How did *you* get involved in gaming, personally?

[N4TE]

My dad was a gamer since the 80s, and I've always had some form of gaming console in my house for as long as I remember. The first games I played with him were Halo, NBA 2k, and Simcity.

[Input]

My Dad was big into the hacking and piracy scene of the the 90's, he has disk after disk of old warez software. So of course he got games along the way, I grew up on Windows 98 with Unreal, Quake II, Duke Nukem 3D, Need for Speed 3 etc etc.

[Verdant]

My Dad brought a PS1 along with Grand Theft Auto, Speed Freaks and Syphon Filter. I played the hell out of these three games, I especially loved the Intro video too Speed Freaks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_UvDrFL_5g

[fei5u48857]

By watching my older brother play FPS games on his pc.

[Algonquin Assassin]

I don't remember exactly, but my earliest gaming memories were of Pacman, Space Invaders etc on an old Atari I had a long time ago. This was the late 80s/early 90s.

[Guest Billy Russo]

My dad is the reason. He'd buy every new console, and most new games. I was just really lucky that he was a big Gamer. I got introduced to so many great games, and I've pretty much been obsessed since a kid. Not sure I'd be as big of a gamer today if it wasn't for that.

[Ai®a©ob®a]

The very first game i can remember playing was

 

My dad would work 2nd shift from 3pm to 11pm so i never got to see him so he every night when he got home around12am he would come and wake me up for us for half an hour to play Super Mario Bro. together i don't know if my mom ever knew he was getting me up for that...but from the regular nintendo i've had Sega, N64, Game Cube,XBOX/XBOX360 PS/PS2/PS3/PS4

 

My dad bought me the PS for Christmas in 99' and then bought me the PS2 & GTA 3 when it came out for my birthday and that's where my GTA Life started although i had played GTA before and never realized it until a friend of mine and i were talking and i mentioned GTA 3 was the first GTA game i played that when he reminded me that i had played GTA when i spent the night at his house one night.

 

I'm sure if he was still here he'd be playing GTA right there next to me.

Edited November 8, 2014 by Troubadour

[Graven]

First game I remember playing was the TV version of Pong, at childhood friend´s.

In early 80s I played lot of Nintendo´s Game & Watch handheld electric games, the orange double-windowed Donkey Kong was classic.

Vectrex was also cool, lot of arcade cabinet and pinball gaming in amusement parks.

Then came C64, it was the real s*it really. Amiga had lot of awesome RPG titles, had NES and Megadrive too.

Edited November 8, 2014 by Slave Boy

[trip]

I hail from a time before the internet and cable TV and spent the bulk of my free time at the pinball arcades. Loved pinball. Video games started showing up in the arcades, but it wasn't until Space Invaders showed up that I became a video game person.

 

True story - My young self was so impressed by Space Invader so much to the point that I wanted to understand the electronics and computer programing... thus carving out the career I have today.

[TheGr8Cornholio]

I got into gaming because of my uncles on my mom's side. They used to play NES but I could only watch them because I was like three years old, I couldn't play at all. When I turned four they gave me their old NES and I went completely crazy with it.

 

I've been playing videogames ever since. I haven't had too many consoles because most of the time I wasn't able to afford them, so I've only had a few. My parents got me the SNES later on, I got a GBA with pokémon back in 2003, then the GameCube when I turned 14. I saved up for a PS2 (mostly because I wanted GTA 3) and bought it. When I started working I was able to afford the PS3 and PS4 later on.

Edited November 8, 2014 by TheGr8Cornholio

[Pavle]

I started playing games with my dad when I was 3-4 years old. We played NFS 2, Santa Claus in Trouble...And later my dad brought home GTA Vice City, and me and my brother fell in love with the game. When I was older I started playing games much more when I got a new PC for my 8th birthday.

[Xanbukka]

Pac-man, and Space Invaders, via the Atari 2600, at age 10. Never looked backed since. lol.

[albanyave]

Actually, it was gaming magazines that started my gaming life. I would go to the supermarket with my mom and immediately run to the magazine section. I would stand there flipping through the PC Gaming, Gaming Electronics, Nintendo Power, Game Informer, and others reading and looking at the screen shots. One year I got a Nintendo for Christmas. Now I have 2 PS3s.

[Red Hat]

Since consoles were not popular in India when I was a kid, I started gaming on my cousin's PC. Played Roadrash for hours and hours then he got Age Of Empires, and a racing game called eRacer; still love them all.

Edited November 10, 2014 by Kevin3014

[nikolibrety]

A little game I found in a ceral box....

[Testarossa]

Arcade machines.

[Homemade Dynamite]

I starting gaming on the original PlayStation when I was 4 years old.

[Sir Michael]

Super Mario World and Mario Kart. <3

 

Those demo discs for the original PlayStation hooked me, as did Ace Combat 3. (:

[hornedturtle]

My first game outside the arcade I played was golden axe I think...I fell in love ever since.

 

It might have been bubsy or echo....I can't remember.

Edited November 10, 2014 by hornedturtle

[Super Shizuku]

I started to play game because of my brother and sister,they play harvest moon on ps1.My first games are army men airstrike and sarge heroes,gta 2,hotwheels extreme racing,return fire,simcity 2000,nfs 2,test drive 6,vigilante 8 2nd offence,and then 1 of the most hardest game i've ever played nectaris military madness i was 8 from that time.Out of all those games i only beaten hotwheels extreme racing

[Gnocchi Flip Flops]

PS2 + GT3 in 2002. There you go. That's probably why I'm also a car fanatic today.

[Nico]

My mom's been working with computers since the early 80's, and some time after her marriage in 1992 she got a platform game called Historic. Both my parents always tried to finish that game without success. And they say, when I started playing the game, I managed to reach levels they never could see. I never found anything related to this game on Internet. I don't even know if Historic was it's real name, that's how they called it.

 

Hell, in my profile I wrote "I started gaming at 7..." but now I'm realising I started even earlier.

 

By the late 90's, very few people could afford an original Playstation in my country. They bought me -and my brother- a Family Game. Those things were pirated versions of successful consoles, who were (and still are, sadly) very popular in my region because of being very cheap. Ours looked like a Sega Genesis. I remember, in some birthday party, me and my brother were playing a racing game and we didn't allowed any of the other invited kids to play with us.

 

In the early 2000's I started playing big games on PC. I'll never forget all the fun I had with Midtown Madness 2. That game made me so crazy. My computer could barely run it at low FPS with little draw distance. But I f*cking loved that game, anyway. Unlocking the cars felt so good. I also played a few minutes of the first Driver and Half Life at some friend's house. The very first thing I loved about Driver was how the turning lights worked on player's car, something any GTA ever had. Still remember how I begged to my mom to buy me that game during days.

 

Later, a friend gave me a pirated copy of NFS Underground 2. Another amazing game that hooked me for years. By those days, I also met Vice City.

 

I wasn't until 2007 when we finnaly bought a PS2. That console was a commercial success worldwide, and my country wasn't the exception. Shame all the things always become popular here very late, when they are already old and outdated. When we had our PS2, a lot of kids in US and Europe already had their PS3s and 360s. Hell, due to f*cking inflation a goddamn PS3, an ancient 7 year old console is still being a luxury item here. Third world life.

 

Anyway, I think I had a good initiation to videogames. Not so awesome as the initiation of any long term gamer from the US, but I still have very good memories playing games.

[Miss Malevolent]

9 years old Atari 2600.

[Nick1020]

I was already playing games when my mother was with her ex but when I got the PS2 it changed. I had the fat and my first game was Ratchet and Clank. From that point I got hooked on gaming, mainly racing games and platforms. My mother's ex was getting them for for free by burning them on disc. When I got my ps3 in 08 I wasn't too much of a gamer like I am now. It was 2011 when I discovered how to connect to your wireless modem. And from that year forward, I began playing online. Now that I got me a ps4, I'm thinking of getting me a gaming pc when I get the money.

[Sneakerhead.]

PS2 + GT3 in 2002. There you go. That's probably why I'm also a car fanatic today.

This + N64 with World Driver Championship.

[Vehicles]

Had my first pc in 03.I was interested in cars so I started with NFS:Hot pursuit 2 and NFS Underground.

2005:I went to my friends house and was attracted by Gran Turismo.This got me my own Ps1

2008:Went to cousin's house.Saw Gta Sa and Underground 2.Got a ps2 for a cheap price.

2012:Ps3 is cheap already.So my parent got me one.

20--:I need to work for my own Ps4.Yeah so that's about it.

[Mister Pink]

First got gaming on my older bros Sega Megadrive. Before that, I remember near my house my bro and I would sneak across the main road that we weren't allowed cross to play Sonic The Hedgehog on the demo Megadrive at our local shopping centre. There would be a queue of about 6 people trying to play and you'd have 3 lives and then you'd have to go to the back of the queue. Magical memories of nostalgia. That was the first game I completed.

 

I got a GameBoy back in '92 or '91. I Got Mario: Six Golden Coins and Track & Field (button-mashing stress-cartridge). Eventually got add-ons for the GameBoy the magnifying glass with light and amplifier. It seems like I was really nerdy when I was young but I wasn't, really. After that, I didn't game much except casually. I remember playing Syphon Filter on my bros PS/2 and then I got more in to gaming when San Andreas came out in 2004 and The Warriors. I also remember enjoying games like Killzone, Black and Medal Of Honor oh and Need For Speed: U2

 

 

 

 

Edited November 12, 2014 by Mister Pink

[Kalvin]

Got a PS2 (which included GTAVC, one of the Crash Bandicoot games, and MGS2) on Christmas 2004, never looked back since.

[LT. Ronald C. Spiers]

I was born in 1985 so I started with this, the Atari 2600, which only had 128 bytes of RAM!! Then I moved onto the Sega Master System Mark II when my love for gaming really came into play with Alex Kidd in Miracle World. Ever since then, it was the NES and SNES with old skool Mario and Donkey Kong Country etc. Gaming really came into it's own with the release of the PSX (Playstation 1) back in the late 1990s with disc-based wonderfulness (apart from the scratches and finger prints), it was a miss having to blow into the cassettes (which if you have never done before, then you really did miss out on the best and golden years of gaming).

 

So, let's spare a thought to the 128 bytes of RAM, when today we have gaming PC's that can handle anywhere from 8-32GB of RAM. Nevertheless, the true David amongst Goliaths, in my opinion, is the PS4. Back where she belongs once again

 

Bit of unrelated nostalgia, but does anyone remember playing this

 

Before Gran Turismo, there was this beauty!

[Gouveia]

I remember I was seven years old, and one of my dad's friend just bought me an awesome video game system that was too expensive in Brazil at the time. He brought it from Paraguay, together with 4 discs: the default PS demo disc, Doom, Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown and... Grand Theft Auto.