First game you played
First game you played
Title says it all, what was the first game you remember playing and had fond memories of?
For me it was the PS1, and hearing the OG Crash Bandicoot theme song never gets old for me, got it as my ringtone too!
Super Mario Bros on the NES. I remember getting super frustrated and throwing a tantrum because I couldn't figure out how to jump over the second hole. Hahahaha man I was pathetic.
That first goomba killed me three times in a row. Took a little bit to figure out the jump timing.
Hell yeah. I played duck hunt first, because my dumb ass didn’t understand a controller but cold BANG BANG at that fucking dog.
Then I discovered Mario.
Third was Dig Dug. I hate Dig Dug.
Rainbow Island was my shit.
Pong n a DEC PDP 11.
Pong for me too but on a Sears Sports Center pong console:
DEC PDP 11
Everyone else posting about Atari 2600, C-64, and NES. I think you may also win the thread on the only still supported platform with PDP 11 support extended to the year 2050.
Same here. I really am ancient,lol. I'd thought it might have been a Magnavox console,but they were sears diehards(no pun intended) back then. Makes sense. Even had the giant cylinder paddles with it,but no gun.
Well my first game I think it was Duck Hunt with my family and I didn't understand how to play it lmao.
But the game I played alone for the first time was Mega Man & Bass on an zsnes emulator on our family pc.
On my dad´s 386 PC: Prince of Persia, Dune II, Doom
On my Amiga 500: Turrican I + II, Street Fighter II, Lemmings I + II
Mario/duck hunt for NES
I'm pretty sure it was Pong on a dedicated console from Sears. I remember playing Pong when I was super young, but I don't remember if that was at the same time as us getting an Atari 2600 or not.
Was it pong with two gigantic, wired controllers with turn knows? That's what we had
I can't remember if it was the one with wired controllers or the one with one box that had two wheels
Wolfenstein, in my dad's office on his work computer while he was teaching.
Dad's colleague: [sticks his head in the door] Hey, what are you doing?
Me: Killing Nazis with a Gatling gun.
Colleague: Oh, well that's good [comes in to watch].
Legend of Zelda back in 1989
Total annihilation on pc. That game was dope when I was a young teen.
Pokemon blue on gameboy or Super Mario 64... both were around the same time I think.
Just got retroarch setup with all N64 games so the nostalgia train is about to start rollin'!
Pokemon Yellow over here, with by brother getting Pokemon Red.
My family got Duck Hunt, Track & Field, and Mario as a package, though I sure remember a LOT of Centipede time.
First PC game I remember was Super Solvers
Or the Apple IIe Glider game was a real fun way to waste some classroom time, barring Oregon Trail.
Super Solvers was my shiiiiit!
Oh man, my family loved Super Solvers Midnight Rescue! I vividly remember playing that with my older siblings, but our monitor was green and black, no color, so I'd never actually seen it before in color. But the music stuck with me and probably sparked my love for In the Hall of The Mountain King.
Also had Ernie's magic shapes and colors... which was pretty hard to do when everything is green. What were my parents thinking buying a color matching game without a color monitor?
OG NES Duck Hunt.
I'm pretty sure it was Paperboy on one of those Tiger Handhelds. Looking them up now brings back memories.
I can't remember if I played this first, or Tetris. It was probably pretty close for me?
It might be Jak & Dexter: TPL.
best.
Prob some racing game on Commodore 64. Or Mario on NES. It's hard to remember.
On PC though, Little Big Adventure 2.
Combat on the Atari 2600.
Store near me had 30+ copies of Combat for 1USD each. I regret not buying them all, but I was an EXTREMELY broke teen.
Pong
On a dedicated pong computer.... Only had pong, and nothing else..
Crash Bandicoot Warped for me.
The Warp Room soundtrack is still stuck in my head twenty years later.
This wasn't my very first game, but was definitely an early one I played. I beat the remake recently and it was exactly the way I remembered it.
Sonic the Hedgehog on Mega Drive (Genesis).
Me too! First game console and the only game I had for a while. I played that game to death.
Tetris on the OG Gameboy
PONG in the late 70s, at a pizza parlor.
Got a NES with Mario and Gradius as a Christmas present. Opened the present with Gradius first and had no clue what it was but that would be the first game I ever played. Then running into the goomba in Mario like everyone did :)
I have very fond memories of playing Freddie Fish in our local library while my father thought I was going to children's choir stuff (I hated it and was hanging out in the library instead, just to be back in time, when my father came to pick me up again).
NES Batman
Oh, that soundtrack... Great game!
Oh my god yeah, I can't even tell you how riveted I was as soon as the music started playing. I didn't realise games could make you feel cool
Pong
Jazz JackRabbit on MS-DOS on my dad's computer.
First PC game? Math Blaster on a Macintosh 128K
First console game? Super Mario Bros.
First Board Game? Parcheesi/Monopoly
Also was included in my parents D&D group once I was 5 or 6
The original Super Mario Bros on the NES, purchased for me by my grandmother.
Probably The Incredible Machine (aka TIM)
I had a Commodore 64. I played Ultima 3 and Archon (wizard's chest) as my first games I really liked.
Super Mario Bros. 3 on the NES. I was five and at grandma's house.
Mattel Electronic Football
Spyro 3. It was a great introduction into the world of video games, and I still play it regularly
Console would have to be the Mario/duck hunt/track and field combo. Pc would be either dos MegaMan or kurstys fun house.
We had that, Mario 3, and Marble Madness. I never got more than a few levels into any of them.
Pokemon Yellow. I wasn't able to read very well but I still managed to beat it.
Lego Star Wars on a PS2 at a friend's place.
Original pong, at the Toronto international boat Show, probably in about 1977.
I have only the vaguest memory of something on what I think was the Atari, but I'm not even sure if we ever actually owned that console. I think the first game I actually remember playing was Super Mario Bros, on the cartridge that also had Duck Hunt.
Toejam and Earl on the Sega Genesis
That's a hard game to have as a first game! Lol
I'm addicted to Soulsborne games now so maybe there's a connection
Pong on the Atari 2600.
Jump Man, Space Taxi, and Ghostbusters on Commodore 64. I was using that version of the Ghostbusters song as my ringtone for years, back when I got phone calls ;)
Ghost busters!
Nyahahaha ha ha haa
Pac-Man on the Atari 2600. I understand the complaints about that port, but I'll always have a soft spot for it for getting me into the hobby way back when.
Manic Miner for the ZX Spectrum.
It was shit. And I don't have to tell you why. Just look it up, sound on, that bit is mandatory.
My first ever gamer was a disappointment lmao. I did get super into the Megadrive and everything was fixed. But man.
I think Pong, but I can't remember if I played it before getting the Atari XT. The first game I played on that was Galaxian.
most likely Peek-a-Boo, or outside either Tag or Hide and Seek, if not something like Mouse Trap or Candy Land for board games
If you're asking about video games, Pong on some sort of Realistic/Tandy console system in the late 70s when I would go to work with my father at Radio Shack (back when it was legit) and he would put me in front of the black&white.
Oregon Trail on Apple IIGS.
We also had Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, but I wasn't as interested in that as much.For me it must’ve been either one of the Commander Keen games or the original Prince of Persia back in the early 90s. Still damn good games.
Pretty sure it was either Excite Bike or Contra on NES at my neighbours house. Also had Radio Shack pong.
Oldest game I remember playing (when it was new) was Lemmings on the Macintosh. Early 1990s. I can still hear the tunes.
Mr Do on the colico vision. There was another game we had Carnival. Good (simpler) times.
I loved how in Carnival if you could time it just right you could keep shooting the lowest bear in the bonus level and just keep him going back and forth like 20 times. Also the elusive diamond that would appear in a dropped apple in Mr. Do. I think I only had it happen twice ever in what seemed like thousands of games.
Wow, I remember that now. You've taken me back more than a few years. Thank you!
My earliest would probably be Space Invaders on the Atari 400.
But I also did a lot of PC gaming around that time - Alley Cat, Paratrooper, Prince of Persia, Dangerous Dave, GORILLA.BAS, NIBBLES.BAS - these were some of the earliest DOS games I played and still remember them fondly.
When we got a NES later on, spent a lot of time on Duck Hunt. And Super Mario of course, but don't think I ever managed to get past level 3. Still had fun though.
frogger
Pajama Sam: There's no need to hide when it's dark outside
Pole position on the commodore 64.
Mine was a point-click quest written in visual basic that taught Russian alphabet. I was 2-3 years old, playing while sitting on my father's lap. Apparently this created some core memories since once I was 15-17 I found it and still remembered every dialogue word-to-word
Super Mario Bros on an old NES that my cousin gave me when I was a kid in the mid 90s
The original Prince of Persia, in DOS.
Played the shit out of that game. I could probably draw maps of every level from memory.
Same, had a lot of great times with this one af a kid!
Scooby Doo Night of 100 Frights on the ps2, other than that maybe Freddie Fish or one of the other humongous games on mac
Probably Duke Nukem 3D, introduced by way of my uncle’s at the time high end computer.
I’d seen arcade games and things, but an actual interactive 3D world I could walk around in was wild. It was also a much bloodier and more “adult” game than anything I’d seen before.
Later that year, 1997, I got a Nintendo 64 for Christmas along with Goldeneye and StarFox64. Those two games became mainstays for me at home.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and I played a couple levels as recently as a few weeks ago.
Jumping Flash (ps1) was my first ever game. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_Flash!
It was pretty hard as a 5 year old.
Combat on the Atari 2600. There are games I remember better, but I do know that was my favorite... just no one would play it with me.
We didn’t have much money when we were kids, so when I cousin brought over his SNES with LttP, my mind was totally blown.
First game I remember playing is a DOS game called Snipes. It was at my stepdads work and I remember getting smoked by his workmate as we were playing it LAN and I remember crying haha.
Going to my step dads house when my mom first started dating him and playing Pitfall on his Colecovision in the late 80's. I was 3.
Asphalt 4
Earliest memory is c64 gridder
While I had probably already played a couple of counterfeit NES games at a friend's house before that, the first 2 games I clearly remember playing on PC were Tux Racer (on my dad's Linux setup) and Warcraft 2.
New Super Mario Bros on my sick red Mario DS. Although Pokémon would come shortly after which I remember much more fondly.
The cart said Final Fantasy 2. We now know it as Final Fantasy 4.
My father had my playing it and reading all the text out loud. I played that game over and over and over. I have all the hidden paths and treasures memorized.
The opening scrawl ended in something about Cecil and Kain vanishing "into a deep fog." For years and years I thought it said they vanished "into a deep frog." Let me tell you... the hours I spent lying awake at night wondering what that meant...
And of course my Dad didn't correct me.
Intellivision. Sea Battle. 1987.
x-wing vs tie fighter.
King's Quest 6, on my dad's old Compaq Presario Windows 98 laptop
Let me take a personal spin on that question.
This wasn’t the first game that I played but it was the first game that I PLAYED. It really got me, made me draw stuff from the game, scratch my head and glued me to the screen.
My little brain melted from not understanding. The bitterness of every mistake and death was sprinkled by some mysterious force with the most magical feeling of solving the next level. This game explained by the example how games can be and are amazing. Before it, I just enjoyed the fun aspects of playing but here I was gaming and every level felt like a real achievement.
Now, when I think about it, this game made me skip building with LEGO for some time.
Oh, the title? Gobliiins.
First, first? Some bootleg version of Tetris.
Gobliiins! I loved that game. I did buy it off gog to play again because it had been many years.
Roadrash and prince of Persia
I don’t remember exactly, but it would have been on the Atari 2600. Probably Pac-Man or Q-Bert.
Adventure for me, but we had Atari 2600 Pac-Man too. And Combat, Space Invaders and a few others.
Potentially HOVER! on the ol' Windows ME machine iirc.
Age of Empires 2 also comes to mind.
I don't know the name. In the afternoons in the early nineties after school I was at a neighbor's house. Her husband had a PC and a joystick connected to it sparked my interest. He showed me a flight game. I don't remember much detail, but it was a vector based game with fast action based flying and you had to bombard or shoot enemy bases. The next thing I remember is my mother calling our neighbor when I planned to come home because it was already getting late and I had never stayed that long before.
Good old Pokemon Yellow
Lunatic Fringe, it was a screensaver so to play it you had to wait for your computer to go to sleep, and if you moved the mouse the game would end.
My first game was Yoshi's Island for the Game Boy Advance! I still go back and play it every few years, I love that game.
Sonic 1 on my newly acquired Mega Drive at Christmas when I was 5. Died to that first ladybug repeatedly for months on end but never gave up!
It was a racing game I can't remember the name of on our first computer, a TI-99.
Mario Kart on N64
Duck hunt with the gun. That shit ass dog. Oh wait no....
There was a typing game with a frog that ate letters?
Not fun.
But that is the first game I remember. In school.
It was an Apple ii I think and Star Trek of some sort. ASCII based graphics and words. Idk I was 6. Didn't have a clue what I was doing. It was on my bio father's computer. He used it as a way to distract me while Mom and him argued over child support. Last time I saw him thankfully. But at least I have that memory of trying to catch a "k"
Fuck I'm getting old.
I think it was Lost Vikings on an old DOS laptop.
Various demos on PS1 demo discs
Wizard of Wor on C=64
we had quite a few carts so it might not have been first but it certainly was the most played
My first gaming experience was when I was stuck in the hospital for days due to surgery on my feet when I was super young. My mom's friend let me borrow her kid's NES and, as I couldn't get out of bed, I did nothing but play River City Random, Super Mario Brothers, and one other game I no longer remember.
Backyard Football and Baseball for PC. I'm pretty sure there were some earlier puzzle games but those two had me loving sports and stats for years.
Jet Set Willy on the Amstrad CPC6128
The very first game I remember was Alex Kidd on Master System II, my mother was always playing it!
The very first I played was probably NFS 3 on PC with my father. I remember playing it during the 1999 Athens earthquake aftershocks and getting scared
River Raid for the Atari 2600
Hard to say, but possibly Spectron for the Spectravideo SV-328. The first game I remember really having an impact was Super Mario Bros. Played it at my friend's house and afterwards I begged my parents for a NES. That was a happy Christmas.
That brings back memories. I remember playing Spectron on the monochrome green monitor we had. I didn't know the name of the game, and I was too young to care, but I always thought it was Space Invaders, which was not on Spectravideo.
croc for ps1; first game and system I owned - this was when ps2 just came out time wise - had to sneak buy the ps1 and hide from rents
I don't really remember. Maybe Kirby on my aunts Gameboy?
Edit: Should read the whole post instead of just the title. So it'd probably be Bomber Jack. It was on a Gameboy cartridge with other games my dad got me when I was in the hospital as a kid (don't remember what for).
First i remember playing was Pitfall Mayan Adventure on pc, through an emulator. First I finished, Dark Souls Remastered, last year
Tag...
Math Munchers on one of the old school Mac desktops.
I can't remember which came first, my mom got some games for her Commodore 64, or my dad getting a used Intellivision from one of his buddies at work.
It was either Pitfall or Frog Bog depending on which came first.
Sheesh. That's a tough one. My memory is trash from TBIs... Maybe pong, or space invaders? I think it would be something that was in an arcade. Our first console was the NES with SMB, but we definitely played in arcades before that.
I think it might have been Falcon 3.0?
how about the earliest game that had a profound impact on you? Ultima Exodus for me. it had an immersive world you could explore way bigger than zelda. lots of hidden side quests and some mind-blowing secrets. i mean, tracking the phases of the twin moons was actually part of the game. some of the secrets were essential to completing the game which is why i never was able to complete it until i used a walk-through years later.
years later as a veteran DM, it was absolutely the most influential game i ever played.
Boulderdash 2 and Kickstart 2 on the Commodore 64.
I think it's either Super Mario Land on gameboy, or Super Mario Bros on NES. I can't remember which.
It's weird reading through the posts and seeing how vivid these moments are for some. I think I may have a memory problem because it's honestly hard to say what I played first. It was sometime around 1988, and my guess is original Mario for NES since it's the first console my parents got, and it came with it. I remember playing it but it's hard to say if it was the first since I may have played something at a relative or friend's house. Played a lot of random NES games after that. My parents also owned an intellivision so it could have been something on that as well.
Xonix lol
Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door on GameCube. I am super excited for the switch remake.
VS. Super Mario Bros, aka the arcade version of NES Super Mario Bros
Probably "ports of call" on PC. Still haven't found an actual modern version of it. There were some half assed attempts in recent years, all with such huge flaws that they still haven't managed to be considered "playable".
super mario bros on one of those NES bootlegs that have "16000" games while in reality it's more like 50 60 pirated games repeated across the whole list. remember i couldn't finish the second level really couldn't time the moving platform jump over the hole. it was fun.
Wizard of Wor. Gameplay here.
Minecraft Buzzy Bees update. I still remember my first few days on the school computers, getting ore, digging a hole, finding a village...
I don't have the world anymore, but I have, as you say, fond memories.
either Super Mario Bros. on a famiclone or Circus Charlie.
I remember being spooked the fuck out by those "fire rings". man, they looked and still look otherwordly. the whole game gave me creeps.
It was either the dungeon crawl game "Eye of the Beholder" or a Japanese translated strategy game “Romance of the Three Kingdoms III” on a floppy, around 1991-1993 I think.
Iirc it was a Sega Master System racing game. Can't remember the name.
I doubt it was the literal first game I played, but Ghouls n' Ghosts for the sega genesis was my favorite as a kid, with sonic 2 as a VERY close second
All of the games in the 42 in 1 cartridge for the Nintendo Famicom.
Man I don't remember I was like 1. Probably kidpix or something like that lol. Some of my earliest memories are watching my dad play Doom though
Probably something on the Amstrad CPC computer, and I couldn't tell which game specifically.
I had the Donkey Kong arcade port on it, ironically better than the NES one because it had the full 4 levels instead of just 3.
Other game of note was Jet Set Willy. Despite the simplistic style that game was creepy as hell to me. The intro music was a pretty good 8-bit rendition of the Moonlight Sonata. Not sure how much of this is due to the game, but that music still kind of gives me the creeps.
Then on that computers I had lots of forgettable games, often in compilations. And a few bad ports (Salamander a.k.a Life Force), okay ones (Contra) and a very late addition of Lemmings, probably the best game I had on it yet not the best version of the game by far.
I got a NES as a secondary gaming platform at some point. Super Mario Bros 1 and 3 were not the first games I played, but after playing so many crappy platform games on the CPC they definitely had a huge impact on what I still consider good game design now.
Mazogs on my godparents ZX81. The game was basically navigating a maze and occasionally fighting spiders. Which was a luck based thing where you just ran into them and waited for the result. Not very exciting but novel at the time.
But it probably wasn't the very first game. I grew up in a tiny coastal tourist town that had four arcades. So it's more likely the earliest games I played were in them but I don't have a defined 'first' memory. They were fairly ubiquitous arcade games so: Space invaders; Donkey Kong; Pac-man; Asteroids; Frogger; Pole position; Paper boy; Lunar lander, etc.
I think the first game that I ever got addicted to (partly because I had the pocket money to sustain the addiction) was Ghosts and Goblins. Been chasing that buzz ever since lol.
The first game I played was somewhere between those Disney Storybook Games on PC, and the Tonka games. And sitting on my Dad's lap playing Police Quest and Wolfenstein 3D Shareware. Eventually we got a PS1 with non-point and click games with Spyro the Dragon and I think Crash Bash and CRT. Can't remember which one we played first.
Fond memories i have of Golden Axe and Warcraft 2. They werent my first games. But ones i played alot. My Dad had an Amiga and the only game i can remember by name is Golden Axe :) maybe Gianna Sisters too
Probably The Ultra on an Oric-1.
Either btd5 on pc or Block dude on a ti calculator
Mario kart on the Wii. still load it up on occasions to play with friends
Descent. My dad had a joystick setup for it and I remember being stunned by the graphics and the ability to fly around
Either Combat or Pitfall on Atari 2600.
Blew my toddler mind. Which happened again the following year when Santa delivered an NES for Christmas with Super Mario & Duck Hunt.
First game I remember:
Playing a friend's copy of Pokémon Red. Many a late night was spent getting as far as I could without being allowed to save.
First games I remember owning:
Sega Genesis 6-PAK with Sonic the Hedgehog, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Revenge of Shinobi, Columns, and Super Hang-on. Mostly played Sonic. Mom forbade us from playing the "violent" games, so we'd get in trouble if we were caught playing GA, SoR, or RoS.
First game I have fond memories of:
Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage. This was one of the first games we got when we upgraded from the Genesis to a PS2, and I played it many times over from the start before we invested in a memory card. The first game I actually beat start to finish without saving. I fondly remember 100%ing it over a weekend, leaving the PS2 on overnight while I slept.
I think it was Adventure on the Atari Flashback 2
The home version of pong when I was 4 years old.
My friend's dad owned a small local cable station so he had access and money to get all the latest crap.
I remember he also had a brand new beta max, and I was just this innocent 4 or 5 year old kid and I was asking why the time was flashing and the adults didn't know. So I just walked up and programmed it. They praised me as being a literal genius and I was like you idiots It's just a fucking clock.
Crash Bandicoot was also my first game! I was only around 2 years old give or take. I enjoyed the NES and Sega genesis a lot more until I got a bit older as it was easier to get the hang of.
The second game I saw(but did not play) was tomb raider. It made me cry when the wolves jump scare you in the first level lol.
Rocky's Boots on Apple II. It was an educational logic game using logic gates to complete puzzles.
Mostly flash games on some websites. However, the main one I remember was Colin McRae Rally 2.0. Getting a cheap controller with force feedback was amazing.