# What is your gaming history - first console/device early gaming experiences?



## Epona (Dec 1, 2012)

I had Pong on a console (Binatone I think?) waaaay back in the mists of time, sometime in the '70s.
Then I got a 2nd hand Atari console (Pitfall FTW! and multiple space invaders games)
Then ZX Spectrum - played loads of text adventures, wrote a couple of my own in Basic.
I went without for a while, due to lack of funds, although I did have an Amstrad but for word processor capabilities, it was not really built for games.
Then WEYHAY! My first ever gaming PC. Intel 386, massive 2Mb HDD, cost me 2 months wages. Point and click adventures were the in thing at that time. Legend of Kyrandia was awesome. Also really enjoyed Legends of Valour, which was more RPG hack and slash.

Edit: I realised that I posted this in the wrong forum and reported my own post to hopefully get it moved


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## Shippou-Sensei (Dec 1, 2012)

I had a sega mastersystem (and about 2 games)  and  a BBC master  with a load  of weird games   bout  my real gaming  experiance didn't start till i got a PC

it's was a 486  running dos and  win 3.11 for work groups   but  i had a load of great stuff like  doom, a star trek point and click adventure   and a load of others.   
in fact  i think point and click adventure  were all the rage.  i do remember loading up the first discworld point and click  and  thinking it was awesome as this one came on a cd and had proper voice work and everything!


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## Epona (Dec 1, 2012)

Point and click was where it was at back in the day, they followed on naturally from the text adventures that I'd been playing on the Spectrum, and in the early '90s a good point and click adventure was very much appreciated and had good reviews, there were some good games in that era.


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## Epona (Dec 1, 2012)

Thank you to whichever mod moved this thread to the appropriate forum - quick work and much appreciated, lack of concentration on my part when I started a new thread (sorry for that)- thanks for correcting my balls-up.


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## Supine (Dec 1, 2012)

ZX81 > PS3

With plenty of computers and consoles in between


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## marty21 (Dec 1, 2012)

mostly playing in arcades in the 70s - that's where we all played, very few people had consoles then, so it was space invader type games. In the late 80s, my flat mate had an old Atari console, had lots of drunken games on that - then a big gap until the PS2 and now the PS3


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## stuff_it (Dec 1, 2012)

One of those Atari cartridge thingies was my first, followed by a NES.

Lost of my mates ad a ZX Spectrum but the first thing I had that even vaguely resembled something you could do more than games on was an Atari ST.

After I left home I found a SNES and three games (and a mini skirt that fit me!) in a phone box in town when I was signing on. Happy days for our underemplyed house full of weed dealers.


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## Epona (Dec 1, 2012)

stuff_it said:


> After I left home I found a SNES and three games (and a mini skirt that fit me!) in a phone box in town when I was signing on. Happy days for our underemplyed house full of weed dealers.


 
In a phone box?  That's bloody mental that is!  And a mini skirt in your size too! Happy days indeed


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## tommers (Dec 1, 2012)

Pretty similar to you epona. Some pong thing my dad bought was probably first.  Then an Atari. BBC B. Amstrad 6128. Amiga 500. SNES. PS1. PS2. Dreamcast. Wii. 360.  A selection of PCs during that time but none of them could ever be called a 'gaming pc'.  Just cheap old ones.


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## stuff_it (Dec 1, 2012)

Epona said:


> In a phone box? That's bloody mental that is! And a mini skirt in your size too! Happy days indeed


Even better, the games were mario kart, lost vikings and mk3. Happy days indeed.


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## Firky (Dec 1, 2012)

ZX81s, Dragon 32s, Spectrum +2, Amstrad 64s, Amigas, various consoles and dozerns of PCs.

Don't actually remember as there's been so much over the last 25 years.


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## TruXta (Dec 1, 2012)

First tries must've been either in arcades or on a cousin's console the name of which I can't remember. First system at home was an Atari 600 XL that had those cartridges. And you could program on them! Then moved on to the mighty C64 and the Amiga 500. Never really bought anything since for gaming purposes, had a mate who was well into hacking consoles so he was our games-man whenever we felt like it.

e2a I forget, the Vic 20? 18? featured in early days as well


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## Citizen66 (Dec 1, 2012)

First console was made by Grandstand, games like tennis where you had a white stick each and a white square bounced to and fro lol followed by a Commodore Vic 20 which had arcadey games of the time (was jealous of the Atari console) followed later by Spectrum 48k and played allsorts really from the arcadey stuff to text adventure games (was jealous of the Commodore 64) and then nothing really until my dad got a 386 and I used to play point and click adventures, Sim City and Civilization I. 

Then I left home and moved to the smoke, bought various PCs and played each Civ as they came out and Age of Empires; never really had a proper gaming PC though. Bought a PS 1 around 2000 and an X Box about 3 years ago - I like Forza 3 (got a steering wheel lol) and Bethesda stuff mainly on the console, still playing Civ (V) on my PC along with Paradox Grand Strategy titles and hoping to get a gaming PC in the new year. Played Warcraft for a bit. Not so keen on adventure games any more, mainly strategy, racing and RPG.

Oh yeah, I have an icade and play mame roms on my ipad with it. Always love the old arcade classics like Hyper Sports, Ghosts and Goblins, Kung Fu Master, Paperboy and Nemesis etc.


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## DotCommunist (Dec 1, 2012)

atari 2600 console, a 486 running Rogue and a really really shitflight sim. Massive disks

graduated to the NES and eventually the first Gameboy. Mario one and 2 are as gods to me.


mate had a tape loading spectrum but I went for the SNES. Last console I owned was a secon hand dreamcast and I had soul calibre on it. The obligitory knackered playstation and hammering tony hawks obviously.

Wanted an n64 for Goldeneye but a mate had one anyway


now I've two broken x-boxes I keep meaning to do something with and a load of wank games for them


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## Stigmata (Dec 1, 2012)

A PC running DOS and Windows 3.1. Played all the old Apogee platformers: Commander Keen, Duke Nukem, Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure. Also SimCity and Civilisation.


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## Maurice Picarda (Dec 1, 2012)

First gamaing experience was on my uncle's Commodore Pet. Then on dedicated Nintendo units, Snoopy Tennis being a particular draw in the playground. Then came the triumph of Sinclair devices.


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## DotCommunist (Dec 1, 2012)

honourable mention for Wolfenstein and Hitler in a robot suit


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## cypher79 (Dec 1, 2012)

Atari 2600
Commodore 64
Amiga 1200
SNES
PS1
Xbox 360


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## Superdupastupor (Dec 1, 2012)

I've deffinatley regressed as a gamer:

age 5 BBC something- was told I had to type out 200 lines of code to get a game to play.  No probs. So did codes and variations for a couple of years

a bit later sega mega drive w/ on Sonic- I think I could complete it all in a shade under 30 minutes by the end of it 

then Ps1: crash bang dicoot! , tomb raider, Jonah loumo rugby, FF.VII, MGS, actua golf.

Played a bit of PS2- time splitters 2, soul calibour, PES 

These days only play a bit of unblock me and fantastick contraption on tablet


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## Ich bin ein Mod (Dec 1, 2012)

Commodore 16
Commodore 64
Mega Drive
PS1 shunned mostly for point and click wonders on a 486
PS2
Wii
Xbox 360

Dreamcast somewhere in there out of order, desperately wanted one at the time for Shenmue but couldn't really justify it.
Hardly ever play games now


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## ohmyliver (Dec 1, 2012)

I used to play Spectrum and Commodor 64 round friends houses.  However my first computer was an Atari ST, which I saved up for by doing a paper round for about 6 months ("helped" by my then 4 year old brother so it took about 3 x the time).
Dungeon Master, groundbreaking yada mouse interface yada etc yada





got a PC at university, and Wolfenstein, Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, Civilization, dune 2, doom etc


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## stuff_it (Dec 1, 2012)

I remember not being allowed to play Dragon's Lair in the arcade due to it's sexist adult themes and low cut princess tops (I was 4). Instead I got to play pac-man, and we all know where that got us as adults...In fact I spend time running round darkened rooms munching pills and listening to repetitive beats to this day.


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## bi0boy (Dec 1, 2012)

BBC Micro -> PC

consoles suck


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## stuff_it (Dec 1, 2012)

bi0boy said:


> BBC Micro -> PC
> 
> consoles suck


I've yet to find a PC in a phone box.


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## chintz (Dec 1, 2012)

Spectrum, mega drive, play station, snes, GameCube Xbox

My cousin had an oric atmos, that had a few great games


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## mr steev (Dec 1, 2012)

I can remember the very first arcade machine I saw/played. It was in the family room of a pub when I where I was on holiday in Cornwall. 5p a go and you could only play 2 players. A joystick each with blocks you had to avoid.
My first console was a grandstand thing with football, hockey, tennis, squash, basket ball and shooting. Then a rubber keyed Spectrum, an Amiga 500, playstation, xbox, xbox360


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## mrs quoad (Dec 2, 2012)

I can remember, at some point, thinking that there was some eternal law that meant that every computer in the world, ever, had to have a shit version of Pitfighter. Invariably always scoring about 19% in magazine reviews.

e2a: solid review:  *http://playingwithsuperpower.com/pit-fighter/*


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## DotCommunist (Dec 2, 2012)

stuff_it said:


> I've yet to find a PC in a phone box.


 

hidden under the mass of cards offering cheap, loveless gratification. Such is life.


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## quimcunx (Dec 2, 2012)

someone let me have a go on his ping pong and pacman
my sister got space invaders - I borrowed 
my sister got astrowars - I borrowed
played solitaire and minesweeper on work computer
played mah jong, tetris type games on work computer
flat sat for a friend for two weeks and played crash bandicoot until the skin came off my thumbs
snake game and solitaire on mobile
wii fit
angry birds


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## TruXta (Dec 2, 2012)

Bard's fucking Tale.


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## Clair De Lune (Dec 2, 2012)

Had a sinclair something or other  remember taking about two hours to type in some code to do something really underwhelming. Then years later I had a fourth hand nes cos I beat the dad I used to babysit fors high scores in supermarioworld 2 and he went Fuck this, I have been playing this for a year, you have it. I couldn't afford any more games so I just played that to death. Recently discovered the nes in my mams shed and desperately want to get it working


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## Clair De Lune (Dec 2, 2012)

I remember my mate had an atari and we used to type in stupid stuff like Umph oooh errr YEEEES Urghh HARDER ahhh ahhh ohhh to make the women with the posh accent sound like she was coming (we were about 13  and it was highly amusing)
Had a mate who always had the newest console too. Remember him going through shit like alex kid - sonic the hedgehog (urgh I hated him drowning, made me proper anxious)


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## Ming (Dec 2, 2012)

Atari 2600 (infinite lives on space invaders if you held down one of the levers when starting a new game)
BBC (Elite made me retake my A-Levels)
SNES (some Japanese cyberpunk scifi roleplayer was the most memorable)
Playstation (Doom)
PC (Baldur's and Deus Ex...i got a PC initially to see what AD&D would be like on a decent computer)

Still like D20's though (or a game of Risk).


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## TruXta (Dec 2, 2012)

Let's talk games - what were your formative games? Me - Bard's Tale, Last Ninja and International Karate pretty accurately sums up my gaming life.


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## Clair De Lune (Dec 2, 2012)

street fighter  button mash by girl always beat learned combos by boys


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## stuff_it (Dec 2, 2012)

TruXta said:


> Let's talk games - what were your formative games? Me - Bard's Tale, Last Ninja and International Karate pretty accurately sums up my gaming life.


First game I ever played was Oregon Trail.


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## TruXta (Dec 2, 2012)

Never played Oregon Trail. Big fan of Streetfughter needless to say. The original movie is mental!


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## Dandred (Dec 2, 2012)

zx 128k specky


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## RaverDrew (Dec 2, 2012)

In roughly this order...

Spectrum zx81
Atari 2600
IBM 5155
Commodore64
Atari ST
NES
Amiga 500
Atari STe
386 PC
SNES
Gameboy
Atari Lynx
Gamegear
Amiga 1200
3DO
Atari Jaguar
Pentium 233 PC
Gameboy colour
Dreamcast
Playstation
AMD Athlon PC
Nintendo 64
Playstation 2 (which I won from an urbanite in a bet) 
Pentium 4 PC
xbox
core2duo PC
wii


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## stuff_it (Dec 2, 2012)

TruXta said:


> Never played Oregon Trail. Big fan of Streetfughter needless to say. The original movie is mental!


It was the only game on MAC, and thus the one one in *glorious* 8 bit colour....


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## DotCommunist (Dec 2, 2012)

TruXta said:


> Let's talk games - what were your formative games? Me - Bard's Tale, Last Ninja and International Karate pretty accurately sums up my gaming life.


 

Descent. Clearing rogue robots out of space mines in a proper 3d 1st person shooter. It was solid

Ultima: Thestygian abyss

again, crude eearly 1psn game.


also solid

Games were hard in the day.


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## Citizen66 (Dec 2, 2012)

Galaxian, Pacman, Frogger etc. lamer Console versions of what was in the arcades minus the really cool stuff like Donkey Kong, Nemesis and Track and Field.


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## QueenOfGoths (Dec 2, 2012)

For me it was, more or less in this order but the latter ones were kind of at a sinilar time

Gameboy
Playstation
Gameboy Advance
Dreamcast
Playstation 2
X Box
Nintendo DS
PSP
Playstation 3

Seminal/favourite games for me were/are

Tetris
Super Mario (on the gameboy)
Tomb Raider 2
Resident Evil 2
Hogs of War
Crash Bandicoot (all of them!)
Ratchet and Clank (all of them)
Shenmue
Crazy Taxi (1&2)
Jet Set Radio
Assassins Creed series
Fallout 3


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## TruXta (Dec 2, 2012)

DotCommunist said:


> Descent. Clearing rogue robots out of space mines in a proper 3d 1st person shooter. It was solid
> 
> Ultima: Thestygian abyss
> 
> ...


Descent made me nauseous and disoriented. Ultima was pretty good.


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## golightly (Dec 2, 2012)

TruXta said:


> Descent made me nauseous and disoriented. Ultima was pretty good.


 
I had Descent as a freebie with my first PC.  I enjoyed it but was always getting lost in the tunnels.


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## weltweit (Dec 2, 2012)

My games history is:

*Doom* - on PC ...

That's it really ...


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## Bakunin (Dec 2, 2012)

Gaming, retro style!


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## Buddy Bradley (Dec 2, 2012)

First gaming experiences were probably on the BBC Model B my dad used to bring home from his school in the holidays (he was a headmaster so we got the school computer all summer).  Then bought a ZX81 for £35 at about age 9 and learned to program it; upgraded to a Spectrum 48K shortly after with a huge pirate library of copied games. Had a SAM Coupe later (anyone remember them?), brother had a Megadrive.

Finally got a PC in about 1999 - remember Soldier of Fortune being a favourite at the time (in between all the porn that my first internet connection revealed...)


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## Lo Siento. (Dec 2, 2012)

an Amiga 1200, with Pirates, Civ II, Championship Manager etc. Best. Childhood. Ever.


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## starfish (Dec 2, 2012)

First gaming experiences were in arcades, Space Invaders, Defender, Moon Cresta, Star Wars. At home first up was a Dragon 32, cant remember what games i had but they were probably shit.
Big gap till Sega Megadrive, played a lot of FIFA, PGA & Sonic. Then all the PS's. Main games were FFVII, more FIFA & PGA, GT 1-5. All the GTA's including the spin offs & a lot of COD's. Have a couple of old games on the PS3 such as Galaga, Xenon & Streets of Rage too. We have a Wii too but rarely use it.


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## geminisnake (Dec 2, 2012)

Clair De Lune said:


> street fighter  button mash by girl always beat learned combos by boys


 
Been there done that  It used to drive my sons pals daft when I beat them  Been gaming for 40 yrs, can't remember the first console but it was like the one Citizen described, two paddles, one square ball. Think it had tennis, netball/basketball and something else. Had a Spectrum many moons ago.

Son's pals reckoned I could start a games history museum with my stock of consoles. Various DK handhelds, the ones you held up to your eyes and avoided cars/boulders/missiles, pacman(must be about 30 yrs old now) 4 BIG batteries it took iirc. Think I have every type of gameboy from the brick forwards except the newest DS. Never upgraded coz I've got an R4 card 
Upstairs I think there is a master system, SNES, (foolishly lent out my PS), PS2, son had xbox so never bothered with that, wii and a PSP. Think that's it. And this obviously, and a netbook.


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## rubbershoes (Dec 3, 2012)

bi0boy said:


> BBC Micro -> PC
> 
> consoles suck


 

This 

From BBC B  Donkey kong, scramble, defender etc 

to PCs via spending a fortune in pub machines .  Especial the Rising Sun in Winchester which had a tabletop Galaga machine for ages.


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## Ranbay (Dec 3, 2012)

Chucky Egg on the BBC Micro
IIIIIII
Everything inbetween
IIIIIII
Farcry 3 Xbox 360 and Ultar gaming PC


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## Yata (Dec 3, 2012)

intellivision- popeye, some other games i cant remember
commodore- too many games to count, rambo i liked tho
missed the nes/master system and went straight to a SNES had that for years till N64 came out then got a Mega Drive and finally a PSX
then straight onto the PC, had an xbox at some point but hardly played it, then got a 360 and sold it a while after. I've had about 4-5 360's since as I randomly get bored and sell it just to buy another at some point but mainly stick with PC games now


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## Ranbay (Dec 3, 2012)

I still have my Doctor V64 for them that know what it is


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## marty21 (Dec 3, 2012)

early games - Space Invaders, Asteroids, Defender, Scramble - that driving game Outrun?  all played in arcades - mostly at a place called The Crystal Rooms in Bath, which was about until fairly recently  - we would spend hours there on the weekends and after school


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## Garek (Dec 3, 2012)

Probably Granny's Garden.


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## Vintage Paw (Dec 3, 2012)

Pong, then mother had a Commodore64 for work (along with something I want to call an Apricot? - oh yes, look! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apricot_Computers) that she did stuff with Sage on and so on, but of course me and dad requisitioned it for games - dad was a fan of Blue Max, I was a fan of various things including a racing game I forget the name of. Then mother bought me an Amstrad. She didn't go in for all this fashionable shit, so no Speccie for me, but a sensible Amstrad with printer. On it I played Ghostbusters, a bunch of random shit like snooker, and so on. Then it was the Sega Master System II, and my friend Carly next door had the Mega Drive. I loved Bomber Raid, California Games (hackeysack <3 .... "GNARLY!"), Sonic, obv. Never had a proper Nintendo system, but the two lads I babysat for did and I used to play that on occasion. Then it was the Gameboy, while Carly got whatever that colour screen Sega alternative was. Then I didn't have anything at all until I got to university, and mum bought me a Playstation in 1997. Then again, nothing until my first PC in ... er, perhaps 1999-2000? Played Civ and Alpha Centauri on that. Then nothing again apart from a laptop to play the next Civ on until about 5 years ago when I got myself a DSLite and played a few games on it, then a year or so later an xbox 360, then a PS3, and now I've moved on to playing on a PC again.

Good times.


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## TruXta (Dec 3, 2012)

I forgot one piece of kit - a Tandberg TDV2200 - that was in our schools. Had my first go at Snake on that.


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## girasol (Dec 3, 2012)

mmm, let's see...

addicted to playing pinball when I was 14-15, but never a pinball wizard   One of the guys used to let me and my friend play for free, because he fancied her.  Never really into arcade games, but tried most of them at least once.

Vaguely remember a friend having one of those early driving games (in 1985), no idea what console it was.

Then I was addicted to Duke Nukem in 1994 for a couple of months.  This is when the game fitted in a floppy disk.  That one really got me.

I really liked Tekken, was quite good at it, mainly because I just pressed all the buttons really quickly.  This was in twothousand something...

Then wii happened and that's the most I ever played, wii play, brain academy, guitar hero (the drums for me, and singing), just dance... 

And then the phone apps, but I get bored quite quickly of most games.  Not much of a 'gamer' then.


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## de_dog (Dec 3, 2012)

We (older sis and younger bro) had a continental pong from the very early days (BFPO).

Defender, Asteroids, Space Invaders and Galaga in the arcades and leisure centre (if we found any forgotten coins in the lockers of course, usually spent all our money on KitKats).

Back in the UK, our mother in her wisdom bought a Texas Instruments TI994/a which came with the Connect4 cartridge. We played a lot of Connect4.
Sis managed to blag a Parsec cartridge for the TI from someone at school which really was the best game about at the time imo.

Managed to get a BBC micro for a while - Elite.

Then the Amiga which I bought for music really; but played a bit of James Pond and Zool.

Can't remember if the 386 came before the PS, but had a Playstation for Grand Turismo and Tekken.

Then the PC and Quake, <shivers a bit> and the original Team Fortress mod.
Then Half-Life and mods (Firearms anyone, the original DoD beta - seg3?), Combat FS, Wargasm.

Got an Xbox when they first came out as I was by that time doing quite well in the world of work, turn out I'm not a big console fan.

Numerous upgrades to numerous PC's later and it's DOD:S and CS (anyone knew themrmen.net?)

Now; World of Tanks is downloaded and played once.


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## Fez909 (Dec 3, 2012)

Atari 2600
ZX Spectrum 48K
ZX Spectrum +2
Commodore 64
Amiga 1200
NES
Gameboy
SNES
PS1
<gave up on games for a bit>
Wii
<still not really a gamer, but play the occassional PC/PS3/Android game>


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## DotCommunist (Dec 3, 2012)

all the kids wiSega Game gears sneered at the Gameboy, but it only had Gems and Mortal combat, so fuck them


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## Mungy (Dec 3, 2012)

one of them


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## Callum91 (Dec 5, 2012)

I remember the day my dad bought me the original Gameboy. Judging by my reaction at the time you'd have thought Jesus just popped in to give me a billion quid , I had to be scraped off the ceiling.


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## The Groke (Dec 5, 2012)

Hmm, so it went:

Atari 800xl
IBM PC (the original! mostly only good for text adventures with its CGA screen and limp CPU, but I think I got Speedball working on it)
Sega Megadrive (Genesis for our American Urbans)
SNES
PC again - this time a decent 486 and then I pretty much had (and have) a gaming PC from this point on.
Gameboy
Playstation
Nintendo 64
Gameboy Colour
Sega Dreamcast
Gameboy Advance
Playstation 2
PSP
XBox 360
Wii
PS3

Now I still have the latter 2 but mostly I use my PC.


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## The Groke (Dec 5, 2012)

DotCommunist said:


> all the kids wiSega Game gears sneered at the Gameboy, but it only had Gems and Mortal combat, so fuck them


 
The Game Gear was rubbish and for the same reason the Atari Lynx was - the batteries lasted like 27 minutes before bursting into flames.

GB FTW.


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## Callum91 (Dec 5, 2012)

I still think the Nintendo 64 was the greatest games console of all time. Xbox 360 comes second (probably tied with the Gameboy colour) then the Playstation 1. We had a few Sega consoles but I was never allowed to play them that much. I want even allowed to touch the Amiga.


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