Born in 1995. So started gaming in early/mid 2000s around the time I was nearing 10
Memories are a bit faded but I remember and have good memories about Vice City, Colin Mcrae 2004, Knight Rider and (I think) World Racing.. either first or second..
these were the games I remember most vividly playing when I was a kid. Vice City especially - when visited my cousins we were allowed to play for an hour. And I still can recall this weird feeling of being excited. Didn't play missions or anything..
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I played Vice City with my cousin for hours and hours as well, not doing missions either :D And if we did them, we never knew how to save, or we couldn't for some reason, so whenever we'd restart the game we were always back to the beginning, in the alleyway with the moped :D
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My cousins were older then me :D So they did play the story, but when I was playing they just said not to go in the save icon :D I remember asking in SanAndreas afterwards what does the floppy disc mean :D They just said - nothing, just don't go on it :D
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Probably Pac-Man on an IBM in mid 80's...
Our family never owned anything till the 90's so I can't really remember much from the 80's because I was playing live action games back then with real people :-P
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Atari 2600 and it clone.
Games like: Keystone Kapers, River Raid, Pitfall (atari 2600). Wonderful games :)
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Mine was Prince of Persia and Dangerous Dave 2. I'm not sure they was on the same 5.25 fdd or just installed, but these were the only games on the computer at my father's work, where I could come and play a little after the end of the working day. Later there was a diskette with a new game, it's some kind of pacman clone, but the mazes didn't look so minimalistic, I remember some kind of castle walls and an ivy fence...
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Can't be sure, my memory isn't the greatest, but probably it's PONG.
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hm... Space Invaders and Chopper Command on my neighbours Atari I presume... 1984?
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For me there are two possible candidates for earliest gaming memory, both from 1989. Either it was me playing Super Mario Bros at a friend's home, and struggling to get past world 1-3 (there's a jump where you need to gather a bit of momentum and I just could not pass it) or it might have been playing Alley Cat with my second cousin.
While I enjoyed both, it was playing Super Mario Bros that made me really want a videogame system of my own. First we got a Game & Watch (Donkey Kong) then a second hand Atari 2600, which my sister killed by spilling milk on it (I'll never forgive her for that!), and then, finally, I got an NES of my own, with Super Mario Bros, Batman & Kung Fu
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The original Pitfall! in the late 80s. I distinctly remember playing it on a cassette tape and a Commodore 64. I was 7 or 8 at the time and my uncle bought this new thing called a computer. It was such a novel thing. I may or may have not played other games before that, I can't really remember. My mom loved playing games on the Atari and I remember playing a lot of that later (and all the other consoles she bought after that), but this was my first vivid gaming memory. Interestingly, we never really had a Commodore 64 of our own.
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The root of all evil to Gaming, were pinball machines.
Remember playing PONG on store displays.
Then playing a game called Star Trek on an Apple II.
My first "Gaming Machine" was a Commodore 64. Aug 1983.
Zork I, II and III, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Temple of Apshai, Frogger, Styx, Radar Rat Race and Gridrunner 2 where some of the games I played, back in the day.
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Not sure which came first - but probably Space Invaders or similar in old school arcade machines. When I think about the early games what I actually imagine are the sounds of early arcades with so many games playing at once. Sounds of centipede (the spider), asteroids (ufo), space invaders (getting faster as you shot more), galaga (divebombing sounds) and many more - but all of it all at once.
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It was probably some NES game, but the thing I really remember was playing Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis with my dad...something he would actually spend time with me doing cause he liked solving the puzzles too.
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Not sure if it's earliest but I vividly remember playing Heroes of Might and Magic III with my dad sometime around 2001-2003
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The earliest gaming "routine" I can remember was playing Pokemon Yellow everyday in my dad's PC, it was a Pentium 100 running Windows 95. My older brother borrowed a flop disk from some friend with a emulator and that one pokemon ROM, and I don't think we've ever got hold of another ROM, lol.
I had the mornings to play as my older brother was in school, and I'd be at school during the afternoon, which would be my brother's turn to play. My dad usually used the computer during the night. As my brother was scared of me overwritting his save data, he said I couldn't under any circumstance select the "Save" option on the pause menu (I didn't know english), and thus I thought it was normal to start a new game every morning, like in an arcade. I don't think I've ever made past Brock, lol.
Also, my dad was mad that we would break his keyboard by repeatedly smashing the same two keys, so the compromise was my brother rebinding the "A" and "B" to numpad "Enter" and "."
Fond memories
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Back when you could still play Pokemon games on a PC :D
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I'll get a legal letter from Nintendo's lawyers in about two decades containing a screenshot of this post and the address of a Total Recall type of memory erasing company, haha.
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I think my earliest game memory is Pacman, on the computer of my great-uncle in early 90's
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Mine has to be Crash Bandicoot on PS1 in early 2000's. Later on a lot of Heroes 3 on PC.
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Playing Smash Bros on the N64 at 6 years old when I visited my cousin for his birthday. Early 2000s period.
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I got into gaming pretty late because I wasn't even aware it was a thing, but before that I did remember playing flash games and some bootleg copy of a need fpr speed game I had for my PC. I also remember playing 3D games through Shockwave. 3D stuff was always so exciting since flash game were 2D all the time. Eventually I got a PS2 and that's when I became aware that it was a thing.
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Really hard to tell which was really first one. Certain dates I can estimate with specific dates was early 2001 when got my first PC. and 3 game batches which were played first on this one. Firstly Sims 1 and Tomb Raider II. Secondly 2 adventure ones: "The New Adventures of the Time Machine" and "Aztec the curse in the heart of the city of gold". Then ski jumping 2002 which played most of these all.
However... this is for the PC I got, defo not the first games I played. Early childhood were some of the games played in gradparents house where my aunt let play some of the stuff she got: Wolf egss, brick game (9999 in 1) and Pegasus console which contained Contra, duck hunt. Below some of the screen in (I think) play order.
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GTA 2 in Internet cafe, my brother was playing and I was watching
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I hadn't considered arcade games when I answered earlier.
That would be Donkey Kong and Elevator Action.
The clubhouse had a DK machine in the same room as the pool tables. Some enterprising youth discovered that banging the machine with a pool ball right next to the coin slot caused the machine to register a credit.
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NES was my introduction. Mario and Zelda. My mother bought it when my sister was born, as a digital babysitter.
I was around 5-6 years old. Which was also the last time I was happy.
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I can't rightly place the first memory, chronologically it was either something on my cousin's PC in the early 90s or my father's old C64. I remember "playing" the original Prince of Persia and Ugh! with my cousin (mostly spectating really) and mostly flight simulator games (1 was definitely a flight simulator, the other one I recall was a helicopter sidescroller with rather good graphics probably centered around the Gulf War???) with my father on the C64.
I do recall playing tons on my Famiclone and Sega Megadrive when I was around 4-5 years old playing loooots and lots of Sonic and some random games on the Famiclone (Mario, Pool, Contra and some Tennis game comes to mind now).
Then I got a PS1 (or PSX as it was called at the time) when I was about 8 years old, my first game being Disney's Hercules (which I have now "played" with my son on our PS3 a few times) and my favourites were GTA2, Star Wars Episode I, Bushido Blade, Skull Monkeys and Ace Combat 2. GTA2 still holds a special place in my heart to this day, we used to play the first 2 GTAs hours on end with my childhood best friend who passed away a long time ago.
I got my first PC at 11 years old for Christmas and also 3 games with it: F1 2000, The Sims (original, without expansions) and Star Wars: Racer. To this day I'm still chasing the excitement and "high" I got from playing Star Wars Racer during the holidays lol (I tried again with little success just last Christmas). As time went on I kept expanding my Sims collection (up to Superstar, I didn't like Harry Potter at the time so I skipped the last EP, Makin' Magic), started getting into RTS games such as the Commandos games and Cossacks to name a few and eventually settled on RPGs like Morrowind, Oblivion (and much later on Dragon Age) and Point and Click Adventures, the standout ones being the Monkey Island series and Grim Fandango until my twenties.... oh and when I was in my late teens I actually built my very own purple N64 Portable!
In the early 2010s I transitioned to mostly playing on my PS3 due to attending university and entering The World of Work and this period lasted well into my late 20s when I've finally returned to PC gaming.
Since this is Steamgifts, I have to mention that I haven't actually created my Steam Account until I was 23 in 2013! I bought a gaming magazine in the UK for my friend who was really into indie games at the time and it was a special "indie" issue that included these games which he said he didn't actually want (he kept the magazine though) so I ended up finally creating an account and activating them myself. I think I actually downloaded the client and tried at least Darwinia (and Defcon too maybe?) I ended up uninstalling Steam as I mostly played Star Trek Online or my PS3 at the time.
I actually did not return to Steam until 2018 I think? If you have a look at my profile it will come as no surprise that I mostly played Crusader Kings 2 for the first year or two... and I cannot believe it's already been 4 long years since I've registered here!
Which brings us to the present where I'm currently playing... on my phone...
I have a 3 year old so I'm trying to make the best of those stolen hours here and there and am looking forward to working myself through my ever growing backlog hoping to also involve my son along the way eventually!
... and now if you'll excuse me I need to roll a 98 or higher Ranger/Cleric(super sensitive touch screens be damned!).
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That was a long but pleasant read. Thanks for sharing your memories and thoughts. I have to say that you reminded me of how many times me and my cousin also played Hercules and I don't remember ever getting past the first bull boss. And yet we still replayed the first level so many times without getting bored of it.
And then you mention the very first Sims, in which I remember having build countless houses without ever really playing much of the actual game. But I loved building the houses, if I try enough I think I could still remember the cheat code for money :D. It was always one of my highlights and things I looked forward to whenever we'd visit my uncle and cousin, just playing Sims.
And lastly, since you mentioned RTS games, while I was never really into them, and even today you couldn't pay me enough to try and enjoy playing one, cause I'm just really bad at them, I have however played many many hours of Age of Mythology, it was probably my favorite game as a kid, and it is to this day one of my favorite games just for that reason alone. From playing the game legitimately and finishing it a bunch of times to going ham with the cheat codes when I was bored and just flying a dragon or a winged hippo that left rainbows behind him over the map, imputing "O CANADA" tens of times to demolish everything with my laser bears, spamming earthquakes and tornados, or imputing "PANDORAS BOX" countless times to see how much havoc I can make, this game brought me so much joy and fun as a child that it will always have a special place in my heart. Age of Mythology is really the only RTS that I've truly played, and although it is basically just Age of Empires with gods, I never really enjoyed or even played much of AoE. I now do own Age of Mythology on Steam as well, but it sits there just as a collectible for me and as a jewel to my account, and to show my appreciation for how much it meant for my childhood. I decided not to play it again nowadays just in case it might ruin my experience of the past, and because it has a truckload of multiplayer achievements that I'll never get because I'd never play multiplayer, and my nowadays completionist mentality would hate me for doing that. 💙
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I've been thinking about this question for a little and thought I might ask you guys as well. What is your earliest memory of playing a video game, any type of game? Or if you are not sure of the earliest one, feel free to tell us about a very old, happy, gaming memory of yours.
For me, it has to be around the early 2000s, probably between 2004-2006, late at night, for some reason I wasn't asleep at that hour, playing that Tetris game from "Timon & Pumbaa's Jungle Games" with my mom, on my uncle's computer at the time.
It is quite a simple memory, but one I cherish a lot and like to go back to every once in a while, at least mentally, since we can't turn the time back.
Small Deep Rock Galactic GA, bot proofed by a very simple 20pc jigidi: https://www.jigidi.com/solve/340ri3on/timon-pumbaa-s-jungle-games/
Bonus Giveaway courtesy of TragicBronson: https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/8eVhMEMORIESq/contra-anniversary-collection Many thanks to him <3
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