What was your first video game experience?

[storino03]

My first would be getting a Nintendo (NES) from Target. I think it was $129.99 and playing Super Mario Bros, literally every day after preschool. I never beat the game (final castle in World 8 was a repeating maze that I never got past), but it brings back a lot of memories of just playing it until I died.

I also had an Apple II GS computer back in the day, that had some fun, educational titles as well. Mother Goose was one that I have fond memories of playing. You basically go around finding different nursey rhyme characters' items that have been misplaced, and once you find the item and bring it back to the appropriate character, they play a small sequence from it.

What about you guys?

[aboblyndsae]

Something on my brother's Coleco ADAM when I was 2-3 years old—either Cabbage Patch Kids: Adventure in the Park (a conversion of Konami's Athletic Land) or this one Richard Scarry game where you controlled the worm in an apple car. I remember also playing Zaaxon when I was really young—"champion" was one of the difficulty levels, and that was the first time I encountered that word.

[daylightdies]

I can't remember too well- my memory is a little fuzzy. I think it might have been some really old computer game on my dads old computer. Like, 80's old. My first RPG was Final Fantsy II (SNES) (IV technically) and I really haven't looked back since.

Funny story, how did JRPGs acquire such a big fan? I just happened to like the box art. I remember staying locked in the basement, when I first made it to the underworld. My parents would call me out for dinner, and my grandfather would say it's ok, noticing how much I've put into the game. Good memories!

[Aristides]

Mine would be the Sega Master System with Shinobi :P My favorite game from my childhood. I also played a lot The Ninja on SMS, that's my brother's favorite game XD.

[storino03]

I remember getting Final Fantasy for my birthday one year, and didn't know how to play it (like equip/purchase spells and armor) so I never really got far, past Garland lol.

[banditwolf]

I have no idea of the specific game. Most likely on DOS. I had a bunch of games I liked to play.
First console gamers were my parents Atari. (still have it and it works)

[zborgerd]

I'm pretty sure that mine was a Millipede arcade machine in some corner diner in the early 80s. After that, probably an NES at a friend's house. He had Gyromite and World Class Track Meet.

[TempestOne]

First of all, I can't believe that "videogame" isn't the right word or term. LOL

I love talking about my first video game experience because I think I have the most random of stories. Pretty much, when I grew up, I was probably "birthday'ed" *shrugs* with an MSX system. It was more for our household, I guess, but there were a bunch, a multitude of games for me to choose from. I just picked whatever because I was that kind of kid and it was a game called "Knightmare" where you controlled a knight, of course, and it was a down-up, scroller-shooter & it was so much fun. It was your right kind of scary because the pixels were so right on. I got pretty far into the game to the point where I probably beat it. Ahh, memories. All I remember was that they would advertise that Medusa was the last boss, but she really wasn't... or something to that effect. It was a really long time ago, but not really.

There were some other games like Final Fantasy which I thought was (expletive) boring-looking just from the case. I was a more athletic child and not really into the artistic side so it didn't really have any impression on me. What I did love was the Duck Hunt/Track and Field/Motorcycle game that I was given. Like, Duck Hunt is pretty self-explanatory - my favorite part was always the dog taunting the player. So effing hilarious! The Track and Field game you'd use, like, a pre-Dance-Dance-Revolution blow-up airbag and run in place on it. So much fun... and we had this blow-up motorcycle air bike that you'd ride or sit on and you'd lean from side to side avoiding balloons.

My first video game experience was more of, like, a party than a solo adventure, so... but I leaned towards Knightmare for sure as my first, favorite game.

[dunno001]

All I remember is that it was on the 2600 (VCS if you prefer), and that my favorite game was Super Breakout. (Many a paddle were worn down from my playing that game.) The first isolated memory I have was at a friend's house, playing Jr. Pac Man. They complained my game was taking "too long" and turned off the system on me. I even remember that my score was only about 15,000...

[ninjamitsuki]

You're all reminding me of how very young I am. DX My first was Pokemon Blue Version. Not only that, but that game played a big part in me learning how to read. It also fostered a lifelong love for RPGs, too, of course. Instead of shooting or jumping on things, my idea of a video game was turn based battles, experience points, strategy, grinding, and exploiting weaknesses, so I sought games with those in it. Even when I was a kid I preferred RPGs over everything else, and I remember Lunar Silver Star Story, which changed my life (but I only played Lunar 2 fairly recently). Which made me a bit smarter when I was a child, at least compared to my classmates. I had a large vocabulary (I don't think you'd know too many 8 year old girls who knew what a Zweihander was, for instance). But I wasn't too into skill based games as a result, and thus I'm rather poor at action games to this day. Most of my consoles were hand me downs from my brother, though.

I also have to thank a little mom and pop video rental store for exposing me to great rare and oldish games, and a good chunk of the RPGs I played. Either the owners were insane, unbelievably generous, or blissfully unaware of how valuable some of the video games in their store were. They went out of business a long time ago, though.

I guess I have a little fad in the 90's to thank for discovering Working Designs and Gaijinworks... And loving RPGs to death.

God you guys are making me feel young.

Edit: made it less tl;dr