What was your first video game?

[jubafisher]

Q-Bert

 

[Gori the Grey]

Through Battlezone, I invented the concept of easter eggs long before the first video game ever had them.

It was maddening that you could never actually reach those hills on the horizon. I conceived the idea of coding one path that did bring your tank closer and closer to the hills, a little ways into them even.

Someone should make that version of the game now, and release it as some kind of online game. It couldn't be terribly difficult for today's coders, but it would be provide the deepest satisfaction to some old timers to actually be able to get their tank over to that horizon.

Hey, there was an airplane combat game, too, Red Baron, I wanna say, that used those same simple lines of Asteroids and Battlezone. Nostalgia.

 

[Crackerbox]

The first video game I ever played, that was entirely novel, was Grand Theft Auto. It was completely open ended as you could explore EVERYWHERE. I can't imagine how long that took to code in order to anticipate every possible permutation of choice.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Ah, Asteroids. What was a player ship would now be a low quality mouse pointer.

 

[Gori the Grey]

And the asteroid field wouldn't pass muster as a screen saver.

But what a game! In large part because of the simplicity.

Clear threat. Get crushed by asteroids. Clear mission. Shoot asteroids.

The black of space. The white of your ship and the asteroids.

Three buttons: turn left, turn right, thrust. And with those three, you can navigate with remarkable precision and a smoothness I can feel palpably this minute, although I haven't played the game in over a decade.

Good times.

 

[Kyriakos]

The legendary/infamous Renegade beat-em-up game

A bleaker, less refined version of the concurrent Double Dragon arcade.

It does look nasty. And it was

 

[H4run]

I like this thread, well the first video game I watch as far as I can remember like 4-5 years old were Defender of the crown and Alley Cat, but I never able to play those game, none of my family member ever let me, especially my big sisters because I was too little to understand how to play those game, so I just watch and wishing I can play those, quite sad! Never play those game till now but I have a fond memory of those games.

Defender of the Crown:

Link to video.

Alley Cat:

Link to video.

Then I start to play Civilization 1, my father teach me and I start to get really addicted to it. And my first RPG were Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger. Since that time RPG is my favourite genre.

 

[danjuno]

Millennial here:
Thomas & Friends: Trouble on the Tracks

I was obsessed the damn franchise when I was a kid.

 

[Sedwick]

Ooh, I played a ton of Alleycat, at what I later discovered was at half normal speed (damn bloated DOS 3.2!). I came back to it once to see how far I could go; I maxed out the lives count at 9 and the score at 9,999,999 and eventually the levels seemed to stop getting harder. I never saw the screen completely filled with kittens.

 

[Kyriakos]

I don't know the name. I don't know anything but a blurry fleeting impression of it. It was a console, and I think it must have been a kind prior to dominance of Nintendo and Playstation. Due to the time and the vague sense of it which remains with me.
It is a magical memory. The playing itself is mundane. Me and my brother playing, some pixeled things moving steadily up and the two of us shooting lasers out of it. I remember it being a lot of fun. But what makes this memory special happened after us leaving the game. It was the call from my brother that there were snowflakes outside, falling dawn. I remember getting up in excitement, running to our big upper living room window and starring at the flakes, softly descending. It is hard to put it into words, but this moment holds a power, which in its kind will never resurface. It seems like a symbol of the magnificence of the wonder of a child I had the pleasure to see and have the burden to carry its loss, forever.

 

[Ajidica]

I'm pretty sure my first game was this one train simulator that, while pretty basic, had this one really neat feature that when you crashed your train it would play a FMV clip showing two model trains crashing and getting set on fire.
I cannot remember what it was called for the life of me but I remember playing a lot of it and crashing my trains on purpose.

 

[Kyriakos]

I'm pretty sure my first game was this one train simulator that, while pretty basic, had this one really neat feature that when you crashed your train it would play a FMV clip showing two model trains crashing and getting set on fire.
I cannot remember what it was called for the life of me but I remember playing a lot of it and crashing my trains on purpose.

Most likely "A-Train"

 

[Harv]

I remember Commodore 64 trains. Lol. That was a long time ago.

Sent from my LG-D800 using Tapatalk

 

[Formaldehyde]

Yup. Not only did I play the very first video game, I even had a home version that cost $25 or so that was released a few years later.

The very first game I can remember playing is Dark Castle on the original MacIntosh my parents had. Mostly I remember the game being incredibly difficult (I was also really young). I don't think I ever beat it. I used to watch my dad play it a lot too:


Link to video.

That was one great game. I played it for years and never finished it either. I would be sure to play it on Xmas for years just to see the Xmas tree Easter egg at the start.

 

[bhavv]

Atari 7800 with Asteroids.

Though Civ II was the game that converted me to a PC master race member.

 

[PhroX]

Alley Cat:

Link to video.

Oh wow, that brings back memories. Played that game on the computers at my primary school.

 

[Gary Childress]

The earliest video game I can remember is Space Invaders, circa 1978.

The first desktop computer game I remember is The Oregon Trail, probably around the same time.

Definitely space invaders. Remember playing it at the bowling alley as a kid.

 

[Leifmk]

Space Invaders crew representing.

First "home game" I played was probably some simple thing on my uncle's ZX81, as I believe the first time I laid hands on any kind of home system was one time we visited his house.

First video game played in our house was a Vic-20 cartridge game which I actually managed to find a youtube video of:
Link to video.

 

[thecrazyscot]

I don't specifically remember which was the very first, but it was either Pac-Man or Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego on an old monochrome DOS.

Did anyone else play Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Simulator?

 

[Antilogic]

My parents had a pretty strict "no video games!" rule for awhile while I was young, so I was a bit older when I started playing.

First game on a friend's console: Space Invaders on one of the old Atari consoles.

First arcade games: the 1983 Mario, Pacman, etc.

First game on my own console: Super Mario World - I started with a SNES.

Educational games (these weren't totally blacklisted): Gizmos and Gadgets, some space-themed math game, etc.