What's the first videogame you ever remember playing?

[Suits]

Mine was, rather predictably, Sonic the Hedgehog for the Master System. However the story of how I got the actual console is much more interesting.

My father and I were visiting family in Manchester........

Incredible story, loved that, tanks for sharing, lol.

[Suits]

My pleasure

The only thing I have close to anything like that is how I got my Dreamcast. Which must have been a few months after release I think, it was certainly close to Christmas anyway.

I had previously bought myself a MiniDisc Walkman for school, which was brillinat, however the loading mechanism had jammed and stop working a literal week after buying it.

So I went back to Curry's fro an exchange. The admitted it was faulty and sadly informed me that he couldn't replace it, as they didn't have anymore in stock, so he had to give me money back - £100

I trundled back towards home and stopped off in my mates house on the way home for a breather and a bit of a whinge about it.

While we were up in his room chilling, his older sister had a couple of mates round in the next room, with that she stuck her head around the door and flippantly mumbled if anyone wanted to buy a brand new Dreamcast for £100 off one of her hooligan mates (robbed).

Not even realising that this was even a possibility, my mate looked at me wide eyed waiting for me to pipe up.

Few seconds later I realsied that I was un-normally rich and took her up on the offer. Then, plonked in my arms was a brand new Dreamcast box.

I raced home and set it up - had no games though, so I just browsed the internet doing what a normal 15 year old would - looked for porn.

Good times.

Then I bought Speed Devils the next week I think.

[eastmcduck]

Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt/World Class Track Meet cartridge for NES at my Uncle's house. I was probably 4 or 5 at the time and I've been a video game addict ever since. I even bought that old NES and cartridge from my Uncle when I was old enough to get a job.

[chase210]

Mine was, rather predictably, Sonic the Hedgehog for the Master System. However the story of how I got the actual console is much more interesting.

My father and I were visiting family in Manchester. I had never played a home console before and my older cousin had a MS. I immediately fell in love with it and played it constantly for the duration of our stay. The night before we were due to leave my father suggested that he would have to save up the money and purchase one back in Ireland as he'd never seen me so happy. But we were quite poor so in reality that was never going to happen. My older cousin overheard this, left the house and returned 1 hour later with a brand-new, unopened Master System II and the beginning (or perhaps continuation) of a criminal career, specialising in warehouse burglaries, that would eventually see him make Greater Manchester Police's most-wanted list. Yes, really.

So my father and I made our way back to Holyhead to catch the ferry home, but while we were boarding my father got pulled aside by the police and taken into a separate interview room, along with the stolen console. I thought he was going to be taken straight to prison and all in the name of that damned Hedgehog. However, I was too young to realise that UK/Irish relations were in poor shape, that the IRA had been increasing its activity on the British mainland and that my father was a dead-ringer for Gerry Adams (and still is to this day). In fact my father was/is the most stereotypical Irish mutha-fucker imaginable, and from then until the mid 90's he was rigorously searched and interviewed every single time he visited his family in England.

Anyway, I'm sure a lot of you won't like the sound of us green-skinned ruffians getting the boat over to steal your gaming consoles, and believe me I now cringe at the thought of it myself. So you'll be glad to know that my beloved Master System II was later stolen by, cor blimey wouldn't you know it, an English kid that just moved onto our estate. The karmic order was restored.

That is a fantastic story. Thanks for sharing.

[richie_in_japan]

Granny's Garden on my school's BBC Acorn. That witch was terrifying.

[Jusifer]

my first gaming memories are of the first super mario bros game on the 8bit nes. It's one of my first memories ever. me, my father and my older brother started the game up together, I'm a bit hazy on the memory but I think my father had just bought the system and showed it to us for the first time. I was so excited but alas wound up crying because the game was so hard. i couldn't work out how to get over the first big gap in the first course and got so frustrated since my brother being older could get over it easily and finish the level with no problems.

it just goes to show that even though my first memories of games are frustrating I still wound up loving video games. I did never love the first mario games as much as the later ones though

[DomsBeard]

Granny's Garden on my school's BBC Acorn. That witch was terrifying.

I remember that, I wonder if it's online anywhere

[ThirdDrawing]

I can't remember specifically but it would have been either Omega Race, Shamus, Radar Rat Race or one of the Scott Adams text adventures on the Vic 20.

Although I do remember playing Hangman on the Commodore Pet in school before we got a Vic 20.

[deacon05oc]

Fantasy Zone on Sega Master System. My father got the system and like 5 games for $15 from a place called Crazy Eddie's that was going out of business. It was because of that I ended up being a Sega player growing up. I was only about 4, I never got far, but I didn't really know that.

[Flabyo]

Granny's Garden on my school's BBC Acorn. That witch was terrifying.

I remember that, I wonder if it's online anywhere

The company that made it is still a going concern, they ported it to the PC a long time back.

[stvnorman]

I have a vivid memory of my dad lifting me up to play a driving game on a ferry over to Ireland. I must have been about 2 or 3, and although I don't remember what game it was, it was a top down racer, and you used a steering wheel

That time frame narrows it down quite a lot, most likely one of the games in the Atari series that started with Gran Trak 10 and ended with Super Sprint. There's another I'm thinking of that is similar to Spy Hunter in look but a fair bit older. Can't recall the name though.

I was convinced it was in colour but looking at the Atari ones, Super Sprint wouldn't have been out yet, so perhaps it was one of the earlier black and white ones then. For some reason, and I'm sure I must be confusing memories in to one another, but there's a thing nagging in my head it was actually a lorry I was driving, too! God knows what that was!

Long shot but wasn't Rally X was it?

[ratsoalbion]

Sprint or Sprint 2 perhaps?

[Sean]

Aw man, this thread is triggering all types of nostalgia for me. I still remember the controls for that Star Wars machine!

I can't say for sure this is my earliest memory, but, the one that comes to mind if Monster Party for the NES. It's definitely my earliest memory of a game that scared me. And *most certainly* my only memory of a game that has a boss battle against a giant piece of shrimp and a giant onion ring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzxyVkIos34

[Tleprie]

Mine would've been on the PC, Sega Game Gear, or PS1, as those were what we had at the time.

Most of the games that we had on PC were Star Wars and Star Trek strategy games, but I had no idea how to play them, so I would've just watched and "helped" my brother or dad. There was also Chex Quest, which if people don't know, is a DOOM clone. Spent a lot of time with that. Finally I spent a lot of time with Scorched Earth, a Worms-like tank game. I still have the floppy disk of that game.

On PS1, the earliest things I remember having were Crash Bandicoot, Rayman, Spyro, and Spider-Man.

On Game Gear the game I played most was definitely Shinobi II: The Silent Fury. We never beat it, at least not that I remember. We also had a Sonic the Hedgehog 2 game, though it was different from the Genesis game, and much harder.

Aside from these, my cousin had an N64, and we played a lot of Smash Bros., Star Wars Rogue Squadron, and Mario 64. There was also a TMNT arcade machine at Chuck E. Cheese's that my dad, brother, and I played everytime we went.


After looking up release dates on a lot of the games I mentioned Scorched Earth, Rayman, Crash, and Shinobi would've probably been the first I played. I know my brother tried teaching me to play the Game Gear long before I was capable of such things.

[Indiana747]

FIrst videogame i ever played was a game called Venture on a ColecoVision that my Aunt had brought back from America back in 1982. She got it with 5 games, i think they were Loop the Loop, Venture, Donkey Kong, Lady Bug & Zaxxon. What a great time to be introduced to video games, if i grew up with them nowadays i know i wouldnt appreciate where they came from.

[MajorGamer]

First system I played was an Intellivision. We had a few games but there is only one that I remember by name: Space Invaders. It has certainly been interesting growing up alongside videogames.

[Michiel K]

Mine was, rather predictably, Sonic the Hedgehog for the Master System. However the story of how I got the actual console is much more interesting.

My father and I were visiting family in Manchester. I had never played a home console before and my older cousin had a MS. I immediately fell in love with it and played it constantly for the duration of our stay. The night before we were due to leave my father suggested that he would have to save up the money and purchase one back in Ireland as he'd never seen me so happy. But we were quite poor so in reality that was never going to happen. My older cousin overheard this, left the house and returned 1 hour later with a brand-new, unopened Master System II and the beginning (or perhaps continuation) of a criminal career, specialising in warehouse burglaries, that would eventually see him make Greater Manchester Police's most-wanted list. Yes, really.

So my father and I made our way back to Holyhead to catch the ferry home, but while we were boarding my father got pulled aside by the police and taken into a separate interview room, along with the stolen console. I thought he was going to be taken straight to prison and all in the name of that damned Hedgehog. However, I was too young to realise that UK/Irish relations were in poor shape, that the IRA had been increasing its activity on the British mainland and that my father was a dead-ringer for Gerry Adams (and still is to this day). In fact my father was/is the most stereotypical Irish mutha-fucker imaginable, and from then until the mid 90's he was rigorously searched and interviewed every single time he visited his family in England.

Anyway, I'm sure a lot of you won't like the sound of us green-skinned ruffians getting the boat over to steal your gaming consoles, and believe me I now cringe at the thought of it myself. So you'll be glad to know that my beloved Master System II was later stolen by, cor blimey wouldn't you know it, an English kid that just moved onto our estate. The karmic order was restored.

Wow.

The first video game I ever layed eyes on was almost certainly a Pac-Man cab... First I ever played, I'm not certain. Either a Pong-style game on a school friend's Philips Videopac or Donkey Kong Jr. on a neigbour kid's Atari 7800.