You Always Remember Your First... (Videogame)

[digitalpress]

Do you?

What was the first video game you can remember playing? Was it in an arcade or on a home system? What else do you remember from that fateful day?

TELL ME!

[JasonMewes2001]

Super Mario World for SNES

[Plank]

All I remember is pushing my brother off the bed so he'd let me play Super Mario Brothers on the NES

[maxlords]

Hmmm....the VERY first game I remember playing...I THINK it was Asteroids. I was rather young though so it may not have been my VERY first. My family was on theirway to San Jose from Oregon to visit my grandma, and we stopped in Redding to buy olives at some store my dad liked. This big olive store with a diner connected to it. We stopped for lunch and I noticed that the diner had an Ateroids machine near the front next to the window, so I managed to con $.50 out of each parent (separately of course) and go and stand on a chair to play Asteroids, which I totally got my ass kicked at rather quickly. I think that was my first game. It took a long time before I really got hooked on gaming though!

[jaybird]

The first home video game I played was Pac-Man for Atari 2600. I'm sure I played some arcade machines before that, but I don't remember them.

I still remember getting that Atari 2600 for Christmas & thinking the Pac-Man game was awesome. At the time, you didn't care or even think that it was a crappy port, you were just happy to be playing Pac-Man on your television!

[Sniderman]

Easy, for both are burned in my brain:

First home system - Coleco Telstar "pong" system. Had tennis, Hockey, Jai Alai, and two shooting games that used a light gun. (Skeet and Target). Played that son of a gun to death on an old black and white TV back in 1976.

First arcade game - Toss-up, as the local skating rink got both and I played them both on the same day. Computer Space (yup, the original one that started it all) and Gunfight (shot my bro' 1,000 times that day). I know they were each released at different times, but both arrived n the same day at the rink. Also, they got 3 Pachinko machines. My love with arcade stuff began that day.

[NE146]

It's unclear.. the first in my mind were in the old arcades filled with Electromechanical games with my dad holding me up to play. One that comes to mind is a E.M. where you shoot a harpoon gun into a screen at a shark..

Then I remember playing Pong, both at home on a Coleco Colortron(?).. it took 2 9volt batteries. And playing a cocktail Pong at a restaurant. I don't know which came first. I think the restaurant Pong probably did though.

The first coin-op I really took on when I was more "cognizant" was definitely Space Invaders though.

[Nature Boy]

I don't remember which Arcade game was my first but Combat was my first home game.

[Anonymous]

I'm pretty sure Donkey Kong is the first arcade game I played. The first home game I played was Haunted house at my neighbor's around the same time (it actually scared me!). The first game system I got was the coleco, and so my first game was of course Donkey Kong.

[congobongo]

The RadioShack dedicated pong system. Was it called Scoreboard?

[ManekiNeko]

Holy crow, now there's a tough question. I seem to remember going to my mom's friend's house, where they dug out an Atari 2600 and tons of games. The most recent title they had was Freeway, so I'm guessing this was around 1980.
I've also got vague memories of an early game system (possibly the Telstar... it had a light gun) and playing the Atari Football arcade game with my cousins. Past that, I dunno. I might have SEEN a Pong system when I was in three cornered shorts but I doubt they let me actually play with it at that age. It'd be a great way to ruin what was at the time expensive, state of the art technology.

JR

P.S. My earliest gaming memory had to be this odd slot machine like toy that rang and had pictures when you pulled the lever. I guess my destiny was written in stone from that moment on... I'd either be a video game player or a dealer at a casino.

[YoshiM]

Wow, that's a toughie.

The first HOME console game was the Pong/driving/wild west shootout on the Coleco Telstar Arcade. It remember the gun game vividly, as the trigger broke and I had to fire by pulling back the hammer of the gun.

The first ARCADE game, that's harder. I want to say Asteroids, but those memories are a jumbled mess as to what I played *first*. I do remember playing a lot of Star Wars when it came out, but I'm sure I played something before that and I'm thinking it was Asteroids.

[MankeyMan]

The first game I ever played was Alex the Kidd, at a friends house. Sufficed to say, next Xmas I got an SMS.

[Lady Jaye]

The first game I remember playing was B.C. Quest for Tire on either the ColecoVision or the Coleco Adam (can't remember which of the two it was) at the school's infirmary. It was probably in 1983.

Back then, I was attending private school (I went to that school in grades 1 and 2). I actually lived at school (going home only on weekends), so getting sick meant spending the day at the infirmary. It probably was something minor like a cold, because I wasn't sent home. Or it could have been during gym period (I broke my arm half-way through grade 2, slipping on a sheet of ice in the school yard). But that's unlikely, as playing videogames with one good hand and with a cast is not a comfortable experience.

[kainemaxwell]

My first video games were that of my first system, the Atari 2600.

[sniperCCJVQ]

First Home console: Probably PONG even if i didn't remember anything about that, i'm sure that i play this before the TRS-80 Computer which i remember clearly (i even have a photo of that), but the Atari 2600 it's really the first real console that i play first.

First Arcade: I remember playing Pacman on a chair to reach the control panel.

[Kid Fenris]

I was about five, it was someone's birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese, and as the celebration was winding down, I walked over to meet my dad, who was playing Galaga on a tabletop cabinet. Just before we left, he let me put a quarter in, and I managed to get past the first stage by pounding on the fire button and wiggling the joystick randomly.

As the years went by, I became convinced that my father had been playing Galaga while I just screwed around with the controls on the opposite end of the table. My dad, bless him, didn't really remember the scene and neither confirmed nor denied his involvement. It was only recently that I realized he couldn't have been the one playing; the ship was actually at my end, so I was controlling it. And I found my sense of accomplishment yet again.

[nesman85]

smb1 for nes was the 1st game i played, smb/dh and captain skyhawk were my first 2 games that i owned and i got them at the same time.

[Queen Of The Felines]

Home: The good 'ol Odyssey. That's the Odyssey 1, the one with the plastic screen overlays and the way-cool rifle lightgun. I swear that has to still be at my parents' house somewhere.

Arcade: One of those old gun games that NE1 mentioned. Something about a safari hunt.

The first game I was addicted to was Scramble. There was a hole-in-the-wall hot dog place that had it, and I used to BEG my parents for hot dogs every night just so I could play that damn game. I'm sure they thought I was nuts.

Kristine

[BHvrd]

My first videogame was Pong on the Atari 2600 at one of the neighboorhood kids house. Every kid on the block was at his house, and I only got one chance to play it "cause my big brother kept socking me in the arm", but it was outta this world!

I had played various other arcade games previously, but I was too young to appreciate them, so really Pong was the first, or I should say, first that sunk in.

My parents would never buy me a 2600 "well they would have, but I was a little more into exploring woods at the time, and He-Man ", so all I got to do was go to the neighbors house to play "not much though I really wasn't THAT into games at the time, just mesmerized." I remember Pitfall, Pacman, and many others clearly though, they were amazing!

Then one day along came the Intellivision. One of my best friends got one "we went wood exploring together, and were close", but hardly anybody went to his house cause they all thought Atari ruled, and didn't care about Intelli.

I played Lock 'N Chase, Dungeons and Dragons, Nightstalker, and a few others, and realized how advanced it was!

My parents finally broke down after my crying for a game system increased "I had grown a bit more, and was getting tired of the woods ", and got me an Intelli "since at the time I preffered it over the 2600."

I enjoyed countless hours on that system!

So my first game that got me hooked was Pong on Atari 2600, but the first system I owned was Intellivision.