Hobby ? Passion ? What ?

I just play games I like sometimes. I wouldnt call it a "hobby". I only play very specific games and I certainly wouldnt want to only play games.

My first game was Civilization, my second Tomb Raider 2, my third Baldur's Gate, and ever since I've played almost exclusively roleplaying games.

That's Grand Prix Circuit

First actual game would have been an NES one. Likely Goonies 2, Super Mario 1/2 or just good 'ol Mario Bros.

As far as computer gaming went, I had use of an Apple IIe which had a fair bit of games. Some of which worked better than others. Shadowkeep and King's Quest I were the stand outs as far as my memory goes.

Anyone else remember the BASIC game books that you had to program yourself? Specifically books that covered 1 game, had a full backstory and multiple illustrations to get the player excited to program? Had some available in my school and public library. I remember attempting to program 1 or 2 of them while in elementary school.

New Rally X around 1987

yea, i tried one, borrowed one from the library but for could not get the code to work. Wrong language i think for the program i had access too,

When I was a teenager I liked playing Starship Command on my dad's Acorn BBC home computer and later on, when he got a colour monitor, Pengu/Pengo (?) a PacMan-ripoff that only got interesting because of the nice colours of the little penguins in the maze (before it was just shades of green I guess, with the monochrome monitor, maybe shades of grey? I can't remember well).

When I went to live on my own I didn't have a computer for many years. It was only in my thirties that I got a PC (the old Pentium II that my mother used when she upgraded to another Pentium II with bigger 3GB (instead of 2GB) harddrive). It was my brother who tried to interest me in gaming, by letting me get the feel of an RTS game (I don't know what game it was, maybe Warcraft?) by showing me how to click a villager, that you could move him around by pointing and clicking with the mouse and making him chop and gather wood with a right-click.

It was then that I reintroduced myself to gaming after the hiatus of well over a decade and started playing Age of Empires on that Pentium II. What I most loved was the feeling of being part of history, building a civilization starting from the stone age up.

While I have fond memories of our C64 from kindergarten, it wasn't until we upgraded to an Amiga in the early '90s that I really fell in love with gaming, particularly the Sid Meier-branded line of games: Civilization, Railroad Tycoon, Pirates!... Good times. :)

Certainly a game for the Atari 2600, as that was my first (and only) console. Hard to tell which one, though. Maybe Pole Position, or Defender. Something along those lines. Truly a great start for PC gaming, I must say. I've finished the GDI campaign for the first time just recently, and I'm going to start the NOD one soon. I found it still absolutely playable and enjoyable after all these years. A classic.

But wait, there's more! The first time I fell in love with a game was the Super Mario Sunshine demo at Best Buy. I'd love to say Metroid Prime, but the first gate seemed to be inflicted with a non-responsiveness glitch. I think it was the inner clean freak in me that became enamored with the task of cleaning all the mud and stains to transform the entire level into the pristine beauty that they're meant to be.

Hard to say as I feel I've been gaming my whole life, definitely either a 2600 game, likely Empire Strikes Back, or Super Mario on NES.

I don't remember the actual first game that I ever played. Some early game-related memories I have:

- My Dad buying an Atari ST, on which he had F-19 Stealth Fighter, Knightmare and some chess game (among others).

- Some of my friends at school had NESs, which I played at their houses (I particularly remember Mario, TMNT and Zelda).

- Watching/playing video arcades in the late 80s/early 90s (particularly Street Fighter 2).

- Playing some very basic games on a school computer (e.g. Maze, I think)

I never actually had a NES myself. My first games machine was a ZX Spectrum (on which Dizzy really stood out). I also had a Gameboy and later got a SNES. The SNES was probably the first home system that made me think "Wow!".

(btw, I like that this thread is tagged [forum thread] - I never would have known otherwise! ;-P )

It probably reduces the number of people clicking it a fair bit, since at a glance many may assume it's actually tagged [forum game] and not even read the title.

Maybe interesting factoid: I never actually finished any of the games in the series(lost progress due to hardware failures and/or got distracted with other games long enough that I restarted several of the games over and over) except Renegade, though i've played bits of almost all of them.
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As a fellow clean freak, I say this: helluva drug, ain't it? :D
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That's fine...we didn't need all dem posers anyways *chews nickel and flips toothpick*

My first gaming love was Phantasy Star on the Sega Master System II (I talked my Dad into buying it second-hand through the 'Trading Post' newspaper.). So much to do. I loved exploring the worlds, finding companions, new towns, weapons, vehicles. I even loved analysing the manual! The colours, graphics, sound and music were all amazing to me. The only downside was all those trapdoors in the towers.
I still have it. I don't think I'll ever sell it.

Space invaders on my uncles atari probably 1987 or earlier been way to long to remember the year.

Would eventually get my own nes in 1990, as well as Mario Brothers. Pretty standard 80s-90s gamer upbringing.