What game turned you into a gamer?

[shihonage]

"Yeti" , a Lode Runner variation for Vector-06C, a personal computer designed in my hometown.

After realizing that communism caused Vector's games to be subpar amateur shit, I quickly traded it in for a ZX Spectrum clone.

It was technologically inferior to Vector in a number of ways, but behaved like it, and its games, weres two generations ahead of it.

 

[Castanova]

I've got my timelines all messed up but it was probably Super Mario Bros on the NES. May have been some quirky shareware titles on the computer though.

 

[dragonfk]

Civilization back in 92'.

 

[Cimmerian Nights]

We had the early consoles - Atari, neighbors had ColecoVision, I always gravitated more towards Intellivision myself though.

Then can't quite remember, sometime early 80s my dad got ahold of a tabletop version of Missile Command. The kind like they used to have in pizza parlors and shit back in the day. That triggered my OCD. Come home, somebody'd have a new high score and I'd play the thing until I could break it. Good times.

Not ours, but same model:

 

[Dirk Diggler]

I saw an NES, thought it looked interesting, picked up the controller, and played Super Mario Bros. I was just barely three years old, so I don't think much went into influencing the decision. It was just there.

 

[Annie Mitsoda]

I was barely 6 years old and I'd gotten my brother sick with a case of the chicken pox that was easily 10 times worse than the few pox & smattering of scratching I had. SO bad, in fact, he had to stay home from school for a week. Friends of the family felt so bad they lent him their Nintendo.

I was watching nearby - perched in one of the horrible wicker chairs we had that was best suited for patio furniture - as he sat in his sleeping bag in front of the TV, and Castlevania came on for the first time. I peeped "can I play?" shortly thereafter, and of course got the typical older brother response of NO AND YOU ARE STUPID, so I watched quietly, rapt, for hours. That pretty much started it all.

Because my dad worked for a university - this was 1987 or so - he could write off a computer as a work expense, so we were one of the only people I knew (at that time) to have one. So, GAMES. And then around 1988, my brother and I successfully convinced my parents that if we got a Nintendo, we could actually play it together, without fighting, and thus my love for games was continually fueled.

Around that same time my brother ALSO had a friend who ran D&D games (which again, being the younger sister, I could only sit and listen in on and not play), and thus the Nerd Trifecta was established in my heart.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

I was barely 6 years old and I'd gotten my brother sick with a case of the chicken pox that was easily 10 times worse than the few pox & smattering of scratching I had. SO bad, in fact, he had to stay home from school for a week. Friends of the family felt so bad they lent him their Nintendo.

I was watching nearby - perched in one of the horrible wicker chairs we had that was best suited for patio furniture - as he sat in his sleeping bag in front of the TV, and Castlevania came on for the first time. I peeped "can I play?" shortly thereafter, and of course got the typical older brother response of NO AND YOU ARE STUPID, so I watched quietly, rapt, for hours. That pretty much started it all.

Because my dad worked for a university - this was 1987 or so - he could write off a computer as a work expense, so we were one of the only people I knew (at that time) to have one. So, GAMES. And then around 1988, my brother and I successfully convinced my parents that if we got a Nintendo, we could actually play it together, without fighting, and thus my love for games was continually fueled.

The whole sibling thing is what got me into games too. In my case it was the Sega Mega Drive and games like Aladdin and Sonic 2. Although inevitably it always ended in fights... two boys of roughly the same age (give or take a few years) will always have a competitive streak, and indeed it continues to this day. But I remember the early days when I was about six years old having to sit in silence while my brother played games with his friends until it was my turn.

 

[AlaCarcuss]

Space Invaders in 1978/79 on a tabletop arcade machine similar to the one Cimmerian posted above.

I worked in a pub at the time (I was 18) and had never even seen a personal computer (wern't many around in '78). The tabletop machine was great because you could put your ashtray on one side and your beer on the other. Played the shit out of that thing while smoking my head off and slowly getting pissed. Funny thing was - the drunker I got the better I played. :D

Bought, a Vic-20 around '82 so I could play Space Invaders at home, then a C64, Amiga and finally a PC in the early '90's. However, I lost interest in gaming sometime in the mid-80's, and instead focused on the more serious side of computing - like programming (I've been a developer now for about 25yrs ).

Sufferd a breakdown about 8yrs ago and was an alcoholic (I never broke the habbit of smoking and drinking at my computer - especially when I discovered I was better at everything when I was drunk :D ). Had to give up the piss then and my shrink advised me to seek an outlet on the PC that didn't involve work - so I took up gaming again...and well, here I am.

PS - I usually suck at online competitive gaming, but if you ever see me pwning the server - you know I'm "off the wagon" lol... :shock:

 

[Monocause]

Simcity 1 played on a macintosh LC. It was the first game that my parents had to actually convince me to stop playing.

Oh, and Shufflepuck:

BTW, the original shufflepuck had some excellent avatar material:

That satanist dude on the far right, don't remember his name, always burst into laughing whenever you lost a point. I still remmeber that laughter.

 

[RaXz]

Funny thing was - the drunker I got the better I played. :D

Ain't funny at all. It reminds me of school, were I went in free hours and pauzes to a friends house to play Soul Calibur against each others. I discovered that I swept the floor when I was drunk, man, one time I was pretty drunk when I had to make a test on school. The teacher got an empty page and I went home to sleep it out.

 

[LittleJoe]

I used to be a gamer, not so sure these days...

 

[pipka]

The game that turned me into gamer was the game that turned me into gamer.

 

[Jasede]

Fallout 3 cured me of being a gamer.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

Or this one.

Don't remember which one was first but I spent months playing them anyway.

 

[Volrath]

Back in '90

So all that bitching about shitty rpg's has gone and made you senile huh?

 

[NiM82]

Sopwith

 

[vendetta]

SimCity, but in black & white, when I was five, on a tiny Macintosh Classic.

 

[Smarts]

Wing Commander, on the Amiga. First game that really sucked me in.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Probotector

 

[Annie Mitsoda]

Sopwith

Holy shit, another person who remembers that game! Like Phantasie, it was one of those titles I got ahold of when I was a kid on a random floppy disk and enjoyed for years. Man... next someone's gonna mention Shogun or Think Quick...

 

[NiM82]

There was another game I got on the same disk as Sopwith, that I adored, but can't for the life of me remember it's name. You had to push blocks/lines of blocks around to squash/contain these evil "H" things that'd spawn and try to hunt you down. There were different types of "H" too, some could break out. Had a coop mode too, prob the first coop game I tried.

Other classics from those days for me were: The Dam Busters, Gapper

 

[JarlFrank]

I was 3 when I first played games on dad's PC, so I don't really remember. But the one game that I have the clearest memories about is Monkey Island. And Monkey Island 2. Then there was that car game... I think it was called Corvette. My very first one was also some driving game, but I can't remember its name. Test Driver maybe? I have no idea.
Also, Commander Keen was really awesome back then, along with some other jump'n'runs. Probably my favourite genre as a kid, along with adventures.

 

[Tardvapor]

We got a NES in '87, and I got a new babysitter. It wasn't until I stumbled across the first Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy games though that I found my life's passion for leveling up, large numbers, critical hits, and loot. There still hasn't been a cooler spell in any game than Dragon Warrior's HURTMORE!

 

[RottingNaziSurfer]

1942

Commando

 

[Luzur]

Oh, and Shufflepuck:

BTW, the original shufflepuck had some excellent avatar material:

That satanist dude on the far right, don't remember his name, always burst into laughing whenever you lost a point. I still remmeber that laughter.

hey, i had that on amiga, heard the lady showed her tits of she won but i never saw any of that.