The first game you ever played?

[Mister Mumbler]

Gonna have to be another one for that SMB/Duck Hunt cart, with the blaster too, which is funny considering I was born almost a full decade after it would have come out (1994). I also remember having that first Chip and Dale game too, and while I can't actually remember playing it, I feel like I remember seeing this game lying around my house:

Just look at his face!

 

[BrawlMan]

....shit um....I barely even remember being alive back then. Let's just guess and say I was 6 years old when I played my first video game, though it was probably younger. That would make it 38 years ago.....either something on my Atari 2600, or one of a plethora of arcade games at Alladin's Castle.

I seriously don't understand how people actually track shit like this, I mean video games have been a near constant part of my life from literally as far back as my memory can go. That's a TON of games that I just don't have the time or energy to compartmentalize.

You'd be surprised what children can remember. I may not be able to remember my first arcade game, but I do have a lot of arcade memories. For example, the first time I ever heard or played Street fighter 2 was on Mackinac island. According to my parents, I was about three at the time. The only reason why I remember it, because the hotel it went to only had two arcade games. Unfortunately I can't remember the other one. I remember my first game boy game being Tetris, cuz my brother and I both got game boys the same day. My first game gear game was GG Shinobi. I still remember when Virtua Fighter and then later Tekken first hit the scene.

 

[Worgen]

I think Super Mario brothers on the NES. Its possible I played an arcade game before that but I don't remember and considering I had no idea what an NES was when my parents got it. I remember seeing the ads but had no idea what a video game was at that point. I probably didn't play an arcade game before that.

 

[happyninja42]

You'd be surprised what children can remember. I may not be able to remember my first arcade game, but I do have a lot of arcade memories. For example, the first time I ever heard or played Street fighter 2 was on Mackinac island. According to my parents, I was about three at the time. The only reason why I remember it, because the hotel it went to only had two arcade games. Unfortunately I can't remember the other one. I remember my first game boy game being Tetris, cuz my brother and I both got game boys the same day. My first game gear game was GG Shinobi. I still remember when Virtua Fighter and then later Tekken first hit the scene.

Yeah I mean, if you showed me the various game cartridges or cabinets from back then, I'm certain I would be like "oh yeah!! I remember that game!" But to be able to say "this was the first video game ever" ? There were just too many that all blurred together into a nebulous "game time" in my head. I've never had a good memory to begin with, and years of rampant drug use in my teens and 20s didn't help, but those are just details that I don't have stored away without external reminders.

 

[BrawlMan]

I've never had a good memory to begin with, and years of rampant drug use in my teens and 20s didn't help, but those are just details that I don't have stored away without external reminders

.....

Sorry about that. At least you're able to remember something. Even if it's not the full picture or without external help.

 

[JoJo]

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King for the Gameboy Advance, which edged out Pokémon Ruby by a single day (I got both for my birthday, but LOTR ended up being the one I picked up first for whatever reason). It was a fairly simple hack and slash with some RPG elements, iirc, including levelling up and items. The main thing I remember is that after completing the game's storyline, you could take your character--experience, items and all--back to the start and so I ended up with an OP Aragorn who could breeze through the game in no time.

 

[happyninja42]

.....

Sorry about that. At least you're able to remember something. Even if it's not the full picture or without external help.

lol, ok it's not as bad as that sounds. I'm not suffering from early onset alzheimers or anything. It's just, those are details that I've never found all that important to track, so they would just be forgotten. Some things stick through, little flash memories, but studies have shown that are memories are not as good as we think they are, especially those flash memories we think are perfect ones. Flash memories being things like "where were you when JFK was shot?" or "where were you when 9/11 happened?"

I'm fine, really. That's just stuff I don't track is all. Even with it being my primary hobby since...well since as far back as I can remember xD But if you asked me something like "what were the names of the titles you played on your Atari 2600", I could, right now, without actually looking up titles and box art, say "Karateka, and Defender" But I know I played several games on that thing. But if I googled their roster, and saw thumbnails of games, I'd be like "oh yeah, I remember that one, yeah that was fun." But to ask me "which one did you play first?" Psssh, no way I can answer that one. xD

 

[DJShaddycat]

Man it's too far back to remember, but if I had to take a stab at it? Probably Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim.

God I still love that game.

 

[McElroy]

Most likely one of the Commander Keen games on MS-DOS. Or some simple game on an Apple computer that we had back then.

 

[Gergar12]

Some handheld game in China.

The first "proper game" is ace combat on the Gameboy Advanced.

 

[Kae]

Yeah I mean, if you showed me the various game cartridges or cabinets from back then, I'm certain I would be like "oh yeah!! I remember that game!" But to be able to say "this was the first video game ever" ? There were just too many that all blurred together into a nebulous "game time" in my head. I've never had a good memory to begin with, and years of rampant drug use in my teens and 20s didn't help, but those are just details that I don't have stored away without external reminders.

To be fair that's kinda how I remember I had no idea what the game was but when scrolling through the Wikipedia page for Neo Geo AES games and slowly clicking on them that screenshot seemed familiar so I looked up other screenshots and saw this one:

Which seemed waaay to familiar (I died there a lot of times as a kid) so I looked up the video on the OP and once they cleared the stage and it allowed them to select a new character, I was like this is it, this is the first game I ever played, so it's not like I just remembered off the top of my head, so like unless it happened during like an event, like a birthday or some kind of trip like a family reunion or something like that I don't think most people will remember of the top of their head.

I... don't know, which is odd because I'm probably way younger than most of everyone on here.

The first game that was bought for me was Lego Star Wars Prequel Trilogy. My first game would either be Pokemon, Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, or any of the dozens of PS2 games my best friend had.

Are you implying I'm old?
I'll let you know that arcades didn't start to lose popularity in México until 2005, so like I could definitely be not all that old...
But who am I kidding that totally happened in the 90s.

 

[Dreiko]

Are you implying I'm old?
I'll let you know that arcades didn't start to lose popularity in México until 2005, so like I could definitely be not all that old...
But who am I kidding that totally happened in the 90s.

That's an odd coincidence but around 2004 in Greece as well arcades fell off. Though it was more of a case of being outlawed because apparently people were setting them up to be able to transform into slot machines and were being used for unlicensed gambling so they just banned EVERYTHING.

Up to that point, when you would go on vacation to the islands, you'd have to take those ferry boats for the trip and some further out islands would make for a daylong trip and in those boats you had basically full arcades. They even had boat-tokens in some cases. So my favorite part of going on vacation each summer was the actual boat ride cause I'd get to play at those arcades for a day or two since the boat arcades were not available anywhere else. I remember one year I had leftover tokens that I kept with me for the return trip and as it so happened the guy who was selling the tokens was asleep or something for half the trip back so I was literally the only kid with any tokens so I had the whole arcade to myself. But yeah, all that went away when they banned em. Damn gamblers x.x

 

[Zeraki]

My earliest gaming memories are of the Commodore 64.

Hot Wheels, Alf, Robocop, Mario(which I found out later was a modded version of Giana Sisters).

It wasn't until I got my SNES in 1991 that I actually started to fall in love with video games though.

 

[Kae]

That's an odd coincidence but around 2004 in Greece as well arcades fell off. Though it was more of a case of being outlawed because apparently people were setting them up to be able to transform into slot machines and were being used for unlicensed gambling so they just banned EVERYTHING.

Up to that point, when you would go on vacation to the islands, you'd have to take those ferry boats for the trip and some further out islands would make for a daylong trip and in those boats you had basically full arcades. They even had boat-tokens in some cases. So my favorite part of going on vacation each summer was the actual boat ride cause I'd get to play at those arcades for a day or two since the boat arcades were not available anywhere else. I remember one year I had leftover tokens that I kept with me for the return trip and as it so happened the guy who was selling the tokens was asleep or something for half the trip back so I was literally the only kid with any tokens so I had the whole arcade to myself. But yeah, all that went away when they banned em. Damn gamblers x.x

Here it wasn't outlawed but that's about the time where having a console had become much more commonplace and the arcades started to close, now they are still around but it's more like just for birthday parties and hipsters than anything else, like even my friends that are huge geeks like me don't hang out there because they can play the games at home so it's kinda pointless.

 

[Satinavian]

I think it was some clone of Frogger

 

[Hawki]

I think it was some clone of Frogger

Toader?

 

[lil devils x]

Can't remember any of the games, but something on the ColecoVision.

Yea, I can't remember what it was since I have been playing since I was an infant. Most likely a racing game since my Dad always played those. My dad left me his video game collection when he passed away so I have like all the consoles ever that I played throughout my childhood. I do remember being young and playing this one game he had me play that was on ColecoVision, Venture, that reminded me of early Zelda that I apparently fell out of my chair leaning over trying to run away from the hall monsters. I loved that game. XD

 

[SupahEwok]

Pokemon Yellow on GBC (I think I got through it before being able to read, or at least not with enough vocabulary to understand what all was going on)

Super Mario All-Stars on SNES (that was what I picked when Mom took my brother and me to the store for us to each pick out one, I made a really good blind choice, my brother chose Donkey Kong Country 2 which was also a great choice)

A Goldbox D&D game that my dad let me toodle with after he'd made a save, on PC (I think I got the party murdered by a wyvern in a randomly generated cave)

Don't really remember which came first.

I'd add Baldur's Gate 2 as my first proper PC game and hugely influential on my tastes, but that was a few years down the line.

 

[Wintermute]

No idea. I joined the PC Master Race in like 1994? 95?, but I know it can't be a PC game, but that's about it. I have some theories.

1. My uncle had an Atari, so some game he owned?
2. My "aunt" owned a video store and I went there all the time to play stuff like Street Fighter II, F-Zero, Golden Axe, Altered Beast, Streets of Rage, etc.
3. Alex Kidd because the game came with the Sega Master System, and that's the console my parents got me and my brother when we were kids.

I remember the first game I ever beat, though.

 

[EvilRoy]

I'm pretty sure it was Microsoft Flight Simulator on Windows 3.1. My dad got a computer for work and someone he knew at the office gave him a floppy with that on it for when he needed a break, and as my brother and I tried to learn how the computer worked we ended up finding that and playing it a bunch.

I can still remember the friggin BRRRRRRRR noise from the engine as you flew, and the weird KPWWW noise when we inevitably slammed into something on the poorly defined yellow horizon.

I remember just having stacks of floppies with my dads spreadsheets on them that I swear to god he never opened again after saving them. These days I don't even have a disk drive on my computer, and I had to explain to my niece what CDs are when she found my shameful highschool music collection.