Gaming firsts /most influential games

[Mr Ixolite]

As with doubtless many other posters, the Cane and Rinse forum content I've grown to enjoy the most are the tales of games that were eye-openers to people, the games that set something in motion.

So, this thread is dedicated to those exact moments! What games were your "firsts", and introduced you to specific genres or concepts? What games were the most influential, either on your trajectory as a gamer, or on you in general ? These things do not have to be the same; like, my first ever racing game was Formula 1 for the game boy, but it has left about zero impression on me whatsoever.

I hope the overall idea makes sense. And hey, if nothing else, you've got a good template for if Cane and Rinse ever does a podcast on the game

I'll get us started:

First ever fighting game: Tekken 2
As with quite a few other firsts, this one came courtesy of a PS1 demo disc. You could only play as Jun and Lei in all their low-poly glory, but I still sunk hours into it. I never ended up owning the game, but I still somehow wound up playing it loads. I fell head over heels in love with Yoshimitsu, setting off an habit of always picking the goofiest character, which is going strong to this day. These days I tend to prefer the more chaotic fun of Super Smash Bros as opposed to more technical fighters where I mostly get my butt kicked, but I can still pull off wins in Tekken from time to time.

Also, I am no longer the kind of guy who will pick Devil and spam laser beams, but by god it was fun to do so.


Super Smash Bros Meelee = origin of love of Luigi

I don't know how it happened. Maybe because of his "underdog" status or again being drawn to his goofy design, but Luigi ended up being my main by a long shot, eclipsing the playtime of my friends' Link Main...and it was his game! Ever since this game I have played as Luigi every opportunity I get, coming to love his affable, scaredy-cat personality (as well as the fact that he has a personality at all), to the point where I perpetually put him in front in Superstar Brothers, making it effectively the Luigi Brothers show.

[Alex79]

Interesting thread.

Flashback (Megadrive)

Maybe the first game that made me realise games could be more than just 'games'. I really felt part of that world, during the second area where you have to take a job to earn enough credits to progress, delivering things and taking assassination contracts, the game really opened my eyes to the idea of a world that existed whether I was there or not. It was really an important moment in gaming for me. It looked better and moved more realistically than anything I'd played before. Outstanding.

Music 2000 (PS1)

I'd used and enjoyed the first software package in the series, but it was this sequel from Codemasters that really made me take making music in my own home seriously. I'd spend hours and hours getting a perfect sound, and still have whole load of CDs I burned of tracks I made on this. Creatively it was an incredible piece of software, the possibilities were almost endless, and best of all you could sample short segments of your own CDs, meaning I had dozens of Fatboy Slim and Chemical Brothers remixes I'd made. This software was really influential on a 20 or so year old me, and paved the way for a lifetime really of making and recording my own music.

Half Life (PC)

The first FPS I played with mouse and keyboard. I was a 20 year old in college, just got my first PC, and this was one of the first games I got for it. It was incredible. I'd never known immersion like this before, from the opening tram ride to the fights with the marines to the closing credits. So many stand out moments, and playing with mouse and keyboard felt so revolutionary at the time that it was many years before I really returned fully to console gaming.

I'll add some more later.

[countstex]

I like this idea!

Elite (BBC Micro)

Not only an epic game, but the first game I ever double dipped on, on the same system no-less!

It started with the tape version, took an age to load and if I recall you had to load from tape each time you landed/launched from a space station. However the game felt infinite at a time when things were at their most limited. How they managed to get that game to work in 32K of RAM I'll never fully comprehend. But pay it I did, for hours upon hours. Writing down profitable trade routes, building up funds for cargo expansions and improved defensive systems, constantly worrying about Thargoids.

And then eventually we upgraded to have a 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drive. Talk about a generational leap. Suddenly load times where down to seconds rather than minutes. And if you every became tired of knowing the stars too well you could always hop to another galaxy and become lost in a new cosmos. Those transparent polygons will forever live on in my mind.

I've never since been able to capture that same sense of wonder of being 7/8 years old and exploring space. Certainly not with any of the later Elite games, No Man's Sky came close, real close, but you can never recapture that first love.

[Jon Cheetham]

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

The first one that comes to mind for me. I pre-ordered this back in 2002 with a bit of money I had from my birthday I think, just based on the Amazon entry for it. The idea of being able to freely roam around was totally new to me. And it became the first game I fell headlong into and just played to the exclusion of all else for like a year, and then the first game I kept regularly going back to even as I eventually began playing other things again. The impression of freedom, variety and choice is something I really value in games even to this day, and when I bought a PS4 in 2017 after a decade barely touching a PC game or a console, I bought Skyrim along with it. Didn't even buy anything else until I'd done something like 250 hours.

Dark Souls III

The first time I enjoyed playing online against other people! Something about Friede's Great Scythe's special move was so much fun I started logging into the "Undead Arena" around Autumn last year to use it against other players. I would come home from work and just sit waiting for matches for an hour or two, spamming this elaborate sweeping scythe combo no doubt to much irritation from more purist players I came up against. It was so fun I rebuilt my character's stats around the scythe. Then when I started getting the hang of things like spacing and working with the reach and rhythm of different weapons, I re-spec'd again back to my original melee pyromancer build. At the usual meta of either a gigantic two-hand weapon that two-shots other players, or a speedy dagger to stunlock people, I wouldn't be able to compete on pure reflexes and mechanical knowledge. But preparing a loadout of spells and strategising my way to victory, chipping down someone who could destroy me in two hits with a series of fireballs and opportunistic slices with my longsword, huge amounts of fun. So yeah, the first game to get me to (voluntarily) do PvP.

[duskvstweak]

This could go on for a while so I'll try to limit myself...

Super Mario Bros.

First video game I ever played as kid. I doubt I could read by the time I had that NES controller in my hand.

Age of Empires

Cemented my love for RTS and sim/god games. I play Civ and all that because of the first AoE game.

Goldeneye 64

My first FPS and a game I was good enough at that I was the one to beat in my neighborhood.

Final Fantasy VI/Baldur's Gate/Ogre Battle 64
Somehow, I ended up playing these all at the same time and they got me into to RPGs, including tabletop gaming.

Metal Gear Solid

MGS felt like something so unlike anything I had ever played before that I'm sure it influenced future choices and and games in my life.

[Mr Ixolite]

First RTS: Warcraft II- Tides of Darkness
I got introduced to this game by my second cousin, and would watch him play it for hours whenever we visited. I would decline any offer to play the game myself, preferring to watch him lead his armies to overwhelming, bloody victory, completely in awe of apparent strategic prowess. When i finally got the game myself I quickly learned that there was a very clear reason for my cousins skill level, and Warcraft II became the first game I cheated at, reliably typing "itisagooddaytodie" at the start of any game.

But it didn't feel like cheating. Because I was the kind of kid who read the massive Warcraft II manual as if it was written by Tolkien, and was only invested in leading the Orcish Horde to complete dominance. To the kind of kid who found humans lame and was doodling vicious trolls in his notebooks during math, the game was a supreme power fantasy - one that has permanently colored my relationship to strategy games. Because while I have no problem dying literally thousands of times in Celeste, I absolutely cannot bear the thought of sinking more than an hour into a match, only to have it all be in vain*. No, better to summon a bazooka-wielding sports-car driver to support the conquest of the roman empire...


* Yes, I can be an incredibly sore loser at board game nights

[Magical_Isopod]

The first games I remember owning on a console were Sonic The Hedgehog and Thunder Force II. I still like platformers and shmups. I know I had edutainment games too, before or around that time. Bunch of Magic School Bus games and Putt-Putt Goes To The Moon.

[Suits]

Wow, cool thread.

Mine won't be as interesting as others I don't think though.

Sonic the Hedgehog (Mega Drive) - This was the pinnacle for me at time when I had a Master System with Alex THE Kid in Miracle World. When I finally played Sonic is didn't disappoint and still doesn't today for me.

Streets of Rage 2 - Huge impact, the game play, the music, the art, the style the attitude, thinking about it gives me goosebumps.

Super Mario World - Seemed to reset everything for me in terms of platforming games, the first time I was shown a secret ending to a Ghost House I was blown away. Things had changed and Super Mario World had shown me that.

Zelda:LttP - Just, blew me away.

Doom - Another game that showed me things were getting serious and was way out of reach for me at the time. When I finally got a Playstation this was the first game I wanted, got and played. I still play it now.

TES:Oblivion - See, now this came at a time when I had spent a long time in gaming exile, I had a PS2 but only really played Pro Evo on it for many years. I'd hurt myself skating I think and was feeling sorry for myself so me and my boys went down to Electronics Boutique in Bridgend and I bought a Xbox 360 that had just came out very recently. Due to there not being many games out at the time there was King Kong, Full Auto and Oblivion - thats all they had.

Having never come close to anything like this and not really having a PC these things just didn't exist in my universe.

It must have taken me and my housemate at the time about 10 hours, when we suddenly looked at each other and said, "Oh, I get it..." and that was it, got fully involved.

I prefer Skyrim but Oblivion will not only be my first but a huge eye opener in terms of how far things had come and where they were going.

[andthenweplay]

Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening As far as I can remember Link's Awakening on the GameBoy pocket was my first video game I ever played. I remember getting it from my dad at the time with a copy of this and Kirby's Dreamland. Sadly I never played Kirby that many times as the island of Koholint was a masterpiece to explore on my little GameBoy Screen. Link's Awakening is also a very important video game to me as well because I wasn't a massive reader before I actually starting playing the game so it took much longer to my my first time then I would later. What is most surprising is that the Switch Remake of Link's Awakening I was taken back at interesting the story is. I adored playing through the remake this year and in my eyes I find it to be a real work or art.

Final Fantasy X Besides Link's Awakening being a very influential game for me Final Fantasy X is also very influential. It wasn't my first JRPG but it was the first JRPG (excluding Zelda games) that I actually seen the ending credits for. What is remarkable is how the story really gripped me as a teenager. I remember buying the game before actually owning a PlayStation so it was much of the motivation for saving money to eventually buy the console. What I really loved about Final Fantasy X is the world of Spira. Even though it is a linear game, the lore and characters that inhabbit the game world seen to have so much depth. Even considering that vendors that sell potions and weapons make sense within the games world.

Kirby: Star Allies I know this game Star Allies is a very recent video game but there has been many modern games I have played that has filled me with so much joy. Even many of Nintendo greatest exclusives on Switch have not gripped me like Kirby Star Allies. Everything from the memorable soundtrack, beautiful character models and art style and the incredibly addictive gameplay loop makes Star Allies a perfect pick me up game.

[ColinAlonso]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

I think the idea is more of a personal list. So if Wolfenstein 3D got you into gaming, PC gaming, FPSs, fostered a deep love of blasting Nazis in the face or anything else you feel is important in your gaming life, throw it on your list.

Anyway here's a few of mine

Sonic 1/2 - One of the biggest pop culture icons when I was 5-7 years old. We wanted a Mega Drive in no small part to these games and it fostered my love of platformers.

Mega Games 2 - Cheating here but for those who don't know Mega Games 2 was a Mega Drive compilation of Golden Axe, Streets of Rage and Revenge of Shinobi. It came with the Mega Drive and was a great introduction tp videogames. Mega Games 3 came with the console too but wasn't as good, Super Monaco GP was the highlight.

Final Fantasy VII - The first of my many, many JRPGs. It's also the first game I played where the story and world were important parts of the game.

Pokémon Red - Got me into handheld gaming and made me realise they could be more than weaker adaptations of console games.

Wipeout HD - I don't play much online but I often have one game on the go that I dabble in. Wipeout HD was the first and was followed by Everybody's Golf (Vita), Rocket League and Splatoon 2. I think Wipeout's influence is that I prefer my online games to be built on a basic set of mechanics where your skill and knowledge of tracks, maps, courses etc. rather than RPG style mechanics are the main method of progression.

[andthenweplay]

Hi, newbie here.

I'm surprised noone has mentioned Wolfenstein 3d.
Basically defined the fps genre.

I personally have never been hardcore into First Person Shooter/games besides Metroid Prime Trilogy. But I can understand the importance of a game like Wolfenstein 3D

[Flabyo]

The thread is more about what were first and influential for you personally, not the industry as a whole.

[KSubzero1000]

Hm... something tells me that Wolfenstein's place in the history of the FPS genre wasn't the point of that post after all.

[Mr Ixolite]

I think the idea is more of a personal list. So if Wolfenstein 3D got you into gaming, PC gaming, FPSs, fostered a deep love of blasting Nazis in the face or anything else you feel is important in your gaming life, throw it on your list.

Thats exactly it, though people are welcome to post random anecdotes as well, instead of full-fledged lists (which are also cool)

Anyways, a few of you guys have mentioned Sonic The Hedgehog, which may be the first video game I ever experienced. It was owned by my other second cousin, whos' family mine shared a house with for a time. I would drop down to visit, and stare in awe at the dazzling visuals produced my his Sega Mega Drive. I don't remember ever seeing anything past the green hill zone, but I would still carry it forward for years as the pinnacle of what gaming could be. During a stay at a Novotel hotel with my family I was elated to discover a Sonic 2 coin-op, causing me to brand it the Sonic Hotel, and experience much dissapointment when other hotels in the same chain failed to produce said coin op. During vacations in London, a trip to "SEGA World" was as good as Disneyland.

Even with all that I never ended up owning a SEGA console, and when my adult self finally picked up the classic games through the nintendo DS collection I didn't actually like them that much. But still, Sonic was my first window into this hobby, and no one can take that away from him.

[rob25X]

I think the idea is more of a personal list. So if Wolfenstein 3D got you into gaming, PC gaming, FPSs, fostered a deep love of blasting Nazis in the face or anything else you feel is important in your gaming life, throw it on your list.

Thats exactly it, though people are welcome to post random anecdotes as well, instead of full-fledged lists (which are also cool)

Anyways, a few of you guys have mentioned Sonic The Hedgehog, which may be the first video game I ever experienced. It was owned by my other second cousin, whos' family mine shared a house with for a time. I would drop down to visit, and stare in awe at the dazzling visuals produced my his Sega Mega Drive. I don't remember ever seeing anything past the green hill zone, but I would still carry it forward for years as the pinnacle of what gaming could be. During a stay at a Novotel hotel with my family I was elated to discover a Sonic 2 coin-op, causing me to brand it the Sonic Hotel, and experience much dissapointment when other hotels in the same chain failed to produce said coin op. During vacations in London, a trip to "SEGA World" was as good as Disneyland.

Even with all that I never ended up owning a SEGA console, and when my adult self finally picked up the classic games through the nintendo DS collection I didn't actually like them that much. But still, Sonic was my first window into this hobby, and no one can take that away from him.

Sonic the Hedgehog was a big one for me. I remember I had played a number of games as a young boy on Spectrums and the C64 before it but Sonic was so striking with it's visuals, speed of gameplay and great music. It quickly became my favourite game and remained so throughout the Mega Drive's life. Many prefer Sonic 2 but not me (tails was a bit of a distracting addition for me and those special stages were rage inducing - though not half as much as the awful dizzying ball stages in Sonic 3). A mint copy of Sonic 1 I picked up on eBay sits proudly on my special gaming shelf. I think Sonic set the standard for action platformers that other games never really matched for years, until the arrival of the major next generation games like Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot.

2D platforming perfection and a timeless classic in my opinion.

[ReprobateGamer]

Resident Evil 2

I may have mentioned this elsewhere but this was the game that convinced me to buy a Playstation (having given up on video games for a few years after the SNES era); it's about the only game I have ever really got close to speed-running; it was the game that convinced my then partner (now wife) that video games could be more than male fantasy fodder and led as well to us purchasing our next few consoles for iterations in the franchise (PS2 for RE:CV; Gamecube for the Remake; 1st gen PS3 for the backwards compatibility)

We bounced off RE7 hard but we both still love this series and the original RE2

Unreal Tournament 2004
This was my first foray into online gaming (despite owning Doom, Quake and the original UT) and was bought purely because I had some spare money and remembered liking the original). That started three years of this being my most played game of those years (pretty much from it's release until the release of UT3) and almost all of that time on one (mostly) friendly server.

There are still things I miss from that game today

Mario Kart: Double Dash and Crash Team Racing

Putting these two together as both are for me local party games with many great memories, often with people who otherwise weren't gamers. These games were easy to pick up for people who didn't play video games often and easy to enjoy, but had advanced mechanics for anyone who put the time in.
Very happy that my daughters are now getting into Mario Kart, and I will at some point add the remake of CTR to their gaming repertoire.

Split Second Velocity

I will always be an arcade racer over a sim racer and this game to me brings together a whole bunch of things that work and put them together in a great package, with one of my all time favorite soundtracks. It took what worked from Burnout and mixed them together in an always exciting package.

Chaos and Samurai
Last two together - both 8-bit Spectrum era games that cemented a like for turn-based tactical games without necessarily having to worry about any resource management meta-game - a rare breed today!

[Mr Ixolite]

As mentioned above my first racing game was Formula 1 for the gameboy, but the first Racing game that I got into was WIPEOUT 2097 - courtesy of its presence on a certain PS1 Demo Disc (which has become a sort of touchstone for several of my gaming experiences). I played through that one Demo track countless times, and was overjoyed to learn that it was not just me taking damage- I could shoot at rival racers! Soon my primary goal was not so much winning, as it was blowing up as many rivals as possible. I once again never ended up owning the game, but it made it abundantly clear that in terms of racers I wasn't interested in realism, I was interested in carnage. It set the stage for later infatuation with Destruction Derby, Mario Kart, Rollcage, Carmageddon and more...

But by far the most important descendant in that lineage was Crash Team Racing, which was the first game I ever felt I was good at. Not because I played it obsessively, or because I got all the platinum relics, all the characters, and beat all the time attacks, though I did do those things. No, because CTR was the first of my games that had local multiplayer, and I thus had the chance to test my skill against other human beings.
And it quickly became clear that I was That Guy. You know, the guy who sucks the fun out of a party game, because his skill level is so disproportionate. I became the guy who would deliberately and secretly play worse, because I was afraid people wouldn't play with me otherwise. Its not like I hadn't been caning and rinsing games for years before CTR, but it wasn't until that game that I figured out "hang on, I'm pretty good at this video game thing I guess?". To this day I have had several nostalgic friends discover the game at my house, demand we play a few rounds, whereupon I utterly destroy them.

I haven't bought the remake yet because I'm scared to go online and have my ego crushed, but I still hope to one day play locally against someone who can give me a fair fight. Then again, maybe not; to this day I'm not much of a multiplayer gamer, and whatever prowess I have come from singleplayer modes, in this case the meaty adventure mode. I still haven't gotten mario kart 8 for my switch for the simple reason that it has everything unlocked from the getgo. I'm the kind of gamer who goes "Whats the point then"