The Mother of All Nostalgic Posts(TM): the first video game you played

Continuing the discussion from Obscure classics:

Wow. Seems fantastic. What’s that? I’d have loved it, back then.

My First played video game wasn’t that good… :sweat_smile:

http://www.ohgizmo.com/2008/10/29/the-games-we-played-omega-race-c64/

1 Like

Frantic Freddie for C64

The game was particularly noted for its synthesized soundtrack, which mingled arrangements of popular and ragtime songs:
“Crazy Little Thing Called Love” (Queen)
“Boogie Fever” (The Sylvers)
“The Easy Winners” (Scott Joplin)
“Don’t Bring Me Down” (Electric Light Orchestra)
“Kodachrome” (Paul Simon)
“A Fifth of Beethoven” (Walter Murphy)
“Pine Apple Rag” (Scott Joplin)
“Elite Syncopations” (Scott Joplin)
“Maple Leaf Rag” (Scott Joplin)
“The Sycamore” (Scott Joplin)

If we are talking only about games played at home, then it was this awful thing, for the TI-99/4A:

image

More info here:

http://www.videogamehouse.net/carwars.html

I was thinking about games at home when I made the thread, but then I deliberately decided not to specify that. In my case, the first videogame at home and the first ever coincide: in 1983 I was 5, I didn’t go out for arcades… :blush:

I don’t remember if I played arcade games before buying the TI, but I’ve just remembered that we also had a Pong-like console at home. So probably my first home game ever was Pong…

…which was 100 times funnier than Car Wars.

2 Likes

The first video game ever was probably Pong. I was about 5 so it still looked cool even though dated at that time.

The first played on our home ZX Spectrum clone was probably Arkanoid:

Nothing very intellectual even for small brats :slight_smile:

1 Like

Hmmm… I can’t recall the very first video games I ever played. That’s like trying to recall the very first time I tried ice cream.

I know that there was an arcade in the shopping mall close to my neighborhood to which we could walk; and there was one in the big shopping mall in town next to the movie theater; so I was exposed to arcade games.

I recall my father received for Christmas one of those home pong machines, probably a Sears one actually a Coleco Telstar Marksman (see the next post). It had multiple variations of pong (what the heck is Hai Alai? LOL!) and even a light gun for “skeet shooting” (read: aim at a moving white square on a black background).

My cousin also had an Atari VCS which I use to play when I visited, and also made me want to have one very much. He liked to play Baseball. I liked Yar’s Revenge and Combat.

However, I don’t recall which of those happened first. Probably the pong machine. Most likely the pong machine.

Eventually, I got an Intellivision and that was the actual start of my fascination with video games. I do know which game I played first on that console: Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack, the cartridge that came included, and Triple Action which contained three games in one. I also owned Tennis (because my grandfather played tennis and he was the one who bought me the console), and Star Strike, which looked like Star Wars and of course I had to have.

Intellivision Games

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TcbbsZfTayQ
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q2yC9EJMwV4
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9o9ZIRhAjLA
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Bbn9j60Vy7s

God, I loved that console. I still do, which is why I fulfilled my dream of making video games by joining the home-brewed community. :slight_smile:

Wow. Thanks for this thread, thanks for the memories. :+1:

dZ.

OH MY LORD! I found it!!! It was this one, I am sure!

Coleco Telstar Marksman:
http://www.thegameconsole.com/coleco-telstar-marksman/

Wow… Skeet and Target… yes!

I played with that thing for hours. My, how easily entertained we were back then.

Mission Impossible, by Epyx.
One of the first games with a synthetized voice in it, and smooth animation.

Designed and programmed by the same person who did Another World.

The above is not correct, but I’m leaving the reference to Another World because it is another very impressive title.

Watch that and tell me if you are not impressed by the visual, cinematic style.

dZ.

1 Like

Eric Chahi made Impossible Mission???
Unbelievable!

Edit: it was Dennis Caswell (according to Wikipedia). Eric Chahi was inspired by this game (and Prince of Persia) to create the Delphine Cinématique, assembling Another World using cinematic effects.

Sorry, no. I was wrong… :(. That was Dennis Caswell. Eric Chahi did Another World for Delphine Software.

I don’t know what possessed me to confuse both authors. :confused:

1 Like

Here’s a taste:

That voice was very impressive for the time. As was this one, also from 1984 for the Commodore 64:

God bless the SID! :slight_smile:

2 Likes

It’s difficult for me to recall the first game, since my father was into gaming when I was just six months old so I might have tried some games while I was too young to remember.

But one of the first memories I have comes from Super Pipeline on the C64:

I had that one on a cassette where Burger Time was on the other side. Incidentally, Burger Time is the only videogame I’ve ever played with my mother until Wii Sports.

2 Likes

I remember that game!

Wow, I feel old. By the time I had a C=64 I had already gone through a pong machine, the Atari VCS, arcade coin-up games and an Intellivision…

dZ.

It was either this

or this (which eerily is the next suggested video on the Battleship one above!)

1 Like

That looks similar to Pipemania (DOS). I love(d) that game.

Pipe Mania_1

I had it as part of an ‘Award Winners’ pack of floppies, with Space Ace and Populous.

I can’t be sure about the first ever game I played, but it was probably one of the ones that came pre-loaded on my Amstrad IBM PC-compatible - Battle Chess, Star Wars and Prince of Persia, I think? Wish I could remember what they all were - endless searching on Google hasn’t helped!

battle-chess_3

Screenshot-2

2 Likes

I’ve just remembered an interesting bit of backstory to Battle Chess which I’ve always enjoyed.

Game designers used to get so fed up with their ideas being changed by management as a matter of course (probably to assert their authority). So apparently, with this in mind, the animator for Battle Chess added a small duck to the Queen character, and made sure it would be easy to remove. When the game was reviewed by the producers, sure enough they vetoed the duck but approved everything else. Genius :smile:

2 Likes

Uuuh, how many hours I spent with that game! There was a bootleg version in Italy, I remember the intro melody. It’s still stuck in my mind :smiley:

Space Invaders on the Atari 2600. Not sure how old I was at the time, but my hand-eye coordination was as bad then as it is now, so I never played it for long, and did not find it particularly entertaining. We only ever had 3 games for the Atari 2600.

The first computer games I saw somebody else play were Defender of the Crown and Dungeon Master. That day, I knew that I absolutely had to have a computer of my own. Can’t thank my parents enough for putting an Amiga 500 under the Christmas tree that year :slightly_smiling_face:. Though I would be hard pressed to say what might have been the first game I played on it.

1 Like