Discussion First Video Game Love

I was going through my old video game collection and stumbled upon my copy of Pokemon Yellow Version. This game was the first video game that I played constantly. The first game I put hours upon hours into. It has so many great memories with it and is still the game I think of when I think about why I love video games. It wasn't even my first favorite video game but it was the first game I really played every inch of because I loved it so much.

Pokemon Yellow taught me how important it is to make a game world that you just love spending time in whether you accomplish anything or not.

What is your first video game love and how does it inspire you even now?
 

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Pokémon Yellow was big for me as well, as a first game, but the PS1 Spyro games were what truly sparked my imagination and motivation for game development, long before I knew anything about how it was done, though likewise because of the believable, engaging world -- not believable in terms of realism, but with a cohesiveness and enough interconnective details and beautiful environments.
 

Mr Magnus

Viking King
I loved a lot of games growing up for various reasons. However I believe the oldest game I really loved to the point of playing constantly was Bugs Bunny, lost in time for the PC.



It was a very fun platformer with a character I loved - what was there to dislike?


That's the oldest I can remember, but there were a lot of games around that time I enjoyed and the difference between memories of 5 year old me, 7 year old me and 9 year old me are all kind of chronologically jumbled together, so there are a lot of potential contenders.
 
My NES with SMB/Duck Hunt was the first one, but I fell in love many. For PC it's hard to say as there were so many killer titles coming out when I was a teen. Diablo, Starcraft, Civilization II, Grim Fandango, Age of Empires, Duke Nukem, Grand Prix II...it's hard to even remember which one came first, lol
 
Would have to be the old Apogee games. Played them to bits. We use to get the game demo's on shareware (floppy) disks.

Commander Keen is probably the winner of them all, although I'm nostalgic about all of the apogee games.
http://www.shikadi.net/keenwiki/Main_Page
is probably the best summary of all the keen games.

It's so cool to see Crystal Caves get an HD remake: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1330890/Crystal_Caves_HD/

I've probably gone through and read a bunch of interviews done on various game authors of the different apogee games. Different times, different attitude.. great stuff.
 

Mercerenies

Member
Here it is

An obscure Nintendo top-down grid-based puzzle game from 1996 with a snarky yet helpful side character. I used to play this thing for hours on end, getting to know every single puzzle by heart. And, surprisingly enough, I mainly design top-down grid-based puzzle games with snarky yet helpful side characters now.
 
Here it is

An obscure Nintendo top-down grid-based puzzle game from 1996 with a snarky yet helpful side character. I used to play this thing for hours on end, getting to know every single puzzle by heart. And, surprisingly enough, I mainly design top-down grid-based puzzle games with snarky yet helpful side characters now.
Never played this one but always loved the artwork!
 

Bakuda

Member
My favorite used to be Link to the Past, but today I would have to say Breath of the Wild. I always loved how the original Legend of Zelda encouraged exploration and Breath of the Wild went back to its roots. It was an unforgettable adventure!
 

HoodMegumin

Member
going a bit more modern here as I was born in 2000, but I'd say Ratchet and Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal probably. Spore and Diablo II would probably be, respectively, the second and third games that I first spent investing a lot of time into

did play a lot of early Mario on an emulator but they were games that, while I may have invested quite a bit of time into, I never completed
 
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PaulXThompson

Guest
Jet_Set_Willy-ZX_Spectrum-title.png

The first game I played with a real sense of being there and exploring: massive and intricate relative to what had came before with Manic Miner. Rooms with small intricate spaces, rooms with barely anything in them, rooms which showed you passages you simply couldn't get to (yet? or at all? there are definitely some of the latter - evocative!)

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Peculiar, quite creepy sprite design, peculiar spider legged float heads, priests with long noses and very unusul box art. The whole thing was weird.

Jet_Set_Willy_(game_box_art).jpg
 

otterZ

Member
Oh wow, this brings back memories. I remember when I was a kid buying magazines with 'cheat codes' in. It used to be perfectly okay to hack games back then lol.

I loved my Spectrum back in those days, there were kids in two groups back then, the Spectrum kids and the Commodor fans. Both camps swore their make of computer was the best of course.

School Daze was great and I loved Jet Set Willy. I remember having great fun with friends playing Spy vs. Spy.
 

Evanski

Raccoon Lord
Forum Staff
Moderator
My first game I remember playing that I was really into was Pokémon Blue


My first and only save on the cart is now used to mess with Glitched pokemon and arbitrary code execution

But my first love?
I dont really know, Its been years

Destroy all humans
The sly cooper series
GTA Vice City
Skyrim
Fallout New vegas

I sadly don't remember the first until I find it and play it again
 

Rayek

Member


1982 first wave of consoles. My brother and I got an Intelliivision from our parents.

First game I ever felt immersed in, and I've had a preference for rogue likes and RPGs ever since. Great game to play with 2 players: a knight and a wizard!

Sadly, the dragon could not be killed, and the game was released in an unfinished state (I believe memory run out for a proper ending). I recall walking around endlessly for hours on the final fourth level trying to figure out how to kill the dragon and finish the game - I only found out 10 years ago that it could never be finished in the first place... :eek:
Felt so cheated!!!

 

Pixel-Team

Master of Pixel-Fu
It's been almost 40 years since I first played Impossible Mission on my older brother's Commodore 64. I now play it on a C64 Mini and C64 Maxi on a regular basis. So inspiring to see what just one or two people can make. This game will always be on my short list of all time greatest games.

 
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K12gamer

Member
Atari 2600: Space Invaders

NES: Mario World

Sega Master System: Alex Kid

Sega Genesis: Streets of Rage

SNES: Ghosts and Goblins

Colecovision: Donkey Kong

PS1: Tomb Raider

1st XBOX: HALO + Ninja Gaiden + Brute Force

XBOX 360: HALO + Ninja Gaiden + Gears of War

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Note: Haven't purchased a new system since XBOX 360...May get PS5 and XBOX Series X 1 to 2 years from now.
 
It's been almost 40 years since I first played Impossible Mission on my older brother's Commodore 64. I now play it on a C64 Mini and C64 Maxi on a regular basis. So inspiring to see what just one or two people can make. This game will always be on my short list of all time greatest games.

I'm blown away... I'd never heard of this game before. I'm ashamed.
 
Super paper Mario for the wii. Everyone always talks about thousand year door but I think that the wii version is the best personally. It took a bold step with the new mechanics and it was a perfect match for me
 
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Super paper Mario for the wii. Everyone always talks about thousand year food but I think that the wii version is the best personally. It took a bold step with the new mechanics and it was a perfect match for me
I really like the mechanics as well! Not as a replacement but as something new. However I still got really bored and never managed to finish the game. The first Paper Mario for N64 is my favorite and one of my favorite games of all time!
 

Rob

Member
I remember Lords of Midnight being a game that I played a lot, but I always say that Secret of Mana is/was my favourite "old" game.
 

Ericbomb

Member
Oh yeah the first paper mario was one of my favorite games growing up !

Also I couldn't really read before I got that game I remember, but I was fine by the time I beat it. So it really helped me learn to read.
 
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Deleted member 13992

Guest
Quite a few 68k black & white games for the family mac plus. Internet wasn't around then but we had a source for a ton of old mac shareware!

Original gameboy was my first true console. Super Mario Land 1 & 2 were great, and I fell in love with SML3 so hard that one of the first games I created was a simple puzzle platformer using tue Wario sprite. Copied pixel by pixel, by squinting really really hard at the DMG GB's green and black screen. Link's Awakening and Metroid II were also among my faves.

I was almost 20 when pokemon came out, so I was probably too old for that particular nugget of game history.
 

kburkhart84

Firehammer Games
Original gameboy was my first true console. Super Mario Land 1 & 2 were great, and I fell in love with SML3 so hard that one of the first games I created was a simple puzzle platformer using tue Wario sprite. Copied pixel by pixel, by squinting really really hard at the DMG GB's green and black screen. Link's Awakening and Metroid II were also among my faves.
I'm right there with you. The OG gameboy was also my first personally owned console. I played ALL the games you mentioned there. You are slightly older than me though, as Pokemon was getting started while I was still in High School, so I guess I "scraped" that one instead of completely missing it. The OG Gameboy was so good that it went quite a long time before Nintendo decided to upgrade it, despite the lack of backlight that was the nightmare of so many of us.
 

Gamer (ex-Cantavanda)

〜Flower Prince〜
Pokémon Diamond & SoulSilver
Ratchet & Clank 2&3
Garry's Mod
Half-Life 1
Star Wars: Republic Commando
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
New Super Mario Bros.
Disney PS1 games PC ports rented from the library

But before all of that..

Freddi Fish
Pajama Sam
Spy Fox
 

Joe Ellis

Member
Rayman (the first one from 1995) is still my biggest, or deepest inspiration. I remember sitting in 1st year (a 5 year old) waiting for the weekend so I could go round to my dad's house and play it. I was always obsessed with rayman and then other games. It must be the way my brain works, and I feel incredibly lucky that I'm also brilliant at programming so I can create a game like this myself one day.
The other games I had this "relationship" with are:

Tomb Raider 1
1995 triple box set of pc versions of genesis games: The Jungle Book, Aladdin and The Lion King.
Earthworm Jim (Pc special edition)
Little Big Adventure 2

I have a lot of other favorite games but these were like that thing you said about some kind of first love..
 
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Sam (Deleted User)

Guest
I made love with Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories when i was a kid about once/twice a day for 20-30 minutes. I think that's not what you meant somehow.
 
I suppose it would be Super Mario World, just because it’s the first game I ever played. Still probably one of my favorites, at least of the series, next to Galaxy and Paper Mario 2. I’m not sure it’s exactly been an inspiration as much, though, considering platformers aren’t really my main thing…and even then I now kinda prefer Kirby.

These days, some of what tends to inspire me the most are games that just offer really unique experiences or stories and characters. Deadly Premonition, Nier, The Last Guardian, Bloodborne, Killer7, Undertale, Okami, God Hand, Wind Waker or Majora’s Mask, etc. Perhaps some are more original than others but many of those left lasting impressions on me.
 
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