Asklemmy

flashgames if it counts

Spyro the Dragon on PS1

Honestly? This hole in the wall food store in my home town managed to pick up a pretty early release of the arcade game Robotron. I was instantly enthralled, visiting arcades any time I could. From there, I played on friends' Atari 2600s and Commodores until I managed to get my own C64, and I've never stopped since. From there, I migrated through their products and stayed a diehard fan till the mid-90's - C128, Amiga 1000, Amiga 500, and Amiga 2000.

I played a few early x86 games on demo machines in stores, but I didn't finally relent and build my own x86 rig until the release of the Descent 1 demo, which single-handedly destroyed all of my remaining resolve. I already considered myself a pretty consistent gamer, but that was the nail in the coffin. The rest, as they say, is history. It was only 4 years later that EverQuest came out, too, and that swallowed me whole.

I honestly couldn't tell you exactly which game that hooked me for life. My first exposure was when I spent summers with my grandparents on their farm.

Grandpa and I would ride his trike out to the fields, and we'd... do stuff? To the plants? I don't really remember the work.

I do remember that work ended at noon, and we zipped into town on the trike. And we went to the pub. Grandpa would get me a root beer, and we'd split a poutine. Then he'd give me a roll of coins. I can go nuts on the arcade machines, he can have way too many beers, and WE DON'T TELL GRANDMA.

Anyway, a half century later I'm a recovering alcoholic. Good times!

Super Mario World and Donkey Kong Country

Two great side-scrollers

The first game I ever really wanted to get good at was the arcade game spy hunter. The first time I got the speed boat was a dopamine high I've never recreated.

The early 90s Lucas Arts adventure games. Most notably Monkey Island 2.

Monkey Island 2

Memory, Monkey Island, Diablo 1 and Street Fighter 2

Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Battle 22 started it, Toy Story 2 for PSX detonated it.

Motocross Madness 2, baby. That's when I knew...

Age of Empires II

Lemmings or Descent, I don’t remember.

I always clicked with it really hard as a kid, but my parents banned me from it, so I just wound up making friends so I could play OG Red Alert or Commander Keen or whatever. I also played Tabletop 40k from a pretty early age, which my parents were more permissive of. In tabletop I have a very good systemising mind, so I wind up being the rules person, but I'm not super obsessed about any one system (I am a little "obsessed" with how few people play something other than D&D systems).

Counter-Strike 1.3

Sonic 2. I was like 3 at the time.

I'd have to go all the way back to pinball, since I've always been fascinated with games.

But the very first video game that really sucked me in was Batman on the NES. I'm talking fully immersed; no awareness of my surroundings. Jacked in.

The music paired with the grim visuals was such a vibe. Just playing it made me feel cool. My parents had to drag me away from that birthday party haha.

Pokémon FireRed

Pokemon games and older 2D Zelda games. I really got into it when I found Halo

Kingdom Hearts II

That game is the reason the X button stopped working on my PS2 controller when I was like 4 or 5

Xmen arcade game

Breakout, Sokoban, Prince of Persia, Command & Conquer, Tilt!, Space Invaders, Indiana Jones & the Fate of Atlantis, Full Throttle, Fallout, Raptor: Call of the Shadows, Wolf3D.

This was in the '90s but some of those games were already quite old by that time.

Link to the past

Daggerfall was the first game that really got its hooks in me. It had everything I wanted, a huge open world, tons of different items, getting to dress up my character :)
I must have spend hours just visiting every single town, playing tourist and just ignoring the story. It was all about exploring and role playing for me.

Mario Bros 1-3

I wouldn't call it a hobby, just some entertainment to pass the time/hang out with friends.

It was Counter-Strike 1.6. I didn't leave the house the summer I discovered it as a kid.

Super Mario Bros 3. Never beat it until the Allstars version on SNES, but it's the first video game I remember playing. Or maybe it was Gauntlet, but SMB3 was the funner one.

For me it was more a system than an specific game. I got a second hand GameBoy when I was like 5 or 6 and have been gaming consistently since then. Probably the highlight of that period was Super Mario though.

Asteroids, the arcade game.

My dad bought us a multi game pong console, then an Atari 5200 years layer.

But we often went to arcades and got $20-$40 in quarters.

In later years I remember truly loving the Buck Rogers and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom arcade games.

First computer was an Apple II and I had about 500 floppies of pirated games by the end of its life.

Always always been a gamer. Also had a Merlin handheld game for car trips, which saw constant use.

First game was Safari Race on a Sega SC-3000. After that mainly played PC games when they were a thing and had a 1st gen Gameboy.

I gave up on games and tried to adult through my 20s... but after a bad breakup I bought an Xbox-360 and Skyrim and it's been a hobby ever since.

Doom II was probably the first game I ever saw and it made me ask for a computer. Got a hand-me-down pretty much the next day.

The first game I regularly played may very well have been Chex Quest. Unless you count Math Blaster. Or maybe Chip's Challenge.

Half-Life. The first game I played was Mech Warrior 2 and I played a few others like Lemmings, Warcraft 2, and Falcon 3.0. In fact, Half-Life I played for about 10 minutes and put down. I hit the part right after the accident where you were supposed to go back to the lobby and go through the vent, but that wasn't obvious to me. So I got lost and didn't know what to do. I put it down for about a week until a friend came by and was like :o you have Half-Life?! That's a great game. I was like "I dunno, it doesn't seem great, I got stuck fairly early." They immediately went through the vent and I questioned why I didn't do that or see that at first. So I played the rest of the game and loved it.

BUT! It doesn't stop there because Half-Life had a huge modding scene and multiplayer. I remember playing and hosting a ton of different mods from my broadband internet. It was like I was a beacon for these mods where I'd just host the server as a listen server, play along with everyone, and moderate while playing. It was a very amazing time where I could really feel a community building up in games.

Bubble Bobble on the C64 :)

First games i played were Pokémon and super Mario, but I think the first game that REALLY got me hooked was Banjo Kazooie.

Evercrack and Diablo 2 were my starter games

Neverwinter Nights and Roller Coaster Tycoon when I was a little kid. I watched my dad play Neverwinter and had to indulge in my own tiny fantasy to play as a "dragon." Still at it.

Planescape: Torment was the game that popped my cherry, my very first. After that, I played links awakening, and that was it I've been a gamer ever since.

Super Mario Bros. from the famicom

Pokémon Gold, when I was 8, got it for Christmas. Technically my first game was Battleship, which I opened first, but I probably spent thousands of hours playing Pokémon Gold. :) I've played almost every Pokémon game since, up until Scarlet/Violet, which I haven't gotten yet, but maybe I will eventually.

Watched my dad play kings quest 2 when I was a kid.

Age of Empires 2 on my parent's crappy old laptop.