Think Brave Fencer Musashi or Zelda Ocarina of Time.

flashgames if it counts

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life

Only because Sonic Mega Collection wouldn't work on the defective GameCube I had.

Pac-Land. 10p per play in the cafe that my old girl used to go to in the mornings - she clocked that I wa I to that sort of thing and kindly got me an Atari 800 XE for a birthday or Christmas - I forget which.

It was all downhill from there.

Pretty sure it was Rick Dangerous on C64.

Honestly? This hole in the wall food store in my home town managed to pick up a pretty early release of the arcade game Robotron. I was instantly enthralled, visiting arcades any time I could. From there, I played on friends' Atari 2600s and Commodores until I managed to get my own C64, and I've never stopped since. From there, I migrated through their products and stayed a diehard fan till the mid-90's - C128, Amiga 1000, Amiga 500, and Amiga 2000.

I played a few early x86 games on demo machines in stores, but I didn't finally relent and build my own x86 rig until the release of the Descent 1 demo, which single-handedly destroyed all of my remaining resolve. I already considered myself a pretty consistent gamer, but that was the nail in the coffin. The rest, as they say, is history. It was only 4 years later that EverQuest came out, too, and that swallowed me whole.

Earliest memories of video games were titles such as Aztec, Spy vs Spy, Frogger, King's Bounty.

But what really got my eight year old mind captivated on a summer vacation in the 80s was Elite on C64. I've spent hours into the night trying to get as far away from Lave as possible, all while trying to make some profit on hauling food and computer parts. I did not understand the concept of saving and loading a saved game back then, so there was a lot of trial and error into permadeath involved.

I wouldn't call it a hobby, just some entertainment to pass the time/hang out with friends.

It was Counter-Strike 1.6. I didn't leave the house the summer I discovered it as a kid.

Sonic 2. I was like 3 at the time.

Xmen arcade game

Counter-Strike 1.3

Lemmings or Descent, I don’t remember.

Age of Empires II

Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Battle 22 started it, Toy Story 2 for PSX detonated it.

Pokemon games and older 2D Zelda games. I really got into it when I found Halo

Kingdom Hearts II

That game is the reason the X button stopped working on my PS2 controller when I was like 4 or 5

Mario Bros 1-3

I'd have to go all the way back to pinball, since I've always been fascinated with games.

But the very first video game that really sucked me in was Batman on the NES. I'm talking fully immersed; no awareness of my surroundings. Jacked in.

The music paired with the grim visuals was such a vibe. Just playing it made me feel cool. My parents had to drag me away from that birthday party haha.

Pokémon FireRed

Asteroids, the arcade game.

My dad bought us a multi game pong console, then an Atari 5200 years layer.

But we often went to arcades and got $20-$40 in quarters.

In later years I remember truly loving the Buck Rogers and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom arcade games.

First computer was an Apple II and I had about 500 floppies of pirated games by the end of its life.

Always always been a gamer. Also had a Merlin handheld game for car trips, which saw constant use.

Motocross Madness 2, baby. That's when I knew...

Memory, Monkey Island, Diablo 1 and Street Fighter 2

For me it was more a system than an specific game. I got a second hand GameBoy when I was like 5 or 6 and have been gaming consistently since then. Probably the highlight of that period was Super Mario though.

Super Mario Bros 3. Never beat it until the Allstars version on SNES, but it's the first video game I remember playing. Or maybe it was Gauntlet, but SMB3 was the funner one.

Breakout, Sokoban, Prince of Persia, Command & Conquer, Tilt!, Space Invaders, Indiana Jones & the Fate of Atlantis, Full Throttle, Fallout, Raptor: Call of the Shadows, Wolf3D.

This was in the '90s but some of those games were already quite old by that time.

Daggerfall was the first game that really got its hooks in me. It had everything I wanted, a huge open world, tons of different items, getting to dress up my character :)
I must have spend hours just visiting every single town, playing tourist and just ignoring the story. It was all about exploring and role playing for me.

The early 90s Lucas Arts adventure games. Most notably Monkey Island 2.

The first game I ever really wanted to get good at was the arcade game spy hunter. The first time I got the speed boat was a dopamine high I've never recreated.

I always clicked with it really hard as a kid, but my parents banned me from it, so I just wound up making friends so I could play OG Red Alert or Commander Keen or whatever. I also played Tabletop 40k from a pretty early age, which my parents were more permissive of. In tabletop I have a very good systemising mind, so I wind up being the rules person, but I'm not super obsessed about any one system (I am a little "obsessed" with how few people play something other than D&D systems).

Monkey Island 2

Evercrack and Diablo 2 were my starter games

I had a Sega Pico and a PS1 so early I can’t really remember. I was maybe 5/6, idk. But it wasn’t like today : I had to plug and unplug the console everytime I wanted to play, so I wasn’t playing a lot at all. Then I got a Game Boy Color and boi, game was on.

I’m from 1995.

First games i played were Pokémon and super Mario, but I think the first game that REALLY got me hooked was Banjo Kazooie.

Bubble Bobble on the C64 :)

Planescape: Torment was the game that popped my cherry, my very first. After that, I played links awakening, and that was it I've been a gamer ever since.

Pokémon Gold, when I was 8, got it for Christmas. Technically my first game was Battleship, which I opened first, but I probably spent thousands of hours playing Pokémon Gold. :) I've played almost every Pokémon game since, up until Scarlet/Violet, which I haven't gotten yet, but maybe I will eventually.

Final Fantasy

Asteriods, Atari 2600

First game was Safari Race on a Sega SC-3000. After that mainly played PC games when they were a thing and had a 1st gen Gameboy.

I gave up on games and tried to adult through my 20s... but after a bad breakup I bought an Xbox-360 and Skyrim and it's been a hobby ever since.

Am I a gamer? Not sure. But Oblivion really blew my mind. I pirated it not knowing anything about it, I just googled "best games of last year" and that thing was the suggested result.

I was hooked. Years afterwards when my situation changed I bought it on Steam, along with Skyrim. I don't think I've ever played the steam copy.

Wolfenstein 3D. I had played other games before but this one blew my mind and made me a gamer for life.

Oh wow, this takes me back. I've thought video games were cool since the first time I saw a Space Invades arcade cabinet when I was like 4. But the game that got me really into video games? I dunno. It was either Donkey Kong or Ms Pac-Man.

Yes, I'm old. Yes, I've been playing video games since the 70s. No, I'm not particularly good at them. But ask me whatever I guess 😁

Neverwinter Nights and Roller Coaster Tycoon when I was a little kid. I watched my dad play Neverwinter and had to indulge in my own tiny fantasy to play as a "dragon." Still at it.