The one video game that turned you into a gamer?enthusiast?

[sabre2922]

What was the one video game that turned you into a gamer? brought you to the darkside? caught your interest? lit the fire for your video game addiction even? ;)

I had always liked and enjoyed video games for as long as I can remember.
I know that the first video game I ever played was on an Atari2600 it was also my first home console and the first Arcade game I ever played was Ms.Pacman when I was very young.
I guess I have had a natural progression from the Atari to Nes to the 16-bit systems and so on.

The ONE game that turned me into a full fledged gamer was The Legend of Zelda on NES I remember playing through this game over and over on summer vacation waaay back in the day for over 3 months sure there was the local swimming pool and bike riding with friends and even a small (crappy) local arcade to hang out at for the summer but I remember my mind was constantly on that new shiny gold cartridge that was waiting for me in my first NES back at home,
It was an obsession really I had maps for the whole game even the second quest from the old Nintendo fan club magazine I read all the strategies for it in the then very few video game magazines at the time.
It was different back then before the internet before you found out that someone esle had already beaten the game 50 times before you had even finished it once x_x
yeah THE LEGEND OF ZELDA turned me into a full fledlged gaming geek LOL

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

I played a lot of Pong and Space Invaders in my day. But the real culprit in turning video games into a lifelong obsession for me could only be the original arcade Pac-Man.

[goatdan]

It probably happened when Grandpa took me to the bowling alley with him on Fridays and gave me money to play the arcade games with while he bowled. I loved just looking at them and playing the games... I remember Mario Brothers, Donkey Kong, a pinball and the one that really hooked me, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles...

From there, it's all been downhill.

[Sebastian]

SMB and Contra both as a part of a "375489157in1" cart that played for a system called Pegazus were my first games and the games i started to love gaming for. Pegazus which was very popular in Poland during early 90's ...even more popular than the original NES, was a clone of the NES. However unlike other clones it was very durable and made with quality, and also unlike clones it was carried by regular retailers - while the NES wasn't. Hell I didn't know what a NES was for a long time :) ....so yeah - I think most kids my age (born 1985-1990) started with this system in eastern europe. Just a funfact for those of you who don't know nothing about pegazus - god i would like to have that thing mint in my collection.

I myself would like to know more about the system. Not much is known about it since it was a knock off. All that I know is that it was most likely produced in Russia...and that is about it.

[Steven]

Contra. Street Fighter II. DooM. World Heroes. I loved these games. Bleed them.

World Heroes Perfect turned me into a crazy gamer though. I went to great lengths to play and own it... bought a Saturn and modded it... which opened me to a whole 'nother dimension... :D

[mezrabad]

I think they call this the "gateway game". The term is derived from the idea that there are "gateway drugs". Drugs that aren't too dangerous or addictive but that get someone used to the idea of "using" and eventually can lead them to harder more addicting drugs.

My gateway game would've a pong varient called the Magnavox Odyssey 300. I LOVED the hockey game and could beat anyone in my extended family at it when I was about 7 or 8 years old. Uncles, Aunts and Grandmas all fell to my terrible Hockey Pong onslaught.

My first "killer app" the one too hook me for life was Adventure on the VCS.

If I had to start accumulating games all over, that's the first game I'd seek to get back. Which is exactly what I did when I restarted this amassing compulsive disorder back in 2002.

[Cryomancer]

One of the Pacman variants, probably the 2600 version ever. Pacman Jr. really got me going (far as I can remember back anyway...I remember VERY LITTLE of my childhood, except pacman).

[sabre2922]

Wow very interesting Sebastian :)

I had the same experiences as Goatdan except that was when my family would go to the mall anytime from 83-89 THE ONLY THING I CARED ABOUT WAS gathering all and any change I could collect before going to the mall and then hounding the rest of my family for a few dollars JUST TO SPEND A FEW BLISSFUL HOURS IN A REAL BAD ASS DARK DINGY ARCADE :angry:
I remeber ppl lining up to play double dragon and Golden axe arcade and then when Streetfighter 2 was released WOW :rocker: I wouldnt leave until the arcade "attendees" or whatever they where called practically had to push me and my arcade buddies out the door :moon:

[Cirrus]

God, the first game I remember playing was Cosmic Ark for the Atari 2600, but I think the game that really got me into playing was Wizards and Warriors. It is actually still a game I love playing. Great music, decent gameplay, and a ton of nostalgia.

[squidblatt]

For me, it was Infocom. All their games as a whole turned me into a gamer. I was too young to be able to beat them without help, but I still loved them. Wish I still had all those Status Line newsletters.

If I had to choose one individual game, it would be Starflight.

[Push Upstairs]

It was "Super Mario Brothers 3" for me.

I spent 2 years perfecting my skills at that game...the down side is that I am so good at that game (even after not playing it for 7 years) that playing the game isnt a challenge anymore.

[StealthLurker]

Bezerek - Atari 2600

I was just simply amazed that you could control an object on the screen. Hahaha.

From there....
Galaga (Arcade & 2600)
Mine Storm (Vectrex)
Super Mario Bros 1 (NES)

[SKVermin]

Though I started on Pong and Combat, the one that really hooked me had to be the Intellivision classic, Astrosmash! I could spend hours on a single play, and more often than not turned the machine off while still having a slew of extra lives in the queue.

[Iron Draggon]

Sonic the Hedgehog! I'll never forget the day that my nephew brought over his brand new Genesis and Sonic the Hedgehog. That was the shot heard round the world for me, and that was how I became a casualty of the 16BIT revolution, as indicated by my rank here. It all began innocently enough, but within weeks I had my own brand new Genesis and Sonic the Hedgehog, and I was a hopeless Genesis addict. I went to game stores literally every day and bought new games literally every day for years after that one fateful day. Then Donkey Kong Country came out for the SNES, and it got even worse. By that time I already had a Sega CD and 32X, so after I broke the Sega scream of loyalty and crossed over to the dark side of Nintendo and the SNES, I started collecting other consoles and portables as voraciously as I collected games. By the time the 90's were over, I was pretty much in the same condition that I'm in today. Still having flashbacks to 1992, and the day that my nephew walked in the door with his ever so aptly named Genesis and Sonic the Hedgehog. I had been a video gamer ever since pong hit the arcades, but the Genesis and Sonic the Hedehog turned me into an addict.

[Classicgamesdepot]

I gotta go with good old pac man, eating damn good pizza and chillen on the pac man coctail table with friends back in the day did me in.. I definitly plan on getting a nice pac man coctail table at some stage in my life.

[Raedon]

The $0.25 cent one.

[G4MZ0v3R]

It all began with a copy of Dragon Warrior, a candle lit dinner, two weeks of late fee's, and the rest is history :love:

[FurinkanianFrood]

Another for Pacman ;) That crummy conversion of Pacman......



It all began with a copy of Dragon Warrior, a candle lit dinner, two weeks of late fee's, and the rest is history


That got me into RPG's but lord knows I didn't have any sort of candles lit while I was eating canned pasta products or whatever the hell I ate at that age (lots of ramen I think)....... LOL

[Kejoriv]

Super Mario Bros 1 - I played it every day for hours and hours. That got me hooked

[Stark]

The game that really fired up my somewhat lost gaming spirit way back when was Desert Strike SNES. I saw and played a demo in FuncoLand (I think) and a friend was buying a SNES at the time so I went back the next day and bought the game and the system. After that I dusted off my 2600 and sometime after that I found the old DP message boards from an article in a gaming mag which I still have somewhere.

http://www.estarland.com/images/products/54/2854/2169.jpg

[Cauterize]

Rainbow Islands & Bubble Bobble
And seeing Sonic on my Cousin's Megadrive!

[Gunstar_Hero UK]

Well, id always been a casual gamer. And a couple of years ago, i remembered playing Ocarina of Time on my friends N64 and got a sudden craving to play it. So i went out, bought a second hand N64 with OoT and played it with a big smile on my face. Then a started buying a few other N64 games (bear in mind i had a PS2 and a GC at that point) then i remembered my mega drive was in the garage, i dug that out and it was at that point i thought 'im gonna be a video game collector!'. Which brings me here, with a impressive collection and lots of retro gaming knowledge. Thanks Ocarina of Time.. I owe you one..

[jdc]

Well, I never touched a game of any kind until the launch of the N64.

I played nearly the entire library of those initial N64 years. Diddy Kong Racing, Top Gear Rally and Cruisin' USA were the games that I spent the most time with.....my genre of choice was clearly racing games....then Ocarina came out and that game became an obsession. Still a damned great game....and I can hardly wait for the new Cube game.

[Griking]

Adventure on the Atari 2600 hooked me on videogames in general and Wizardry on the Apple II hooked me on PC games.

[Xexyz]

Gunstar Heroes

Last summer was when I started becoming a game collector. It began when I decided to hook my Model 2 Genesis back up. I was so glad that I didn't sell it and my games (especially my SoR 2 & 3!!) in a garage sale the following year. It had been in storage for around 4 years. Anyway when I hooked it up, the first thing I noticed was that I had a pitifully small collection. To top that off, half of the games were garbage (i.e. Robocop 3 and Spiderman & X-Men in: Arcades Revenge). So I thought about the good old Sega Channel days and alot of titles came back to mind. Then I remembered one of the games that appealed to me the most back then, Gunstar Heroes. Although it was a loose copy, I managed to pick up a copy of GH for $5 at a local EB. Then the Genesis collecting started. Soon followed were the NES, SNES, and DC, collection bugs. I fear it will grow even more...

[FlufflePuff]

Arcade SMB for me. I remember waiting for at least an hour for the chance to put my quarter into that machine. The machine was so popular that they limited people to one quarter before sending people to the back of the line. Then it came out on the NES and I had to have one. The rest is history.

[ManciGames]

Wow... Let's see...

Space Invaders on the 2600 introduced me.

Ms. Pac-Man in the arcades seduced me.

Super Mario Bros. on the NES captured me.

But it was Phantasy Star on the Genesis (via SMS Convertor, mind you) that made me realize that these things were more than just games and turned me into a collector.

[Retsudo]

My Gateway game was Street Fighter 2 on the SNES.