Top 3… First 3!
Time for a slightly different spin this time on the new gaming-related feature, Top 3. Instead of ranking games in terms of my personal preference, here are the first games that Destiny chose to throw my way for the various gaming platforms.
1) First game on the Atari 2600
Believe it or not, the first video game I EVER played, the title that took my gaming virginity, was a sports game. And not just any sports game. Bowling! I feel so dirty, so full of shame... My parents had accumulated a nice selection of cartridge games over the years before my birth, but for whatever reason they thought Bowling was the best title with which to introduce a 4 year old to gaming (back in 1986/1987).
My other faves on the Atari 2600 console: Pitfall, Missile Command, River Raid, Super Breakout, Space Invaders and Warlords (4 player multiplayer, baby!). By the way, our Atari 2600 still works – I guess they don’t make consoles like they used to.
2) First game on the NES
Making the leap to late 1980s Arcade quality graphics (i.e. blocks onscreen were now smaller than 5mm), I first played a Nintendo cartridge game in 1988. The first game that I played remains one of my all time favourites: The Goonies.
Yes, from a sports game I “advanced” to a movie tie-in. I still treasure the memories – blasting open safes to accumulate treasure and rescue friends, zapping crooks from afar with a catty, and remembering just where to duck and jump to uncover collectible bonus diamonds – all to the synthesised strains of Cyndi Lauper. Good times. Sore thumbs.
I played games on the NES and its cheap imitation systems for years and years. Some of my other favourite games for the console: Adventure Island, Darkwing Duck, Tiny Toon Adventures, Ice Climber (yes, a game where you could actually club seals!), Batman: Return of the Joker, and Elevator Action. Actually, there should be a lot more games than that on my list; I just can’t remember them all right now. What I do remember is that 40-in-1 or 100-in-1 cartridges had to be the best value for money game purchases, EVER.
3) First game on the PC
The first games loaded on my family’s first PC (in 1996) came off a demo disk, but it still was a pretty choice selection: gloriously violent 2D shooters Rise of the Triad and Heretic (where are fantasy shooters today?), the vertigo-inducing Descent, platformers Hocus Pocus and Jazz Jackrabbit, and the action-puzzlers God of Thunder and The Lost Vikings.
In terms of the first games we went out and bought, well, they went a long way towards shaping my PC gaming genre preferences: Tomb Raider and a LucasArts adventure box set, containing Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Sam & Max Hit the Road and Day of the Tentacle. Day of the Tentacle remains probably my funniest, most enjoyable ever game, and Fate of Atlantis provided so many hours of gaming, thanks to its novel “3 styles of play” approach, which sent you on 3 different adventures, depending on whether you wanted to use your fists, your brains, or team up with sultry psychic Sophia Hapgood.
The first game I played on my own, self-bought PC (in 2003) was another legend, although this time in the Real Time Strategy genre: the original Age of Empires. My love for spin-off Age of Mythology has long since overtaken Empires, but there’s no forgetting the weird undulating calls of the priests as they wandered around, converting enemy peasants.
Shortly after Age of Empires, the boyfriend introduced me to Diablo II and Grand Theft Auto 3 - both of which I devoted scary amounts of playing time to.
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Hmm, I see I’ve already filled the top 3 slots, leaving no space for the PS1 and PS2 consoles, which I either own or had plenty of exposure to while growing up. The first thing I played on the PS1 was a demo disk containing sample stages from Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee, Disney’s Hercules, and 2 challenging puzzle games that never seemed to achieve the acclaim and popularity they deserved: Kurushi and Overboard!
As for the PS2, what better games to start playing on the legendary, still top-selling console than God of War and Mortal Kombat: Deception?
I’m curious now though: what were your first gaming experiences? What popped your cherry as it were? Looking at my list, right now I'm feeling like an old gaming slag who's been around the block far too many times...
1) First game on the Atari 2600
Believe it or not, the first video game I EVER played, the title that took my gaming virginity, was a sports game. And not just any sports game. Bowling! I feel so dirty, so full of shame... My parents had accumulated a nice selection of cartridge games over the years before my birth, but for whatever reason they thought Bowling was the best title with which to introduce a 4 year old to gaming (back in 1986/1987).
My other faves on the Atari 2600 console: Pitfall, Missile Command, River Raid, Super Breakout, Space Invaders and Warlords (4 player multiplayer, baby!). By the way, our Atari 2600 still works – I guess they don’t make consoles like they used to.
2) First game on the NES
Making the leap to late 1980s Arcade quality graphics (i.e. blocks onscreen were now smaller than 5mm), I first played a Nintendo cartridge game in 1988. The first game that I played remains one of my all time favourites: The Goonies.
Yes, from a sports game I “advanced” to a movie tie-in. I still treasure the memories – blasting open safes to accumulate treasure and rescue friends, zapping crooks from afar with a catty, and remembering just where to duck and jump to uncover collectible bonus diamonds – all to the synthesised strains of Cyndi Lauper. Good times. Sore thumbs.
I played games on the NES and its cheap imitation systems for years and years. Some of my other favourite games for the console: Adventure Island, Darkwing Duck, Tiny Toon Adventures, Ice Climber (yes, a game where you could actually club seals!), Batman: Return of the Joker, and Elevator Action. Actually, there should be a lot more games than that on my list; I just can’t remember them all right now. What I do remember is that 40-in-1 or 100-in-1 cartridges had to be the best value for money game purchases, EVER.
3) First game on the PC
The first games loaded on my family’s first PC (in 1996) came off a demo disk, but it still was a pretty choice selection: gloriously violent 2D shooters Rise of the Triad and Heretic (where are fantasy shooters today?), the vertigo-inducing Descent, platformers Hocus Pocus and Jazz Jackrabbit, and the action-puzzlers God of Thunder and The Lost Vikings.
In terms of the first games we went out and bought, well, they went a long way towards shaping my PC gaming genre preferences: Tomb Raider and a LucasArts adventure box set, containing Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Sam & Max Hit the Road and Day of the Tentacle. Day of the Tentacle remains probably my funniest, most enjoyable ever game, and Fate of Atlantis provided so many hours of gaming, thanks to its novel “3 styles of play” approach, which sent you on 3 different adventures, depending on whether you wanted to use your fists, your brains, or team up with sultry psychic Sophia Hapgood.
The first game I played on my own, self-bought PC (in 2003) was another legend, although this time in the Real Time Strategy genre: the original Age of Empires. My love for spin-off Age of Mythology has long since overtaken Empires, but there’s no forgetting the weird undulating calls of the priests as they wandered around, converting enemy peasants.
Shortly after Age of Empires, the boyfriend introduced me to Diablo II and Grand Theft Auto 3 - both of which I devoted scary amounts of playing time to.
------
Hmm, I see I’ve already filled the top 3 slots, leaving no space for the PS1 and PS2 consoles, which I either own or had plenty of exposure to while growing up. The first thing I played on the PS1 was a demo disk containing sample stages from Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee, Disney’s Hercules, and 2 challenging puzzle games that never seemed to achieve the acclaim and popularity they deserved: Kurushi and Overboard!
As for the PS2, what better games to start playing on the legendary, still top-selling console than God of War and Mortal Kombat: Deception?
I’m curious now though: what were your first gaming experiences? What popped your cherry as it were? Looking at my list, right now I'm feeling like an old gaming slag who's been around the block far too many times...
Comments
These are my personal milestones:
I'd say that Pac-Man was the very first game I played.
It was on the Atari 5200. (1983)
I was 6 or 7.
Then the NES came along and Super Mario Brothers just made my jaw drop!! (1987).
Never had the SNES or Genesis, so that generation just flew right by me.
Then I got to PC gaming on my 80386 that ran on at the supersonic speed of 16Mhz, 1MB of RAM and a huge 40MB hard drive. (1992)
The first game I played there was a QBasic game called Gorillas that came bundled with MS-DOS 5.0.
But the first PC game I actually bought was called Future Wars, a GREAT adventure game with GREAT story and an AWWWFUL interface that gave new meaning to the phrase "pixel hunting".
Then gradually by upgrading the PC I could enjoy games like Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Faters, Warcraft I and II (yes, Warcraft. NOT World of Warcraft).
And then it's just downhill from there :P
Wow, now I feel old.