siblings and I would watch. One night he got up to Scrap Brain Zone, but it was past our bedtime and he died on purpose to end the game. After that he just stopped playing it. So over what seemed like a long time to me, I eventually beat it. That was the first time I beat a game. I bragged about it to my dad when he got home from work and he seemed a bit disappointed that I did it before him.

[Opa-Opa]

My parents were never good at videogames. I always found it kind of funny that a lot of friends of mine told me that only their dad could beat this or that level. I guess one day I'll be one of those dads. I've got a nephew who sucks in Sonic 3, even though he plays it every time he comes visit. I guess kids just still love Sonic.

I used to play Sonic 2 at a classmate's house, who ended up turning into my best friend.

Most of my best friends are so because we would go visit each other to play videogames. I mean, not only videogames but you gotta start somewhere, right? One thing that I really miss is trading cartridges. I know few people who own the 360 and those who do just download and burn the games.

[Protodude]

My parents never really played games either. My mom adamantly refuses because "they give me a headache", and my dad would occasionally play sports games but pinball was more his forte.

As for the first game I played, it was Sonic 2 which I got bundled with the Mark II Genesis one Christmas.

I can't recall the first game I beat though, which you would think might be a monumental achievement for a kid. I remember watching my sister beat Aladdin, or at least getting to the end, and I remember beating it not long after. So it was either that, Sonic 2, or maybe Warioland (without getting all the treasure).

[Dusk]

I'm fairly certain my first game ever was Truxton, this old space shooter for the Genesis. I watched my dad beat it, and when I finally did the same I felt so proud of myself... until I found out that you only got the true ending if you ran through the entire game a second time with the difficulty significantly increased, which was something I didn't manage to do until years later.

The Genesis itself came as a gift from our neighbors... I'm still not entirely sure why they gave it to us, but I guess I have that to thank for sparking my interest in video games. Interestingly enough, I don't even think I got my hands on Sonic 1 until probably '95 or '96.

[Arcade]

It was 1989, the OS was MS DOS 2.0, the computer a 286, I played a game where you had to kill Alien bugs with a spaceship. My first portable game was an orange and lame Game and Watch with a Giraffe that had to pick fruit and avoid a monkey trowing it stuff, that's all folks.

[Dr. Watson]

Well, this topic sure doesn't make me feel old, it makes me feel young and/or like a late bloomer. Despite being born in 1986, i never layed hands on a game controller 'till 1994, the game in question being Donkey Kong Country. And i despite the novelty of being able to control a character on the TV screen, i just found the whole idea really boring.

[G.Silver]

When did you decide that you liked video games?

Despite having fond memories and yeah, playing them all the time, I didn't *really* like video games until Sonic 1 in 1991. Sure, I played me some good games prior to that, but that was the game that made me into a snob.

[Green Gibbon!]

Same here. I messed around with the NES like every other kid in the developed world, but the Genny was the turning point.

[Opa-Opa]

I dunno... I think my turning point was the Master System. I didn't have a NES as a kid.

I don't remember NOT liking videogames a lot though. I remember being excited to rent Popeye for the Atari. I remember playing Zillion 2 for the Master System and then playing with my friends that we were fighting Baron Hicks. I clearly remember drawing Jimmy Lee and Billy Lee, Shinobi, Alex Kidd, Mario and Megaman. I remember being very disappointed when my brother went out to rent Phantasy Star but came back with Rastan, even though Rastan is pretty cool. I remember comparing the superiority of Ghostbusters in the Master System to its NES counterpart. I also remember being snobbish about Star Fox, saying that Star Wars: X-Wing for PC was a lot better. I remember drawing the ending of Sonic 2 with dialogs.

It kind of sucks how much I can remember about games I played but I never memorized my social security number.

[Segaholic2]

I think most of us older Americans are going to answer Sonic the Hedgehog/Genesis.

[CM August]

I think my first was Alex Kidd for the Master System! Oh what great times were had. Sonic 2 SMS came not long after, which was the start of that little obsession.

[Dr. Watson]

When did you decide that you liked video games?

About a year after. And like so many others here, my thanks goes to none other than the blue dude with the 90's 'tude for turning me into a gamer. I had loved AoStH since it first started airing in my country in 1994, so when i first played Sonic 2 in 1995, the fact that i got to controll a character i knew and loved was enough to get me interested in the medium. As fate would have it though, my father apparently forgot that i specifically wished for a Mega Drive the following christmas, so he got me a SNES and i spent the later half of the decade as a staunch Nintendo fanboy.

Speaking of which, and since im already on my nostalgia soapbox at the moment, i just feel like mentioning that one of my strongest game related memories from my childhood was in Februari 1997 when i had rented Star Wing (i believe you yankees call it Star Fox, or maybe that's the Japanese? Well whatever, you all know which game im talking about). Although i didn't knew the terms "2D" and "3D" yet, i could certainly see that the game looked more "real" than any other game i had played and my dad gasped in ave that this game had got to be "the most modern game in the world". So naturally, the next day i was really excited to tell my all my freinds in school about it. But when i opened my mouth and went "Hey everybody, guess what, i've just played the most modern game in the world! It's hard to descride but you fly in a plane in this world that looks really real and awesome and..." i was interupted by a kid who went "no, i've just played the most modern game in the world, it's at display at the mall. It's a new Mario game called Super mario 64 that looks like nothing you've ever seen before! When you controll Mario, it totally feels like hes walking around in the real world and bla bla bla bla bla...". So yeah, the Nintedo 64 release totally stole my thunder that day, and iv'e never been able to forgive that damn console since. :'(

[(No Imagination)]

I don't remember what my first game was at all, though it might have been something on Atari 2600 (two tanks in a labyrinth, a cowboy lassoing livestock or a chicken crossing the road).

Come to think of it, it might also have been Prince of Persia or Tristan on DOS (286).

I can tell you though, the moment I saw Super Mario Bros. for the first time, I was reborn!

...and reborn another time, later on, after seeing Sonic the Hedgehog sold in a store. The hills, bridges and waterfalls were fucking gorgeous even from 7 meters across the room. It was magic.

...after that, the rebirths kind of stopped.

[Ritz]

Technically, the first game I ever played was Super Mario 3, but that doesn't really count, seeing as how I was so young at the time that I couldn't even figure out how to jump over the first Goomba and my sister wasn't making any effort to help me. First game I actually owned was Sonic 2.

First game I actually finished, though? Probably Virtua Fighter 2, but that isn't much of an accomplishment. Other than that, I'm pretty sure it was Clockwork Knight, followed by Croc: Legend of the Gobboes. Coincidentally, those are the two games I remember most fondly. They both make my top 15 list of games by virtue of nostalgia alone.

[Ritz]

Also, my mother was able to get all the way up to Wing Fortress when I couldn't get past the rising water segment in Chemical Plant. I never miss an opportunity to brag about that. That was the only game she ever got into, though.

[Crowbar]

I can't remember exactly what my first game was, but I remember a female friend who lived down the road (who I haven't seen since that time) had a Master System and we'd play Alex Kidd all the time. Probably my earliest memory of games. Shit rocked.

I also had a friend with a Game Gear who let me play Sonic on it. Also pretty awesome.

And another set of family friends who lived in the country and had a Mega Drive, so we played Sonic 1 alot.

I eventually got a Game Gear of my own, played the hell out of Sonic 1, 2, and Chaos oni t. Eventually also got a Mega Drive of my own with Sonic, and thus my fate was forever sealed.

To temper this, I also had yet another friend (my best friend for years, though we've grown apart somewhat now) who owned a SNES. We'd play Mario Kart and Street Fighter and Super Mario All-stars a whole lot. It took me much longer to get a SNES of my own, though when I did I got Mario Kart and Yoshi's Island for it. Yoshi's Island remains special for me to this day.

Man, those were good times.

[Opa-Opa]

Come to think of it, it might also have been Prince of Persia or Tristan on DOS (286).

Holy shit, TRISTAN PINBALL? That game was awesome as far as I remember!

[(No Imagination)]

Yeah, that game was bitchin'. The crown of its experience was the opening fanfare, though - it is so deeply ingrained into my brain it will probably be the last thing I hum after I go completely crazy.

[Blount]

Whoa. I think this might be the first time I've remembered that game in over fifteen years. I didn't play it much back then, but watching it on YouTube just now was one hell of a mind trip.

My first PC game wasn't Commander Keen, but it was certainly among the earliest things I remember playing besides the Speccy. Keen was awesome. I had episodes IV and VI and I played them to death back then. Pre-Historik was cool too (I saw someone mentioning it at the Sonic 4 topic), but the sequel was a lot better. And what about 4D Sports Driving (a.k.a. Stunts)? I loved creating sadistic race tracks. Why don't we have track editors anymore?