First Encounters – VideoGamer.com Community

Last week we ran a feature in which we quizzed the likes of Peter Molyneux and Cliff Bleszinski on their earliest gaming memories – their first encounters. Today we turn our attention to the VideoGamer.com community, to ask once again: Do you remember the first time? Read on for tales of Space Invaders, invincible uncles and drunken mums.

Paul Byron aka Pblive

My first game memories come from witnessing the joy of Combat on an Atari VCS when I was around 10 or 11. We used to visit a friend’s house while staying with relatives, and while the parents were all talking my brother and I would escape to play her console. It’s quite refreshing to think that in the early 80’s it was a girl who introduced me to gaming. It wasn’t until 1983 that I owned my own device to play games, a Sinclair Spectrum with Hungry Horace and Kosmic Kanga. I haven’t looked back since…

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David Neilson aka Dav2612

The first video game I remember playing was Moon Patrol on the Atari 2600, at a friend’s house. I must have been seven or eight and I was blown away by it. Driving that blocky moon buggy and bouncing over blocky obstacles was brilliant, probably better than actually being on The Moon. I went straight home afterwards and asked for an Atari for Christmas. It was a few months before Santa would visit so until then, gaming involved visiting my friend’s house and getting an excited hug from his mum, who, as it turns out, wasn’t just being friendly: she was an alcoholic and regularly plastered. Still, it was a small price to play for some gaming.

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Mike Scoates aka Fantasy Meister

I was six years old and was handed a pack of cards by my mother, taught how to lay nine of them out in a three-by-three grid, and cover any two cards that added up to 11 until the whole pack was depleted. This was called Patience. Sometimes you’d get rid of all the cards (and win), sometimes you wouldn’t. It kept me occupied for hours. I wouldn’t call it amusement, it was more like intense concentration and stubbornness until a wanted result was achieved.

This was my grounding in games. 38 years later it’s the reason why I love games that involve huge grinds: killing the same stuff repeatedly for a rare drop; using the same skill over and over until it levels up; or going for Prestige in Modern Warfare. I also did pretty good at mathematics in school and have an expensive love for BlackJack and Poker. Blame my mum.

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Tim Hewitt aka MrHEWBO

The year was 1999, I was five-and-a-half-years-old and it was Christmas. This was the day my gaming legacy started, for it was this day that my Dad was bought the PlayStation, along with the game Crash Team Racing. This was the first game I can remember playing and it was amazing. I quickly got to grips with the controls and was soon embarrassing my 35-year-old dad. Wondering whether nostalgia was clouding my judgement on how good this game was, I recently had a quick look on Metacritic and found it had a score of 88 with a review score of 100/100 from the Official US PlayStation magazine, maybe some bias from them there, but nevertheless this was a genre defining game.

And on one final note, dare I say the gameplay was “fluid”, the controls were “visceral”, and the graphics were “jaw-dropping”.

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Jon Wilson aka altaranga

My first clear memory of gaming is provided to me by Manic Miner on the ZX Spectrum. I must have been about 10 years old, so I’m guessing it was around 1984/5. It was a 2D platform game in just about the most basic sense possible, but what else would you expect from an 8-bit machine which only produced about 10 colours (one of which was magenta!)? I played it for the first time in a long time a few months back, and the thing that stood out for me was HOW BLOODY HARD IT WAS. Seriously, how on earth did I sink so many hours into trying to complete that game – something I have never managed to achieve, I might add? Back then having a finite number of lives actually meant something. There’s no school like old school.

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Alberto Alveiro aka Ghost Dog

My first gaming memory that particularly stands out was the arcade version of Golden Axe. I was probably around seven at the time, and I was totally captivated by the fantasy setting. It was the reason I pestered my dad to buy me my first console, which I received for my next birthday. My dad took me into town the next day to buy a copy of the Mega Drive version. I was hugely impressed at how close it was to the arcade original, and that it contained two extra levels and a one-on-one duel mode which could be played against a second player or against the computer. The cover was also awesome.

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Leon Tyler aka munkee

I was sitting in the classroom with all the other kids. We were supposed to be learning maths. I hated maths. To ease my suffering, I would gaze into the corner of the room. I didn’t really know what it was sitting over there, but I did know that I liked it – I liked it a lot. It displayed its flashing, vivid, screen burning colours as if it was making love to my eyes.

I remember being allowed to use it briefly, once: It was a wonderful graphic and text-based adventure in which I had to find some treasure. All I remember is bright yellow and red pixel graphics burning themselves into my mind, so that I would always remember their image. I don’t know how long I was on that machine, but it was long enough for me to travel to a whole new world as I slipped further and further away from reality. The next thing I remember was the teacher pulling on my cardigan and giving the next child a turn in front of my newly discovered world. I asked many times if I could return to that place, but apparently maths was more important.

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Wesley Hindle aka Neon-Soldier 32

Before the age of about seven, my brother and I didn’t have a gaming console at home. However, at my Grandma’s house there was a Mega Drive, where I discovered Street Fighter 2. I started out playing versus against my Uncle, who was a seasoned veteran, and I inevitably lost each time. When I had enough of getting beaten, I would play single-player. For reasons unknown I chose to play as Sagat, and over a period of about three years I played with no one apart from him. Eventually, I got better and better at beating Bison, and I felt like I could take on anyone, even Daigo (if I’d have known who he was at the time). In fact, I didn’t even know how to execute a Tiger Uppercut, without mashing the D-Pad.

Fast forward nine years, and Street Fighter 4 has been released. I’m fairly confident with my recently-practised moves, and thanks to the fact that I have again become familiar with Sagat – and given that Uncle hadn’t played in over 6 years – I thought that victory would come easily. I was wrong. Even with all the practice I’d had, I still lost. I’d say I’m about 10 times better at Street Fighter than I was when I was younger, but does that mean I’m any good at it? Not at all.

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Kierrien Aland aka Bloodstorm

My first game? It was probably Mortal Kombat for the Mega Drive when I was five years old. My mum and my dad used to play it all the time: My mum was always Sonya, and my Dad… I believe he was Scorpion or Johnny Cage. I still remember to this day the beatings my Mum gave my Dad, and her shouting “HA! Kicked your ass!” while my dad had his head in his hands, shaking in disgust. The fatality code was also on, so I also got my first viewing of pixellated violence, and what my dad called “death moves”. To this day, seeing Scorpion doing his “Toasty” fatality brings back happy memories of my childhood.

By Bloodstorm, aged 6… I mean 21.

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Martin Davies aka draytone

My earliest gaming memory is watching my older brothers putting tapes into our Amstrad and waiting 15 minutes for them to load. But once they had, the world of Paperboy and Harrier Attack (amazingly addictive games) was really quite exciting. I rarely got to play; I just had to sit and look over their shoulders, but it was still really magical and ignited a passion for gaming that’s still going strong today.

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Scott Widdowson aka Wido

The very first game I played was Dr Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine, back on the Mega Drive. I was six years of age when I first graced this excellent Tetris clone with the Sonic gloss paint over the top of it. I mostly played with my brothers and Dad. The Mega Drive was mainly played on the weekends, especially Saturday evening after Noel’s House Party. I felt as if the game was like a toy within my toy box, and I couldn’t stop playing. I was very reluctant to pass the controller to my brothers and Dad, as it was very addictive. I’m still addicted to it, and beating the many sub-bosses and finally Dr Robotnik himself will never get old. It truly is a gem of a game which needs more recognition.

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Matthew J aka p0rtalthinker

I was indoctrinated into PC gaming at a very early age. I used to watch my siblings play on our dusty old computer and always had fun giving pointers and advice on how to go about something, or just admiring the gameplay. The first game I ever had hands-on time with actually has to be the original Age Of Empires. It was a great game – the comical “I need a Monk!” sample that was said every time one was spawned still manages to pop up every once in a while, chatting it up with my bro and sis.

Soon after that I got hooked on StarCraft, The Jedi Knight games (Dark Forces II, Outcast & Academy), as well as just cheap flash games I found entertaining to play online. I fondly remember playing LAN games for hours on end into the wee hours of the night. Ah, the good old days! Before my first play through of Half Life 2 however, gaming was just a causal hobby for me. It still stands as a pinnacle of gaming even to this day, and at the time it made me rethink the possibilities of the medium altogether. Never has anything come close to the way I felt experiencing that game for the first time.

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Lee Weedall aka CheekyLee

The first game I played was a TV Pong, licensed from Grandstand. The game that doomed me to a lifetime of buttons and bleeps, however, was Space Invaders. My nine-year-old self thought it was the coolest thing in the world, and back then I thought clearing the screen was impossible. Even today, there is nothing that quite matches the tension induced by that most ominous of sounds as the Invaders descend, or the thrill when you finally nail that last, FAST, bastard!

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James Butler aka Clockpunk

I was introduced to our hobby by a title of the highest calibre – Prince of Persia – at the age of four. The various coloured potions, fighting scimitar-wielding skeletons, avoiding biting-saw traps, receiving the assistance of a mouse, and manoeuvring a mirror Prince, all to rescue a princess… these thing captured every facet of my imagination. Even today, the thought of any of those Arabian Nights-inspired elements conjures up nostalgic memories of that classic game. More than 20 years later, it is still one of the best – and for damned good reasons.

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Daniel Wheeler aka Thel-Win-Man

For me, the only time and place that I will always remember is being in front of my Dad’s TV and PS1 with the single greatest game of all time: Final Fantasy VII. The one main thing that was addictive about it was just the openness of it, which seems to be one of my favourite aspects of gaming. Ok, yes, the story was a bit clichéd, but there were plot twists, that just made everyone go, “WTF, did that just happen?”, and that’s what makes a game go from great, to an epic masterpiece.

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John Fish aka McNoodles

When I think of some of the first games I ever played, I instantly think of Pokemon Crystal. This was the title that opened gaming up to me as I travelled through the regions of Johto and Kanto with my endless collection of Pokemon, that were all left behind in a PC. I’m sure that many gamers took their first steps into the treacherous waters through Pokemon. Next I got a PlayStation and played such greats as Crash Bandicoot and Spyro to death. Spyro 2 Gateway to Glimmer is one that I particularly remember as the only game to ever make me cry with frustration as I couldn’t beat Rypto. I always used to get up to the very final part, where Spyro starts flying, before being killed in a flurry of fire balls. I think it was that bit, at least; my memory ain’t what it used to be.

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Richard Bevan aka rbevanx

I originally tried to buy Snatcher on my own at electronics boutique when I was about six or seven years old, but to my surprise the bloke at the checkout refused to sell it to me.

“It’s an 18-rated game, sorry”

This alone made me want it more, the idea of a game so edgy that it’s 18. Today 15 to18 rated games are the norm, but Snatcher was the first 18-rated game in the UK, and quite rightly so. Luckily I went to another store, praying to the video game gods that they would sell me the game, and they did. So, in my hands now was my first game that I bought on my own, and the first 18-rated game. The game itself I had never heard of, and there were very few Mega CD games to choose from at that point. But as soon as I started playing I knew that this game was different – not because of its violence and the fact that I was playing an 18-rated game, but because the game itself was totally different to what I had played before. It still offers something, in its own unique way, that current games do not.

In fact, I think it’s worth getting a Mega CD just for this game, as it really is that good.

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Rory Cocker aka boeoz

Growing up in a house full of males, video games were often at the forefront of leisure time, and none more so than Abe’s Oddysee on the PS1. The very first game I ever played, though, was WALKER on the Amiga 500. I would have been about 3. “It looks real!” I exclaimed as my brother mowed down hordes of crudely animated ‘baddies’. I thought it was spellbinding; magical; enchanting. Thinking about it, though, it probably wasn’t the most suitable game to be subjected to at such an age. It could explain that time when I went on a havoc-inducing, frenzied killing spree in a 20-foot mechanoid suit of armour when I was still clad in Pampers…

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Claus Andersen aka Roland_D11

My very first game was maybe the best game on the Atari 2600: Pitfall. I played it on my brother’s system in 1985 – I was six years old. I remember I didn’t fully understand the goal of the game, but I played the first screens over and over. I jumped on crocodile heads, swung on a liana and felt very proud of myself when I managed to jump over the scary scorpion.

The game filled me with wonder and amazement, I still get this feeling when I watch videos of the old game or play it on an emulator. Although there is a sensation of loss mixed in, because I miss having those feelings you can almost only have as a child.

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Charlie Holmes aka Chaza_snake

The very first game I played that I remember well is Metal Gear Solid on the PlayStation 1. This game still captures my heart today, and is the only PS1 game I still have and I will never sell. As in any Hideo Kojima game, the storytelling was outstanding – twists and turns in the plot kept me playing for hours just to see if the legendary solider, Solid Snake, would destroy Metal Gear. The boss fights were great too and there were some that still stand out for me as the best boss battle in any video game. The encounter with Psycho mantis is a great example: to beat him you had to plug your controller into the second controller port on the PS1 so he couldn’t read Snake’s mind and know what you were about to do. For me, this was a genius idea.

When I revisited the same setting in MGS4 and the classic music from the first game cut in, I was honestly moved, as it brought back a whole childhood of gaming.

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