For me, it was 1986 on Atari 2600 trying out Superman. The game amazed me just because it was my first game much like how my mom first watching a TV in the early 50s watched boxing as a kid despite knowing nothing and not liking boxing but it was the novelty of it. I never owned an Atari 2600 but have played my fair share. 1 year later I owned my first console. The NES.
No sure on the age but the first arcade game I ever played was Asteroids in the local youth club where my mum taught dancing lessons. I remember I had to stand on something to reach the controls!
My first computer console was a ZX Spectrum in about 1987, all my friends already had one so it was a long wait!
1983 when my Cousin got a Zx Spectrum and then I begged my mum to by me one, but had to wait until 1984 when I got my own Zx Spectrum with Gift Of the Gods, in 1985 I broke my femur and was in Hospital for 4 and half months and so my mum also bought me a new Portable Colour TV along with a Mattel Intellivision and also a Philips Philips Videopac G7000 and those were my 1st tase of console gaming. After a came out of Hospital we all went on a holiday and then in the Arcades was 2 games that looked and sounded like no other Arcades games around at the time, they were Hang On and Space Harreir , I was too small to play Hang On with out the aid of my Family, but I feel in love with the movable version of Space Harreir, a year latter we go on hoildays again and there was this game that just looked and sounded increabile and that game was Outrun. I began to notice that on Hang-On, Space Harrier and Outrun all shared the Yellow start button and the same SEGA hoilgraphic badge and thus began my love of SEGA and when the Master System started to appear in various catalogues, that was all I wanted for Christmas 87 and so began my LOVE of SEGA forever
Commodore 64, 1989-ish, first game was Buggy Boy. Must have gotten hundreds of hours out of that game, I ADORED it.
Saw a Buggy Boy arcade machine on holiday in Barmouth once and it blew my mind!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u19GkWOJ-MY
1978 in Germany in a small American station. They had a small lounge with a few Arcade games. My 1st ever was a vector graphics unit I think which was called "Tank". I never looked back since.
Difficult question, I remember as a kid reading through these toy catalogues and being amazed by these Atari 2600 screenshots/artwork.
and my neighbors across the street had a C64, so I'd like to say my first gaming experience was a game like Defender on the C64.
Thus dating it to around 1983/84.
The music on the radio was great, tv shows were cool as fuck, gaming was super brand new, and cartoons on saturday morning.
I WANNA GO BACK!!
My parents had an Intellivision with a lot of games they'd bought on firesale back in the day, when Mattel was turning off the lights. My Mom loved Burgertime especially, so I think it was that or maybe Astrosmash.
Must've been the early 90s, 91 if I remember right... I recall it was some Famiclone game, back when me and my family were visiting our relatives in Eastern Europe, right after the fall of the Iron Curtain. That's pretty much all you could buy there at the time; and well, later on Genesis, since SNES and all the British computers (all your Spectrums etc.) were practically non-existent there anyway. I think it was either Battle City (an enormously popular game in the CIS countries, never came out in the west AFAIK) or SMB3. I remember that the cart prices were very low, in the range of 2-3 euros, unlike 40-50 in Ireland. Those were the times. ;) In Ireland it must've been some SMS game, Alex Kidd IIRC.
It would have been in the late 70s when I discovered my mother's discarded Odyssey 300 in a cardboard box in the hallway closet. I would have been about 5 at the time I guess. Then I can remember playing breakout and freeway on an old heavy sixer 2600 that my mother's friends owned. Eventually in '82 I would get my actual 4 switch 2600 for Christmas along with Space Invaders and Defender plus Combat that came with it at the time. Been gaming ever since...in one form or other between consoles and computers and now both these days.
I wouldn't say I "started gaming" in 1986, but it was around that year when I first encountered a video game of some sort: a racing LCD game. Back then we called everything "an Atari". And that's what video games were to me until I was 14. "Did you play Atari?". "I just played some Atari". Later circa 1990-92, I saw more of those LCD racers and I also played PopEye, the arcade game. It was the most impressive thing EVER!!! And later Galaga and Centipede arcade. Also I managed to play some version of Pac-Man on a PC. These are one-time experiences, mind you.
Then in 94, I came to the States and, after playing various different consoles/handhelds at my cousins', I ended-up buying a Model II Genny with Sonic 2 and MKII. The rest is history.
It all started with my aunt's B-17 Bomber and Bomb Squad on the Intellivision II that had the Intellivoice add-on in the summer of 1983 as my first home console experience.Edit
Edit: But man I remember controller's d-pad was just so dumb to use.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EyeDeeNo76
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOLHbjJuBS8
From Episode 44
My dad, always a slave to fads, had an Atari 2600. He got tired of it pretty quickly, and eventually I was allowed to move it into my room. I think I was 5 or 6 at the time. This would have been right in the middle of the famed “crash,” which for as much as it’s talked about now, amounted to totally nothing to kids at the time. My friends and I still played games as much as ever, and traded cartridges back and forth. If anything, all it meant was that I was slightly more likely to receive them as gifts.
Then we all seamlessly migrated to the NES, and my 2600 was packed away forever. I don’t even know what happened to it.
What an interesting observation. I feel like that about virtually all the things I love, but are not successful or die out. 'Way I see it, less demand means less competition and more for me.