What Game Turned You Into A Gamer?
Monday, June 18th, 2007 at 5:48pm by Blake
Gaming Today asks a beautifully simple question: what game turned you into a gamer? Though not the first game I ever played (that honor would go to some stick figure Atari 2600 game I can’t even remember), Kung Fu immediately followed by Pro Wrestling for the NES are what really did me in. Shortly after I got my hands on some Super Mario goodness, and it’s been down hill ever since.
What game turned you into a gamer?
June 18th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
Sonic the Hedgehog. I LOVED the game, played it when I was 2, hooked ever since (and still play that game). Altered Beast helped too I guess
June 18th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
For me, that’d have to be Super Mario Bros. back on NES. It was the first game I ever played, and I loved it to death. The second game I ever played had to be Duck Hunt, and I also spent a significant amount of time playing that, so I give them both credit for bringing me into gaming.
I too, had a love for Sonic the Hedgehog, Cory, and I still do, which is why I am so sad to see the quality of recent Sonic titles descending. Hopefully SEGA improves on the Secret Rings formula or comes up with a better way for Sonic to play in 3D, because it really is quite depressing to see one of my favorite franchises, a franchise that kept my gaming spirit alive, falling into mediocrity.
June 18th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
super mario bros on the NES was my first game, but it was super mario world which really got me into gaming.
June 18th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
Mario was cool and all….but Metroid fried my brain. It still haunts me, in dreams and art, my mind traveling through all those caves and corridors endlessly. I love Metroid and more than simply calling it “the game that made me a gamer”, it’s the game that drove me to be a game developer. Rest in peace, Gumpei-san.
June 18th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
Donkey Kong on the Atari XE got me into gaming, but I didn’t really come of age gaming-wise until Super Mario Land and Hunt for Red October on the GameBoy. Classics.
June 18th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Super Mario Bros. was a fun diversion on the NES, but it was Super Mario Bros. 3 that got me hooked.
June 18th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
Hunt For Red October…. Man I loved that game.
June 18th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Asteroids, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Centipede, Moon Patrol, Spy Hunter, Cabal…all in the local bowling alley arcade. I was hooked on these (multiple quartes) and I realized that the possibilities were endless to the types of games out there. I would have to say that NES games were the first thing that brought that same arcade experience home. Then when the original GameBoy was introduced, my portable gaming took off…with Tetris. I have been a gamer since, and will continue as long as there are games to play.
June 18th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Duck Hunt, believe it or not. Shooting clay disk were so fun, and I loved the Sound effects.
June 18th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Duck tales on the NES was another that hooked me. I could never afford to buy an NES when I was 9, so I kept renting them. One Friday night I brought home an NES from the local video rental place with Duck Tales, since SMB3 was all rented out.
I woke up early on Saturday to play (overnight rentals only). I sat down in the basement and seriously stared at the TV, playing that damn game, for 10 hours straight, My Mum yelled at me saying “get off that damn machine and go outside, you haven’t moved for 8 hours”, and I thought “no way! 8 hours!? Cawabunga, dude!”
Same thing happened with the original Mario Kart and Starfox on the SNES. Good times.
June 18th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Super Mario Bros.
June 18th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
The Gameboy Advance port of Super Mario Bros (I can’t remember the exact title, the one with Wart). It was the first game I ever owned (I’m 14) and I have been buying Nintendo consoles ever since. Back then, the GBA was really the only handheld gaming machine to get.
June 18th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
(argh, I still haven’t beaten it. Thank god the NES classics are playable on my ds!)
June 18th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Pokemon yellow.. I just had to catch em all…
June 18th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
BIBLE ADVENTURE
June 18th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
I forgot how ghetto “Kung-Fu”’s boxart was. *lol*
June 18th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
The original Pong. Seriously, ever since my brother and I sat down and started playing that very first game I was hooked, and I’ve been hooked for pretty much my whole life.
June 18th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
Toy Story for the Gameboy my very first system I used to love then I got my second game which was Golf.
June 18th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
OMG! Kung fu was the very first game i played on my famcon (yes, i had a famcon. dunno why though lol). I loved that game!
June 18th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
I dunno. Going on the wayback, I’d say the one that got me into games would be sonic 3d blast or Nights into dreams for the saturn, my first console. The first game that got me into hardcore gaming…
I’m not sure. All I know is that the wonderful game “Mystical Ninja 2 Goemon’s great adventure” got me really into progressing in a game, as well as 2 player.
June 18th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
I was into the arcades, but if you’re speaking of consoles (showing my age) I got my start on Coleco Vision, but the Nes and games like Contra, Rush N Attack, and the mighty Metroid won me over for good.
June 18th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
Alex Kidd in Miracle World, it came with my SMS, it was a few years before i ever played sonic or mario.
June 18th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
What got me going was Super Mario Bros and the original legend of Zelda, both on the NES. They kept me entertained for so many hours when i was a child, mainly because mario bros had no save function, and no matter how hard we tried, my families save files on zelda always went missing so we all had to start over all the time.
June 18th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
Sonic The Hedgehog 2. Awesome game for the Genesis which led to Pitfall for some reason. Still a great game if you ask me.
June 18th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
My gaming career started with Bomb Sweeper and Mario’s Cement Factory on Game & Watch, then progressed to Super Mario Bros., where it intensified to the point where my dad and I would wait at the local K-Mart for Super Mario Bros. 3 and both Zeldas (they were actually the “cool place” to get NES game sin the late 80’s in my area).
June 18th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
I’m only 16 so I missed out on the NES and SNES originally, but since my brothers are 25 and 27 they owned both growing up and left them to me, so I have gotten to play stuff like Kid Icarus, Metroid, Super Mario Bros., Duck Hunt, Golf, Baseball, Wrestlemania, and a bunch more. I also got to play a bunch of SNES because my brothers bought a lot of games for that. I got Super Mario World, Chrono Trigger (I have played it almost ten times through), Madden 95 & 96, Mario Kart, Final Fantasy 3, Samuria Showdown, and more. All said and done though, I started on the N64. I can’t remember the specific game that got me into gaming, but it’s between Goldeneye, Gauntlet Legends, Super Smash Bros., and Ocarina of Time.
P.S. N64 has the best controller ever in my opinion. I like the Wii-mote more for gameplay, but I mean I like the way it fit my hands more than any other controller.
June 18th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
This one is easy, and no shock for anyone who’s talked to me on the forums: The Legend of Zelda for the NES. Though I had played plenty of Pac-Man and pinball, and even tried Super Mario Bros. first, it wasn’t until my cousin put in Zelda that I trully became a GAMER. As soon as I played it, I had to have an NES, and I’ve been a playing Nintendo ever since.
June 18th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
I fell in love with the Super Mario Bros. Super Show in the late eighties, prompting me to literally BEG for a Nintendo. I got one for Christmas and became hooked on the original Super Mario Bros. It wasn’t smooth sailing at first though, my initial gaming experience consisted of me walking straight into the Goomba at the start of World 1-1.
June 18th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
Either Pokemon Blue or Super Mario 64. I was in 1st-2nd gradeish.
June 18th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
for me it was pokemon blue nd red…and SM64 haha im 14 so i didnt play nes
June 18th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Pitfall, Spider Fighter, Time Pilot, Dragon’s Lair, Gyruss, Karate Champ.
June 18th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
It was two games for me: Galaga and Ms. Pac Man. So simple, yet so addictive.
June 18th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
I’m with psychofish25- I wasn’t around for the NES. Super Mario 64 first introduced me to gaming and I just kept on loving it more and more
June 18th, 2007 at 10:50 pm
God, you kids with your pokemon. *effects old-man voice* When I was a kid we had to sit in front of a 13-inch black and white TV to play our games. A “portable game” was when we found a stick that looked like fun. And we liked it, dernit!
Ahem! Yeah, I feel old. I had an N64 in COLLEGE!
June 18th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
Any game on Atari and Coleco Vision, my dad has the entire collection for both systems, minus the kids games that were released like Cabbage Patch kids on coleco.
June 18th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
Short Order and Eggsplode. Although playing them was somewhat cut short due to my aggressive older brother’s game play aka Power Pad failure, it none the less sparked my interest with games. I went to Duck Hunt, Athletic World, Yo Noid!, then when the SNES came, I got sucked into the RPG world and have yet to leave.
June 19th, 2007 at 1:30 am
Good ‘ol SMB.
June 19th, 2007 at 1:44 am
Since I’m such a young’in and I didnt start gaming until ‘97, it was good ol’ Final Fantasy Seven. Good times xD.
June 19th, 2007 at 1:53 am
My console gaming addiction started with… are you ready for it? TETRISPHERE, for the N64!
Can’t wait for it to come out for the VC! (One can dream, right?)
June 19th, 2007 at 1:59 am
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was a beautiful thing.
Made me check out the zeldas before it and all the other games out there. I remember the sunshine in my expression when my dad surprised me when I came home from school. The joy from the golden cartridge is burned into my mind. Back then I didn’t get the video game magazines and stuff.
June 19th, 2007 at 3:10 am
Alex the Kid in Miracle World on Sega Master System. I used to go into the department store to play the demo kiosks set up before my parents bought the console for me. First console crush I guess. Perhaps before then Moon Patrol on Atari/Arcade has some sort of sentimentality from seeing it and playing it a few times.
June 19th, 2007 at 4:11 am
It seems like we are gamers of ALL ages. Myself, I will be 33 this year, and I have lived with many consoles. I have played pretty much every console up until now although I still see myself staying with Nintendo in the long run. They have pretty much grown on me. I have strayed to Sega a couple of times, although have always gone back to Nintendo. I still remember when my brother and I pooled our allowance together to get the NES. Only to play it on my parents 9″ Magnavox Color TV (our other TV in the living room was a wooden Zenith console TV that you needed an adaptor to screw onto the back to get the coax to hook up the NES). Talk about a pain. And not to mention you needed the TV turned to channel 3! Talk about old.
June 19th, 2007 at 6:55 am
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by gamer as I’ve always felt it’s a bit of a nebulous word but if you mean gamer as in “someone for whom gaming is a primary pasttime” then it would have to be Sonic without question.
I had an NES before that and a Master System handed down from my uncle but as much as I loved Mario, OutRun and Alex Kidd I saw gaming as no more significant than all the other toys and cartoons etc around me.
Sonic was definately the turning point that made me a gamer. It got me reading the magazines and talking about them in school. It made gaming my main entertainment interest.
June 19th, 2007 at 7:05 am
the very first was pong.
then came nintendo…
June 19th, 2007 at 8:33 am
I’d played games before, but the one that got hooked has to be Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awawkening DX for the GBA. This game also lead to a Zelda addiction that still carries on strong today.
June 19th, 2007 at 9:00 am
An addendum…
When did I become a “passionate” Nintendo gamer? That’s easy: the infamous SNES-Genesis wars of the early 1990’s. As a result of those, I became a force to be reckoned with later in the decade on the AOL Games message boards. RonFarOne — if you’re still out there, I won!
June 19th, 2007 at 9:30 am
Mr. Do, Donkey Kong, and Popeye at the arcade sparked the gamer in me.
Zork I and Pitfall got me hooked for life.
June 19th, 2007 at 9:39 am
I first remember playing Super Mario Bros and Double Dribble at my neighbor’s house when he first got his Nintendo back in 2nd grade. My family finally got one a few years later, and Super Mario Bros was still the game that consumed most of my time.
However, the game that really made me a “gamer” was Tecmo Super Bowl. My first “all-nighter” with a video game was spent throwing touchdown passes from Don Majkowski to Sterling Sharpe.
June 19th, 2007 at 9:59 am
My sister had a NES, and she and I would always play Super Mario Bros. 3 together. I miss those days.
June 19th, 2007 at 10:47 am
Good old Asteroids and Robotron! Atari was next…, geez I am dating myself. I agree with InvisibleMan, Tetrisphere 64 is awsome! Loved the music on that one. Hey…Earthbound Rules!
June 19th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Turok Dinosaur Hunter on N64. I’d played Pong and Space Invaders as a child but then had nothing at all to do with games until a work colleague brought his N64 into the office Chrimbo party. Turok was a revelation to me - the sense of immersion since I’d last played a video game was a [wonderful] shock. It was my childhood fantasy of being in a virtual world made manifest. Mario Kart 64 had a part to play too. Even before I’d picked up the controller the uber-bright visual and audio aesthetic enchanted me and was the start of a love affair with Nintendo’s way of making games that prevails. It was Turok that made me a “gamer” though so it holds a cherished place in my heart, despite it’s obvious [to me now] faults.
June 19th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Oh my good, hard question… probably a lot of classic games on C64 and of course Super Mario Bros. on NES. Still the best game ever made.
June 19th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Oh and Tetris (on GameBoy) and Civilization (on A500) then I didn’t play games for some years and then Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid (on PSX) and Conker’s Bad Fur Day (on N64) started it all again. Now I own all consoles.
June 19th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
That would be Prince of Persia on the PC. My father had a demo of this game and later I got the full thing because I wanted it so hard
It was damn hard, too. I hated it, but I loved it.
Played a lot of crappy games after that. Everything I found laying around…
June 19th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
“the very first was pong.
then came nintendo…”
…ditto.
June 19th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Defender on the Atari 5200. I played the hell out of that game. It was painful too cause the controller sucked big time.
June 20th, 2007 at 1:29 am
It was some nameless Lunar Lander-type game, played on a minicomputer with a green screen and a light pen to control the thrust, at a church bazaar in the summer of 1976. Seriously. I went back so many times and spent so many quarters (which I handed to the guy who owned the computer, one at a time) that the church, and not my parents, cut me off. I would have been 7 at the time. And I was damn well gonna land that stupid spaceship without blowing up.
As far as the first real video game product? I guess that would be Space Invaders. My parents had the original Odyssey console from 1972, with the plastic TV overlays, but after playing that Lunar Lander game I looked for every chance I could to play games, and I guess Space Invaders was when they really started showing up in arcades and bowling alleys. I did play Boot Hill and Depth Charge and other timer games before that, but Space Invaders was what changed everything because if you got REALLY good you could play forever…. and I didn’t get there on Space Invaders, but I did, later, on other games like Asteroids and Galaga and Tron.
I played the real Atari Lunar Lander with the gigantic throttle at a bowling alley from time to time, but never got into it as much as that light pen one at the bazaar. Until the waves of karate and side-scrolling shooter games started taking over in the mid-80’s, I would seriously drop a quarter in anything at least once. Just being in the arcade with the dim lights and flashing neon, and hearing all the sound effects and smelling… well, whatever…. was enough to make a lousy game good.
I must be the only one here who was actually outgrowing video games by the time my little brother got his NES. By then I had already written my first game…. which was a nameless Lunar Lander clone for the C64. And nothing was ever the same after that, either.
June 20th, 2007 at 5:10 am
It’s sad, but Mickey Mouse land of illusion for the gamegear. I still play it through twice a year.
June 20th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
Ok i played any game on my Atari2600, Mario and Megaman where my favorites on NES but it was DOOM who turn me a gamer…
And then the ONLINE Multiplayer of Quake-Quake2 came and..here im xD
June 24th, 2007 at 7:56 am
Super Mario Brothers on the NES. I used to go to local video store, where they had one setup in the back corner… we played that after school every day, until they kicked us out… every day.
Eventually my parents got me and my brother a NES with SMB and Duck Hunt…
Love the new WiiPlay with Duck Hunt on it :)))
December 24th, 2007 at 7:38 am
when i got my gba when 5
i played every day