Your Gaming Roots

[octafish]

Galaga, Space Invaders, Frogger, and Hyper Olympics are the ones I remember feeding twenty cent coins into. Today, I like story heavy games, and turn based strategy. i'll play just about anything as long as it is on PC though.

 

[Lbsjr]

My personal roots included a NES in my room with Contra, Mario, Duck Hunt, and the X-men.... I won't say I wasn't warped in a slightly stupid way... A SNES in the living room with a few of the strategy games and Super Mario World, and as soon as it came out, an N64 and PS1 with Zelda OoT and Tekken 3 respectively, but the first game I ever remember playing was Starcraft. It wasn't the first I played but it was the first I remember playing because I love it. And heres the funny thing, they weren't my games. They were my mom and dads systems and games they bought for themselves before I was born or even after. I just played them while they were at work. The first game I bought with my own money was Majora's Mask, which explains why its my favorite and, incedentally, the only game on the Wii I bought on the virtual console.... I hate moving... you lose so many good things.... These weren't all the games in my house but thats exactly what I played most.

 

[RemytheNinja]

I'm 23 so there is a lot of history here so i'll go over basics and hopefully it outlines what i play today
The first games i played were TMNT the Arcade game for NES and Super Mario/Duck Hunt
Then I got a Genisis so i grew up with Sonic 1,2,3,Knuckles
Then got a SNES late in its life so there was FF6 and Kirby Super Star
Then PSX, i played Castlevania SOTN, FF7, MGS and Street Fighter Alpha
The N64, Ocarina of Time and Super Smash Bros
Fast Foward to now I have a 360 and Wii with most of the games posted and currently playing Castlevania:Harmony of Despair and Super Street Fighter 4

 

[Hader]

I started with my dad's NES, and that was all we had for quite a while. I got a gameboy around the time Pokemon was first released and played that quite a bit. Next was a PS2, which was all I had until a 360, which I got a year and a half after its release.

So my roots were in good classics, but I got off to a slow start nonetheless.

 

[Pyrusmole]

Jeez. I've been playing since I was so young I cant remember. If I had to guess, I would have to say either Legend of Zelda Majora's mask, Mario 64, or Star Fox 64. Those are the big 3 I remember playing when I was really young. I would add Super Smash Bros if I wasn't certain that I bought Super Smash Bros because I knew the characters from the prior 3 games.

 

[hawkeye52]

The first game for me was worms back when i was 5-7 years old and i watched my brothers play games and tried to join in with them up until they both left and i was just left with a PS2 with timesplitters among a few others and a PC with a variety of games. wasn't really till i got to play battlfield 2142 online that i really started getting into games with online communities after i found a server i really liked and joined the community on their that had started a few months back. Been with them for 3-4 years now and still got a very strong interest in games as of today.

 

[HellspawnCandy]

When I was 3 and 4 I played Hexxen I&II and Quake, and Doom, and Doom II, and Duke Nukem 3D. While playing Sonic the hedgehog and doctor robotnik's mean bean machine. I really disliked platformers back then and still kinda do. Those games were all the first games I used cheatcodes in too, I hated losing I guess.....but I didn't know how to read then so I guess it's ok. Now I'm thinking about how I typed in cheat codes for a rated M game before I learned how to read Dr. Seuss books......but inbetween that time I really didn't play many games, what got me back was Starcraft,Goldeneye, and the world is not enough. That's about when I played pokemon. Good times.

 

[Lady Larunai]

asteroids and pitfall on atari when i was 4

 

[InnerRebellion]

First game: Some Spiderman game on the Gameboy Color.
Favorite game series: Pokemon
Most played game, however, was Conker's Bad Fur Day.

 

[DustyDrB]

Something I forgot to say earlier. My parents always loved to watch me play Super Mario Brothers on the NES because I held the controller upside-down. Left was right, right was left. It seemed perfectly natural to me and I had no clue why they thought it was so funny until I got older.

Kids growing up now have no idea how lucky they are to have their gaming roots with systems that are as advanced as the current ones, No lugging a computer that weighed as much as a house round to your friends and spending an hour linking them all up to play quake. Or waiting 10 minutes for bubble bobble to load. Then again it's probably a sad thing they wont get to experience that either as it really does make you appreciate what we have now......

No blowing into the cartridge when you get that weird screen with the lines at startup...wait. What's a cartridge?

Nintendo practically adopted me as their child.

That describes me as well. I remember in high school when I played some games on my computer my parents still told me to "Get off that Nintendo and come to dinner".

 

[Fr]anc[is]

First ever game was 3D Lemmings for ps1. Awful. 2nd one my dad got me was the first rayman game. Didn't get very far. Almost became a productive member of society, but then I rented Beyond the Beyond. And then rented it about 30 more times. Loved it. That kind of game "where the guys all just stand in a line" as my dad says was my favorite for a while. Haven't had a good one of those lately Nowadays I've got my fingers into a little bit of everything. Only one good sport game ever though, NBA Street vol 2. My game was so cold they called me Ice Water.

 

[Kilgengoor]

Scrapland

Man that game hit you pretty hard. But yeah, I can relate. Only things I found bad about Scrapland was the fact that it was pretty restricted in character classes, and the lack of customization, or at least a more Kirby-like way to implement enemy-based power ups. Anyway, here's mine:

I started quite young with consoles, although I didn't own one until I was 10 or 12 or so. I remember being especially attracted to the legendary platformers that were all the rage in the 90's such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario (although I was way more attracted to Sonic since he was way radder) but then I started going to some kind of computer classes during summer, and there I discovered Doom, Monkey Island and such, which opened my eyes to a world of fun. Because these two examples up here, ladies and gentlemen, are examples of pure, unadultered FUN. I was kinda surprised when Doom 3 was made as a survival horror game. "Doom wasn't terrorific!" I thought. "It was just about shooting dudes in the face!"

So I kinda keep on playing games that are somehow similar to what I played in my youth, now that I think of it. Nothing too massive, nothing too complicated, fun, and pixellated if possible. Cave Story comes to mind, as do Spelunker and some top-down shooter such as Alien Shooter / Zombie shooter.

Pokémon opened my eyes at the seemingly boring world of RPGs, as also did Zelda: A link to the past. Simple, affordable, not-too-thick RPGs. I tend to abhor JRPGS for their characters and story, so I gradually got more into Action RPGs: Mass Effect, Recettear, and even World of Warcraft. Sim City 3000 introduced me into strategy games, a genre I never got really much into, and thanks to that once in a while I get so absorbed into Dwarf Fortress I totally shut off from the real world. Thanks, Sim City

Also, spaceship games, because spaceships are Fuckin' A: Starting with Microsoft's Fury 3, I came to know the Universal War series, the X series, Rogue Squadron, Freelancer, you name it. It's got ships? It's got explosions? Then it's fine by me. I also play flight simulators sometimes, when it hits me.

 

[Chris646]

I honestly can't remember my first game because you generally don't remember things before you can read. It might've been Super Mario World or A Link to the Past, but Rayman and Spyro were also there early on. I play platformers, action-adventures, and a lot of JRPGs.

 

[Bre2nan]

My first gaming experiences came from sim games on the PC. The first game I played on a console was (not original it seems) Spyro the Dragon on the PlayStation at my cousins' house when I was around 7 or 8, and I went to friends houses back in the day to play Goldeneye and Super Smash Bros. on their N64's.

I got a GBA when I was 10, on which I discovered the Metroid series. This is where I actually started gaming at length rather than just short sessions at friends' houses. Many hours were spent on Metroid Fusion and Metroid Zero Mission, and this led me to discover my favorite game of all time (Super Metroid).

My family did not have an actual console in the house until the original Xbox when I was 13, played the Halos and GTAs on that but my favorite game by far on it was Splinter Cell Chaos Theory. Now, I have a PS3, an Xbox 360, and am putting together a gaming PC.

 

[Ryugen01]

4 years old, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2 or +2A, the first game I ever played was Hong Kong Phooey. What got me into games though was the Master System and Sonic the Hedgehog

 

[Drummie666]

My first console was an N64. I don't even remember why we got it. The first game we got was Super Smash Bros. My brother and I still play that thing today, that's about ten years we've played it for. It's still the best multiplayer I've ever played. It's a damn shame that the series started to go downhill in melee, but then they horribly fucked it up brawl. Seriously what the fuck were they thinking when they made brawl?

 

[BENZOOKA]

My gaming roots first found water and nutrients from Amiga.

Oh yes My gaming roots started here, I wasnt allowed a console as a kid.. but my Dad had an amiga 500 with a half meg of ram extension to do his work accounts on. So i started out gaming with such classics as Battle Squadron, Speedball 2,Chaos Engine, Cannon Fodder, Sensible Soccer and New zealand Story.. Then my first Pc. the joys of L.A.N parties at each others houses playing Quake and unreal tournament...
I remember saving up to buy an xbox and having my mind blown by Halo C.E and then by Doom 3.
Now i have an Xbox 360 and still love the halo games, gears of war, Fallout 3+ new vegas, Mass effect and Forza 2+3.
Kids growing up now have no idea how lucky they are to have their gaming roots with systems that are as advanced as the current ones, No lugging a computer that weighed as much as a house round to your friends and spending an hour linking them all up to play quake. Or waiting 10 minutes for bubble bobble to load. Then again it's probably a sad thing they wont get to experience that either as it really does make you appreciate what we have now......

I'm glad there are other Escapists as well with experiences with Amiga. I mostly played platformers like Rainbow Island, Terry, Giana, Rick Dangerous 1 & 2 and a few other titles which names I can't quite remember. Also Italy 1990, instead of Sensible Soccer.
Didn't really get to more modern PC gaming until Colin McRae Rally, Half-Life, Diablo II, GTA and other legendary titles. Nowadays, games like Counter-Strike: Source (with about ten years of experience counting CS as well, and clocking nearly a thousand hours on CS:S, for the last couple years since the Steam counter last started, alone), Rise Of Nations, Titan Quest, Civilizations IV & V, Quake's, UT2004, Fallout 3 & New Vegas being a couple of the many most important and influential titles, personally.

But Amiga. Those were the days.

 

[Wondermint13]

First game I ever touched was Zool on the Atari.
Started playing Sega Master System at my grandparents before getting a Nintendo 64 of my own when I was 12. There I played Yoshi Story and Diddy Kong racing.

Ah memories.

 

[Nibish]

I see a few Amiga aficionados here. My gaming roots started on the Amiga 500, with Cannon Fodder and the Eye of the Beholder series. I remember having a small bible of hand drawn maps and notes for the Beholder series. And Rick Dangerous and Hired Guns are stuck in my mind after a lot of years.

 

[MercurySteam]

A PS1 and Rugrats: Search for Reptar on my 7th birthday. After that it was an Original Xbox, a PC and then a 360.