What was your first video game? (Or the first ones per major generation)

[Skinwalker]

I bet no one has ever made a thread like this, ever. Ahem.

What was the first video game you've ever played, on what system, and how old were you?

Mine was, as typical as it is, Super Mario Bros. on Nintendo. Everyone just called it a Nintendo. I was four years old, and I didn't know which Nintendo it was exactly (and I still don't), or how popular this game was or wasn't, but I played it so much that I started involuntarily making Mario noises and music even when I wasn't playing it. Tada-tada-tada. Tada-tada-tada. Tada-tadatata-tadatata-tadatadatatadatatadatatata. Tada-tada-tada.

My parents took away the console after that for a few months. I eventually got it back with a bunch of new cartridges that had tons of different games on them, including Duck Hunt, Bomberman, Super Contra, Robocop, a cool ninja game the name of which I don't remember (Cage? Kage? Kain? Kuga?), and one flying game with cool graphics that I had never been able to find again later. And many others. Was TMNT one of those first games, or was it on a later version of Nintendo? Probably a later generation. Oh, and Felix the Cat. And Sonic... wait, have I crossed over into Sega? Sega came later. Sega MegaDrive, technically, but everyone just called it a Sega.

As for the first 3D game... I don't remember the exact first one, but one of the very first ones was Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. It blew me away in so many different ways, I was never the same again. I played that one many years later, on Sony (PlayStation, but everyone just called it a Sony). And the first PC game was almost certainly Baldur's Gate. Or Thief. Or Star Warts: Dark Forces (hated it, it seemed so old and outdated). Or some crap that I forgot because it wasn't good.

But the very first game was definitely Mario. Your princess is in another castle.

 

[Gandalf]

Mine, I think it was pong, but I don't really remember. I remember Barbarian fightning game on C64 and I do remember playing a lot of pipeline (mario bros. 1) with my friends. We had a lot of laugh, because it was so funny to mess around with turtles. Good times.

 

[Reinhardt]

Blood.

 

[Reinhardt]

i remember carrying it on a bunch of floppies. there was literally 2 pc in the village i lived at that time.

 

[Hag]

Funny, I was thinking of making this same thread a couple days ago.
Mine was the first Rayman, on MS-DOS.

 

[__scribbles__]

Earliest I can remember is playing The Secret of Monkey Island with my father.

 

[AndyS]

Our first game system was a Coleco Telstar that played several Pong variations (Jai Alai! Yeah!). The first video games that I remember really capturing my imagination were Pac-Man and Donkey Kong in the arcades. When it came to upgrading our game console, we skipped over the Atari 2600 and Intellivision and went with the Colecovision, although I still had a bunch of 2600 games thanks to the adapter module. Our first home PC was an IBM PCjr., which I used to play a lot of Infocom adventures, the first couple of King's Quest games, Jumpman, Karateka, and Lode Runner.

 

[Falksi]

Missile Command in the arcades. On home systems I played Pitfall on the Atari at a mates, but for my own home system it was Granny's Garden on the BBC Micro.

 

[Hellraiser]

Canonically it was Cannon Fodder on an Amiga 500 while visiting someone my parents knew. Technically I played the great giana sisters earlier on the same day, but eh, I rather remember Cannon Fodder. It left a lasting impression with quite vivid memories of shit blowing up to this very day, well it and those copy protection schemes where you looked for words in the manual... and learning to control the mouse cursor.

 

[Velut]

I think it was Chip and Dale game. Could be wrong because my mother gave me quite a few games with Dendy, it is the only one that I still remember through.

 

[Melcar]

I think it was something I played at either the arcades or while waiting at a car wash with my father (probably 6-7 years old). I want to say Galaga.

 

[cpmartins]

Tennis on an Odyssey my uncle had. With the dial controllers.

 

[Cerulean]

Breakout on the original Atari 2600, using the dial controller.

 

[Beggar]

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

My memory tells me river raid on atari 2600, but I'm not sure if it's actually true. First PC game I do remember - it was wolf3d.

 

[processdaemon]

I'm pretty sure it was Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow when I was around 5 or 6. I thought it was fantastic and I'm never going to replay it so I never disabuse myself of that notion.

 

[ropetight]

First games I ever played were arcades, Scramble and a clone of Galaga called Phoenix.

Spoiler

On 8bits, Android One on Amstrad CPC.
On 16bits, it was North & South on Amiga.
PC, Wolfenstein.

Ones that came after were not that memorable, I guess.

 

[Borelli]

I think it was pong on an Amiga 500, but i'm not 100% sure.

 

[Nutmeg]

Bomberman port for DOS (called DYNA.EXE). I was 3.

Second was Warcraft 1. Third was Doom.

 

[Axie]

Saboteur on ZX Spectrum, around 5-6 years old.

Various arcades were first, though...

 

[Jonnaz]

Alex Kidd

 

[octavius]

Pong on a friend's console.

 

[Ezekiel]

Alex Kidd

Might have been mine too. That or Hang-On for the same system (Master System).

 

[Gregz]

The Bard's Tale I (1985) absolutely blew me away. I would wake up at 3AM to get a few hours of gameplay each day before having to go to school.

 

[Bester]

Probably Battle City on a NES at about 5 years of age, at least that's my oldest memory as a sentient being.



Before that I tried playing something like Space Invader's on a ZX Spectrum, but failed. I was about 3. I can't recall the specifics. I don't think that counts.