The first video game you remember playing?

[micheI]

Serious Sam TFE.
My dad was a huge fan of Serious Sam and when i was little he'd let me play it.

 

[Skeleben]

Rayman Revolution on the ps2. Got it for my 4th birthday.

 

[Trix_]

I don't know exactly, but I got into gaming through my brother. He was born in the early 80s. My mum's financial situation was good around that time (80s-90s), so she bought quite a few systems for him, including a NES clone, a Mega Drive (Genesis), SNES and others. Here in South America most consoles are imported but at the time we also had local manufacturers making clones or bringing consoles over to Brazil.
My first gaming experiences were probably around the age of 3-4 years old. I remember playing beat 'em ups with my brother such as one of the TMNT games, River City Ransom, Battletoads and others.
I remember the game Urban Champion which took me almost 20 years to find, because I would confuse it with River City Ransom, and in my mind the colour palette was completely different.
My mother always liked the Mario games and they were basically the only thing that she would play.
I also recall my brother and one of my relatives playing and discussing Sonic The Hedgehog.

I had some experiences in the computer lab at school, and I thought that it was all so neat, so I asked Santa for a computer. At school they had Rayman, an Aladdin CD-ROM game, and other stuff that I don't know anymore.
Soon enough, Santa gifted me a PC and we immediately got internet access. That must have been in late 2004. Although my memories and old files are all from 2005 and beyond.

My brother already knew about emulation through gaming magazines, so the first thing he did after setting up the computer, was download emulators for me to play. I spent a lot of time with GBA emulation specifically, even though my English skills were non-existent, and sometimes we would play together.
I also got into virtual worlds and MMOGs in late 2005 or so... but that's a story for another day.

 

[ThatOneLum]

There are a few options for my "first" game, mostly because I remember playing them all at a relatively young age, and I can't be 100% sure which one came first.

Sonic 2 - Played at various friends' houses in my childhood
Secret of Monkey Island - Played with my dad on his work PC pre-5 years old
Super Mario Land - Played on some relative's gameboy ( I don't know which one, everyone had a sodding gameboy)

 

[Tetronomicon]

Not 100% sure. It's a toss up between two games considering I can't remember the order I played them in. Though considering one was an arcade game and the other was an arcade port, I guess I have an early memory of both ways of playing games back in the day.

Between the two, I think it was Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 in 1989. And honestly? I think it's... okay. Just okay. It's overly basic and lacking a lot compared to the arcade version. But I think I was okay with that considering it was on a smaller system than the original game. I was a kid and that was how I tended to think about technology back then: Bigger piece of technology was more powerful than the smaller one. (Which isn't entirely untrue in the right context. A supercomputer that takes up a huge room is more powerful than the most expensive workstations we have today).

Anyway, the other game I vaguely remember playing was the arcade version of Donkey Kong. I think I played it at a university arcade (or at least one nearby the university). Can't remember if I played it before or after Pac-Man on the 2600. But I think it was after that.

 

[JusaikiJusaiki's icon]

That's a hard question to answer honestly, I grew up in my grandmas house since I was 3 years old and her sons - my uncles - had big age gaps between them, I remember in the early 2000s they were still playing on old Nintendo's and arcade machines I can't remember all the games, but I can't forget the Olympic & football games but if I can say first game I played and liked ? That would be Vigilant 8 on the PSX that game was pure joy for me, and it was the first game I booted up on my new PSX I bought that year

 

[rugal]

my first game was playing super mario bros on nes with my brother

 

[olli64pc]

Mine was super mario sunshine I love that game back when I was 4 in 2010, I still do and super mario Eclipse is one of my favorite rom hacks because of that fact

 

[retroking84]

The first game i ever played maybe is Arkanoid on the C64, but my "love at first sight" was with Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Nintendo guided me through many years of great challenge and gaming. I will never forget it!!

 

[partymembervii]

i remember playing duck hunt and super mario bros with my sister when i was barely walkin n she was barely talkin and we had a plug n play namco arcade thing that i loved especially as a wee lass. those systems both belong to my mom, i also played the hell out of her psx and original xbox

 

[TropicalFreeze3499]

either Donkey Kong Country or The Lion King on SNES

 

[neromero]

If I can remember correctly, it'll pretty much be super Mario on my gameboy advance clone

 

[Deleted member 179251]

I am wondering if it is gonna be a common answer, but despite being born in 2000s, Super Mario Bros was also my first game like ever. XD
My parents had this bootleg nintendo type console, that ran like some older nintendo games like Mario, Contra, and Castlevania (and a few others that I cannot remember)

Post automatically merged: Apr 12, 2025

Ohh...and it also had excite bike, Ice climber, Kid Icarus, and Adventure Island. The version of Adventure Island I had though was a supposed bootleg romhack that replaced the main character with Pikachu XD

I have been trying to find that bootleg romhack for ages, but nothing ever shows up.

 

[gothic soda]

Back in like 2012 or something, my dad bought a DVD player and it came with one of those "100 BILLION games in one!" DVDs, which were just 15 bootlegged NES games repeated, and the one i remember playing over and over again was Sky Destroyer. (Which i think contributed with my love for aircraft)

 

[Matricks]

Dad toke me in the 70s in the Arcades.
There was forgotten first an era of early 'electromechca' "video" games:

 

[TerrySaw]

I can't remember exactly what the first game I ever played was because as far back as my memory goes I have always been aware of videogames and how to play them (even if I wasn't very good). What I do know is that it must have been a PC game because we didn't get a console until the Wii.

My dad is an IT worker professionally and always had lots of PC games. Some of the first games I ever remember playing are various educational games designed for kids like Jump Start 1st Grade, Humongous Entertainment point and click games like Freddi Fish and Spy Fox, and some top down management games like Age Of Empires or Rollercoaster Tycoon 2. My dad also had MAME set up with a ton of arcade roms too, so it may have been an arcade game.

 

[Alex1111]

It was when i was like 4-5 years old, i barely remember my first game but dad bought a Wii back then (we still have it) and probably my first game either Wii Sports, Unreal Tournament 99 (PC), Racing games or probably some kid friendly CD game i had for our old pc... Matemagica! amazing game i had as a little kid.

 

[Super Funky Piece]

my parents had an NES with the Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt pack and Paper Boy, so one of those probably. still tilts to this day thinking how they just threw it all out one day when i wasn't looking

 

[Sonic Boomer]

I can't remember if I posted in this topic, but this is such a great topic.
The first game I remember PLAYING was City Bomber, until then I'd just mash buttons and pretend I was playing while the demos were running.
City Bomber, the cabinet we had here was really awesome, it had that special handle controller which I never saw again in other arcades and I was loving it.

City Bomber would become one of my favorite games of my childhood actually.

It was such a surreal experience for me.

I MIGHT have tried playing Tarzan, rather Taito's Jungle King before but I can't say for sure, my dad was very good at it but I can't tell if I was just mashing buttons or tried playing it with an actual coin inserted.

 

[Graves Ruinwalker]

I played that game when i was 5 .
It blew my mind while the game aint so great to play but the soundtrack and the action overall to whip monsters and ...birds ... made this game so great for me .

 

[bigstinkie]

super mario bros and dunk hunt combo cartridge
i liked the mario and i liked the shooting of flying creatures by pointing a firearm at them it was the perfect game for me

 

[Swagmata]

Some of my absolute earliest memories are of playing this when I was like three years old, One of my favorite mid games to this day

 

[Denmdm]

I remember having a Sega Genesis when I was prolly one year old, and I remember playing the first Sonic. That and having GTA San Andreas on my mom's PC so they were the first games I've ever played

 

[squarezero]

Pong. And yes, I'm that old.

 

[Guilherme130]

The first one that comes to mind is Mario Kart 64