General Gaming What got you started in gaming

[JosephManderley]

What are some of your early gaming memories?  Things that got you into gaming? 

 

When I was a young kid, my parents owned a bar that had an Asteroids cabinet.  In the mornings before the bar was open, my parents would sometimes let me play while they were getting everything ready to open up.  

 

I didn't have a home gaming system until I was maybe 9 or 10, when I got an Atari 800xl for Christmas.  I remember playing a ton of River Raid, but after a few days it bricked and my parents took it back to the shop.  The shop didn't have any more of them I  stock, so luckily I got a Sinclair Spectrum instead! 

 

 

This was what really got me into gaming.  Atic Atac, Jetpack and Underwurlde were in constant rotation, later joined by the likes of R-Type, Renegade, Firelord and Football Director. 

 

 

I have loved games ever since.  What about you all? 

[Remarkableriots]

Playing Atari at my dad's friends house.

[JosephManderley]

1 hour ago, Remarkableriots said:

Playing Atari at my dad's friends house.

Do you remember which games? 

[skillzdadirecta]

When my grandfather bought my aunts and uncles an Odyssey then an Atari 2600. I remember playing Pong and Combat for hours. Plus playing games in local Pizza shops until I was old enough to go to arcades on my own. There was one arcade in a very busy,  bad area of my city and my mom always told me to stay out of there because she was pretty sure it was a drug front (it was) but I hung out there from Jr high through college any way despite getting robbed there once when I was 13 and getting into several real fights over fighting games lol. That arcade always got the latest games and I was sad to see it close down.

I've owned pretty much every home console at some point except for the 3

3D0, Lynx, and the more recent Nintendo consoles after the gamecube.

[AbsolutSurgen]

My Dad brought home an Atari 2600 pretty early on -- and it all started with playing Combat.

[Paperclyp]

My parents bought an NES when I was 3-4. At first we had only Super Mario Bros, so I played the shit out of that. Sometime before kindergarten we got Mario 3. Really the NES was the only console I had until I was probably 10-11-12 ish after I had saved enough money to buy a PS1. 

 

Rented a lot of games back then. 

[Remarkableriots]

38 minutes ago, JosephManderley said:

Do you remember which games? 

I believe I played these games but I was only 2-3 years old when I played them.

Popeye

Donkey Kong

Pitfall

Frogger

 

[crispy4000]

Childhood friend introduced me to Combat on the Atari 2600 and Karate Champ on the Commodore 64.

[Brian]

My oldest brother is 10 years older than me. His interest in computers got my parents to buy a good computer for him since he was not interested in anything else. First thing he did was loaded up Doom and I was like “whaaaaaaaaaat is this?!”  He then used the modem to connect to a server to player others and I was like “whaaaaaaaaaat the hell?!”  I got super interested in both after. Still love that dialup modern sound. 

[Remarkableriots]

17 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

When my grandfather bought my aunts and uncles an Odyssey then an Atari 2600. I remember playing Pong and Combat for hours. Plus playing games in local Pizza shops until I was old enough to go to arcades on my own. There was one arcade in a very busy,  bad area of my city and my mom always told me to stay out of there because she was pretty sure it was a drug front (it was) but I hung out there from Jr high through college any way despite getting robbed there once when I was 13 and getting into several real fights over fighting games lol. That arcade always got the latest games and I was sad to see it close down.

I've owned pretty much every home console at some point except for the 3

3D0, Lynx, and the more recent Nintendo consoles after the gamecube.

Did you own the Action Max system?

 

[Remarkableriots]

5 minutes ago, ManUtdRedDevils said:

My oldest brother is 10 years older than me. His interest in computers got my parents to buy a good computer for him since he was not interested in anything else. First thing he did was loaded up Doom and I was like “whaaaaaaaaaat is this?!”  He then used the modem to connect to a server to player others and I was like “whaaaaaaaaaat the hell?!”  I got super interested in both after. Still love that dialup modern sound. 

My first computer was the TI 99/4a which had cartridges, tape deck and some things you had to type the program in from a book.

 

[AbsolutSurgen]

9 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

Childhood friend introduced me to Combat on the Atari 2600 and Karate Champ on the Commodore 64.

Wow -- in my gaming life those games were a lifetime apart.  I still remember seeing Karate Champ for the first time at Chuck E Cheese's arcade -- and not being able to quite figure it out.

[skillzdadirecta]

8 minutes ago, Remarkableriots said:

Did you own the Action Max system?

Never had that either... did have a Vetrex though.

 

Karate Champ was the first game I remember seeing to use dual sticks.

[Remarkableriots]

I remember having Karate Champ on the NES.

[RedSoxFan9]

[gamer.tv]

It was a three part mixture for me.  My Dad had a Commodore 64 that I played from about 3 years old.  It must have been the summer when I was 5 or 6, my sister got a MegaDrive for her birthday, which I played endlessly, as well as my Mum bought me a GameBoy (from her explanation, it wasn't so much a present, but she said it was our first long car ride and she thought I'd be a nightmare). 

 

Then I've had a games console available pretty much from then on.

 

[Brian]

28 minutes ago, Remarkableriots said:

My first computer was the TI 99/4a which had cartridges, tape deck and some things you had to type the program in from a book.

 

Lol that is crazy. I can’t remember what our first computer was. I would have to ask him. I’m thinking it was a gateway but I don’t remember the components. 

[Pikachu]

My parents purchased a SNES along with Super Mario World and Super Mario Kart for my 5th birthday. Been gaming ever since.

[Remarkableriots]

22 minutes ago, ManUtdRedDevils said:

Lol that is crazy. I can’t remember what our first computer was. I would have to ask him. I’m thinking it was a gateway but I don’t remember the components. 

You were able to connect it to your television even.

[Captain Pickle]

First exposure to games at home was with an Apple II

games I remember most on that was Evolution, Viper, Choplifter and Swashbuckler 

 

Then of course Nintendo came along so...

Super Mario Bros. and Bubble Bobble

 

oh and at the same time my friend had a commodore and I loved Spyhunter

 

Then Scorched Earth became a staple...

 

Then high school and girls so I stopped for a while...

 

Then university came and I reunited my love of N64 with MarioKart and Zelda and PS's Metal Gear Solid

Then I went to my oldest brothers house for Christmas for a few days and he just bought an Xbox went it came out and I played Halo and lost my mind.  came home and bought an Xbox after confirming that the Metal Gear series would be on it (THEY LIED!!!!!)

 

Never looked back! 

 

 

[Dre801]

Having sleepovers at my cousins'.  They had an old Pong machine, Atari, and a Coleco.

[XxEvil AshxX]

I had an Atari 2600 and my cousin had an Intellivision. Played Wheel of Fortune on my friend's Tandy 1000 a lot.

 

Then I got an NES for christmas the year it came out.

 

My fondest memories though were from the bowling alley arcade. My mom bowled in a league on thursday mornings and i would pretend to be sick to stay home from school. Back then, EVERYBODY went to public school so the malls and arcades and shit were empty. Having an entire bowling alley arcade all to yourself was heaven on earth.

[Hurdyb1]

Pac Man. Whether it was an arcade machine in a store or a family member's Atari, I would lose my stuff to play it. My mom finally got us a Nintendo Entertainment System in the late 80s and the journey began into gaming.

[Slug]

Time to date myself.

 

ADVENT.EXE

 

go building

get lamp

get keys

get bottle

XYZZY

[dualhunter]

I started on friends' Ataris. Then I tried the original Super Mario Bros. on NES and my father got me a used Vic 20. I had to play on other people's NESes until I finally got my own a year beforce getting a SNES.

[cusideabelincoln]

Well, the earliest game I can remember playing was Pac-man on an arcade cabinet at my local laundromat.

 

But it really all started with the NES, which my parents bought for my brother and I one Christmas.  Duckhunt, Super Mario Bros, and The Legend of Zelda captivated me, although my mom liked to play those games too.  I would watch her play Zelda, and then I would try to do it on my own.  I really couldn't.  She was pretty into that game.  She drew her own maps for dungeons as she made her way through the game.  When I was in college, I got the urge to replay the original LoZ, and I dug up her old maps and took advantage of them.

[DarkStar189]

My parents had an atari 2600 in the house that I have tiny memories of in my mind. I would have been like 3 or 4 years old.  They did hang on to the atari so I did play it years later,I don't remember the games off hand other than pitfall.  My first console was the NES that came packaged with Super Mario Bros 3.

[ALIEN-gunner]

Star Raiders Atari 400, best game ever.

[Rodimus]

One of my earliest gaming memories was going to my Dad's water park and going into the arcade and getting quarters from my grandfather that was running the arcade and playing PAC-Man, Centipede and Galaga. I'm sure there where others. I remeber getting a shock with my wet hand rolling the ball on Centipede. My sister had an Atari2600 at home but I also remeber playing it a little. My sister wasn't into it much and had bad taste in games like E. T. I also remember going out to diner and in the waiting room/bar playing in a sitdown arcade cabinet.

[GeneticBlueprint]

My earliest gaming memories are of the NES. Super Mario, Super Mario 3, Tetris, Dr. Mario, and this gem:

 

 

I'd say that's what got me into gaming.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

I dunno, I had a NES and a Genesis as a kid and played them a little, but I wasn't very good at games. I  got a PS1 and Crash Bandicoot and that's where I really got into gaming. Then I met my husband when I was 17 and he got me into new genres, like JRPGs and that's where I am now.

[Mr.Vic20]

My neighbor on Long Island had all the toys and among said toys was the Vic 20! I was struck by the arcane potential of the thing and I've never stopped being interested in all things that bleep and bloop since!  

[eggydoo]

I had an Atari but I didn't start gaming until my dad got me a Sega Master System.  

[TomCat]

I was there at the very beginning of gaming.  My first gaming system was  Pong machine that came with 4 gaming paddles.  After that I got an Intellivision and a commodore 64 with a tape drive between me and my best friend we had every game system that released after that.  He would get one and I would get the other  and we had the market covered for the best games LOL.  We also had a 7-eleven behind my house that had Galaxian and rotated in several games after that.  the old Whole in the quarter with the fishing line for free credits worked wonders.  When I got older they opened a Ballys arcade in the mall Me and my friend would ride our bikes there  Was crazy about the Playboy pinball machine  and Donkey Kong.

[Keyser_Soze]

My mom got me a Commodore 64 when I was like 4 or 5. Only had stuff like facemaker and and space taxi. There was actually a place that would rent out C64 games so I rented the adventures of Zak McKracken and then I hooked NES up to the monitor and played ninja gaiden and such.

 

Also my mom took me to this liquor store where I would play Bubble Bobble arcade game.