You'd likely struggle to remember the first TV show or movie you ever saw, but you never forget your first video game. There's something about gaming - its interactivity, perhaps - that leaves its stamp on you, and we wanted to ask our community of gamers here on Just About Video Games: what was your first? Which video game made you fall in love with gaming?
Your answers paint a rainbow of different eras and genres. Note that these aren't reviews, but rather openly personal anecdotes of your time with some classic games. Enjoy.
Pokémon Yellow
Ross kicks us off with an absolute classic. Pokémon Yellow took things one step further than Red and Blue by letting Pikachu follow you throughout the entire game, much like he does with Ash in the anime. We all know what Pokémon is like, but Ross’s full tale is a wonderful one as he describes how it introduced him to the monster-collecting series.
"At this stage in my life, as sad as it is to admit (rapidly approaching 30) I’ve played almost every main-game franchise Pokémon game that Nintendo has to offer and a fair few of the spin-offs. But for me, nothing quite beats the first game I ever got my grubby little mitts on. Pokémon Yellow version. At the time I’d never owned a games console before and I was fortunate enough that my parents had managed to source me not only Pokémon Yellow, but also a particularly unsightly matching lemon-yellow Game Boy Color. AND I LOVED IT."
Voodoo Kid
Onto something a little more obscure now with Damien Mason's first game: Voodoo Kid. A point-and-click adventure from 1997, it takes place on what is essentially a ghost ship, and you must solve puzzles to escape. It may sound like a Monkey Island spin-off, but it's not, and Damien's memory of playing it while visiting his granddad is a lovely tale, told well.
"At home, the PC we owned was plonked in the hallway for everyone to use, making it somewhat of an event and strictly not for gaming. Visiting my grandad’s bungalow, however, I’d get to play games all I wanted - or should I say game? The selection was admittedly thin with just one that I can remember, but I’d still get a rush of excitement every weekend. I could continue with my story, just like the scheduled viewing of your favourite TV show."
Trashman
We’re heading back even further than the nineties now, with Dan Thomas's first gaming experience on a ZX Spectrum and a little game called Trashman, which launched in 1984. Emerging from an era of simple premises, capabilities, and marketing, there’s no prize for guessing what you do: this is a game in which you play as a refuse collector. Though it reviewed well at the time, you probably wouldn’t play it today, but even the simplest games left an impression when all of this was new, as Dan explains.
"I was at a friend's house when I first played, and my parents subsequently bought our own machine that next Christmas, which well and truly set me on my path. This game was a staple for a long time. I was not any good at it, but I do remember enjoying it and trying to beat my best score over and over. It was actually quite a fast-paced game for the time; I remember being hugely infuriated because you could easily step too far and walk off the path, which would mean the household dog would come and chase after you."
Lode Runner
Do you remember when Apple made machines with specific gaming capabilities? Philip does, as his first game was Lode Runner on the Apple IIe. Which, at the time, was the only game his family had, on a floppy disc. Those were the days, eh? Lode Runner was a pretty standard platformer for the time, with visuals similar to the Donkey Kong arcade game, but Philip’s recollection mentions an inventive attacking ability:
"You needed to collect all the briefcases on the screen to beat the level. Meanwhile you had to avoid the enemies because if they touched you, you died. Your one weapon was to shoot a hole in the ground in front of you. The hole didn’t last long, but if you could set it up so an enemy walked into it, they would be trapped and die when the hole regenerated and buried them alive."
Alley Cat
From a similar era comes Alley Cat, Lanah Tyra's first gaming memory. You play as a black cat named Freddy, whose one goal is to reach his love Felicia through such feline acrobatics as jumping on bins, hanging on washing lines, and leaping through windows, all avoiding a menacing floating broom that will try and usher you back outside again. Someone is bound to develop an Alley Cat remake soon, surely.
"I was about three years old, and when my mother couldn’t leave me with anyone she took me to her workplace and I played this game all day. I was always a cat person and loved cats so it was the perfect game for me. You had to jump up the bins on the top of the fence, but be aware of the alley cats pushing you off right into the path of the chasing dog. From the fence you had to jump in at one of the windows, and you could end up in different rooms."
Fields of Glory
Finally, we have Rob Clark with Fields of Glory, a strategy game from the early '90s. This is an RTS based on the Battle of Waterloo, the decisive 1815 showdown in which Napoleon Bonaparte and his French army took on the Duke of Wellington and Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher, leader of the British and Prussian armies respectively, and set the future course of Europe. As Rob explains, you could command any of the three armies, controlling thousands of troops in one go.
"This game had an anti-piracy feature that I’ve never seen in another game, though I’m sure they exist. Before you could start a new battle you had to enter a password. To find this password the game would give you three numbers. These corresponded to the page, line, and word in the manual, with a random word selected each time. I still find this pretty amazing to this day."
We may run this bounty again in future, so let us know in the comments what your first game was - and keep it stored in the memory banks for next time!
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