What was your first videogame experience?

[Gryzor]

Reading the latest RG last night I got through the Joust article and remembered that it was my first taste of video gaming.
It was around '82 or '83 I think, I was six or seven tops, and at a cousin's home I saw his 2600 hooked up to their TV and playing Joust... I couldn't make heads or tails of it (and I'm still rubbish at it), but the concept that I could interact with, and control what appeared on the TV was just mind-blowing material. I was in love.
Since these things were quite expensive (in Greece, at least) I don't remember ever asking my parents for one, but they saw what happened; and a year or two later then got me my 464

[Bryce]

Magnavox Oddyssey, probably around 1975 / 76 not sure (it's a while back you know). My uncle brought it back from a business trip. Can't remember what the game was called, some sort of pong / tennis type game.

1981, Atari 2600 (The wooden one), a friend of mine got it for Christmas with several games: Tennis, Pac-Man, Missile Command and Space Invaders. Played the latter two for almost 12 hours non-stop until my hands no longer worked properly

Oh, I feel ooooollld 

Bryce.

[einoeL]

"Munchkin", Philips Videopac G7400.

[FatAgnus]

Since these things were quite expensive (in Greece, at least) I don't remember ever asking my parents for one, but they saw what happened; and a year or two later then got me my 464

Same here... I spent all my money buying "Amstrad User" magazines, "forgetting" it over my parent's bed, in their bathroom... latter, inside the fridge! (literally)
And a nice day, they asked me "WHAT IN THE HELL IS AN AMSTRAD" (in Spanish, of course) followed by "OK, BUT THIS, IT IS ENOUGH FOR YOU" with her finger over a wonderful CPC464-GT picture...


THE BEST DAY OF MY CHILDHOOD!

Opppssss... first videogame experience? THE GALACTIC PLAGUE, by Paco Suarez!

[EgoTrip]

Timeman One

[loftcat]

In the late 70s when I was small, before we had a wood grain 2600 my dad bought one of those tennis / pong consoles. It was the first and last video game my mum ever wanted to play!

[robcfg]

Donkey Kong and Warhawk on my Atari 800XL when I was 8 years old.


Then I saw the light and asked for a CPC 

[TFM]

First own Videogame?

Hmmm.... that was 99.99 DM "cheap" Pitstop on CBS Colecovision.

The CBS was like the CPC never at #1 in sales, but the best system in its time 

EDIT: And for some the most important, both have a Z80 and 'satte Farben'

[mahlemiut]

Some Space Invaders clone (I forget the name) on a ZX81, way back in the early 80s.

[jbaudrand]

Asterix on Atari 2600 because it was bundled with it, and 5 minutes later:Beamrider.... we played hours with it

[Ynot.zer0]

first videogame experience: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_Trap_(arcade_game)


....we had the real arcade machine!


When the CPC 464 came along, the first game played was 'Roland Ahoy!'

[Optimus]

I think my father had lented a Spectrum 48k before I ever got my first CPC.
I was quite young then, possibly not understanding what that is, but it was moon patrol I think that I have seen.
And then another game with some guy climbing on ropes and opening chests in some indiana jones style setting.
I don't even know which this game was but I would like to refresh my memory.

[FatAgnus]

@Optimus: I think it could be "Fred"-"Roland On The Ropes", programmed by Francisco Menendez, R.I.P. (programmer of  the great game "La Abadia Del Crimen"- "The Abbey of Crime", perhaps the best CPC game ever until "Orion Prime")

Xyphoe's vid: (sorry Metr, I'm not a traitor, you don't have this one  )

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[Axelay]

Technically I guess the first video games I played were on this primitive thing, a system by Sheen, in B&W I think, but my parents returned it very soon after they got it.  The same day maybe.  This would have been late 70's or very early 80's, so it's a bit vague and I cant be sure why.  In any case, what we got instead was a console by Hanimex, which had much better games that looked like this!  It's probably hard to tell from the shots, but Laser Attack and Spider's Web were awesome. 

[Gryzor]

Axelay, some of these loo like a 2600... good for you

I would really love an old pong-console in good condition...perhaps even an Atari Pong!

[steve]

I think the first computer game I ever played was "Duck Shoot" on the MK 14, this was Clive Sinclair's first attempt at a computer, it used a hexadecimal keyboard and 9 digit 7 segment led display for it's user interface, it had 256 bytes of ram and a 512 byte monitor in rom, it was sold as a kit in 1978-79 for £39.95 + VAT + post and packing, and all the components had to be soldered to a PCB, not like nowadays where "building a computer" simply means putting completed circuit boards into a case.
You kids today don't know you're born

[FatAgnus]

DO...YOU...HAVE...AN...M...K...1...4...?

[steve]

I wish I did, but I sold 3 MK14's, a cassette interface and a prom programmer for £20 about 20 years ago.

[FatAgnus]

Yep! I sold my first CPC for 5000 pts (30€)... and it was not really a CPC464... it was a 472! 

[ssg]

The digit hunter game on a Casio MG-880 musical calculator which my aunt brought from Germany.

http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Casio/GameCalcMG880.htm

[TFM]

The digit hunter game on a Casio MG-880 musical calculator which my aunt brought from Germany.

http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Casio/GameCalcMG880.htm

Cool!

[Gryzor]

Steve, sir, you've got my respect.

@ssg: Casio had some really sweet calculators... But I don't think this would qualify as a videogame?

[AMSDOS]

I had two handheld Q&Q games (not sure what happened to one of them I kept the better one of the two though), which shared the game idea: catch something. The first one I remember getting from the market was a Cat out to catch Mice. The Mice appeared on three different levels with the cat at the top, if you caught the mice furthest away from the cat, you scored more points, of course if you missed it you'd loose one of your lives or something. The Second Q&Q game I've got applies the same technique as the Cat & Mouse game, only in this case it's a Fisherman out to Catch fish, same concept apples, though I enjoyed this one more cause the Fisherman has a spear to catch the fish with and the animation of it looks more convincing that some Cat out to grab a Mouse and revert back to the Top!

Both these games have clocks and even an alarm could be set on them (to the pitch of a high noted beep - as these games have sound in them), from memory I think I had these games prior to using the CPC464, unfortunately I cannot find any dates to go with those Q&Q games or the games themselves on the Net and the Manuals I would have had for them are lurking about somewhere I think with a whole heap of other manuals, though I have no idea where they would be! 

[ssg]

@ssg: Casio had some really sweet calculators... But I don't think this would qualify as a videogame?

in fact it would. it was a shoot em up with target being oncoming digits moving from right hand side of the lcd to the left (you). you had to switch to selected number and "fire" to hit the target digits. the digits would get faster and faster so you had to optimize by hitting most common or closest numbers first.

[MaV]

I can't quite remember the order in which I played with the first three. The VIC 20 was the one with which one of my friends and I started to do type-ins from magazines, all of those games of course.

1) Game & Watch (with calculator) - killed it by opening it and trying to figure out what makes it tick.
2) a friend's Atari 2600
3) ZX 81 - which ceased functioning when I tried to solder the 16k RAM pack. Expansions frequently caused the ZX 81 to reset if you moved it every so slightly.
4) a friend's VIC 20 - I remember a rat race game. A rat has to catch the cheese in a labyrinth before the other rats.
5) a friend's CPC 464
6) and finally my CPC 6128 + green monitor.

MaV