# First video/computer game you ever played **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 13, 2005, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-video-computer-game-you-ever-played/303658 "2005-05-13T09:51:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Anastasaeon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Anastasaeon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anastasaeon)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-video-computer-game-you-ever-played/303658/41 "2005-05-13T16:17:03Z")
Though I was born in 1978, my father was a huge technology/computer/video game geek. I was born with a joystick in my hands. I don’t know what system we had in the beginning, but the only one I remember was Atari (later a Texas Instruments computer, a Commodore 64, various Nintendo systems, and it’s all downhill from there, Sega, Playstation, Dreamcast, XBox, PS2, N64, Gamecube, every type of handheld imaginable, and more systems I’m certain I’m forgetting). The first game I actually remember, however… ugh. I was just a wee stump, couldn’t have been more than a year and a half, maybe two. I wasn’t very good then. 😉 It was a racing game… it wasn’t Grand Prix, and it wasn’t Enduro… it looked like a horizontally split screen with two… like drag racers, I think? Big ugly looking cars, with a high back end… Ones I remember playing and actually being okay at (a couple years later) was Defender, Combat (against my Dad, so perhaps I was being “allowed” to win), Frostbite (but I usually lost about the time the bear came out - the bear frightened me), and one that I think was called Maze Craze… it was like a green and orange maze… used to scare me a little, too, for some reason. I think you got “chased” by another dot or something. I credit that game as the source of all my “being chased”-style nightmares today! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Amazon\_Floozy\_Goddess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/779978/32.png) [@Amazon\_Floozy\_Goddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amazon_Floozy_Goddess)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-video-computer-game-you-ever-played/303658/42 "2005-05-13T16:17:22Z")
Oh jeez, I feel old… Probably Garden Wars, a cartridge game for the VIC-20 computer (predecessor to the Commodore 64) when I was about 3 years old. I’ve been playing computer games for a long time. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![tremorviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@tremorviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tremorviolet)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-video-computer-game-you-ever-played/303658/43 "2005-05-13T16:38:04Z")
[Star Trek](http://www.cactus.org/~nystrom/startrek.html) on the University of Florida mainframe sometime around 1973. Do I win? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-video-computer-game-you-ever-played/303658/44 "2005-05-13T16:53:42Z")
Either BAGELS or ELIZA. On a TTY at the Lawrence Hall of Science. ---
**Author:** ![VenusProbe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/e495f1/32.png) [@VenusProbe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VenusProbe)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-video-computer-game-you-ever-played/303658/45 "2005-05-13T16:57:33Z")
My first experience was a **Pong** arcade game in the early 70s. I bought a 2600 in 1977 when thay were called VCS. I got hooked on **Asteroids** when it came out in 1979. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-video-computer-game-you-ever-played/303658/46 "2005-05-13T16:59:52Z")
We had an Odyssey console like \*\*adam yax \*\*mentioned, and later the Atari 2600. My high school (this was back in the 70’s) had this HP computer with a single line LED display and printed out on thermal paper. Somebody had programmed a “Star Trek” game on it and we used to play that before school quite a bit. Our first home computer was an Osborne 1, and I used to play games on it that I got out of a BASIC programming book. “Zork” was the first commercial computer game I ever bought / played. ---
**Author:** ![Kiros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/439d5e/32.png) [@Kiros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiros)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-video-computer-game-you-ever-played/303658/47 "2005-05-13T17:05:15Z")
Centipede, on co-op mode with my dad on the Atari 2600 when I was tiny 🙂 First computer game was one of the really old Chessmaster games. ---
**Author:** ![MissMossie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@MissMossie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MissMossie)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-video-computer-game-you-ever-played/303658/48 "2005-05-13T17:10:31Z")
First console game? I remember being mighty fond of an ET game on my sister’s Atari. First computer game? TIM- The Incredible Machine. I found a newer copy of it about ten years ago, but even the newer copy was too old for Windows 95…it demanded to be run on some ungodly screen resolution and my mother didn’t agree with me that it was worth having the start menu take up half the screen just to play TIM…silly woman! I still think that 800x600 is worth it for that game! -Mosquito ---
**Author:** ![Omega\_Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7c8e57/32.png) [@Omega\_Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omega_Glory)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-video-computer-game-you-ever-played/303658/49 "2005-05-13T17:10:46Z")
It was either the Super Mario Bros/Duckhunt combo, or Double Dragon. ---
**Author:** ![TwoTrouts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a9adbd/32.png) [@TwoTrouts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwoTrouts)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-video-computer-game-you-ever-played/303658/50 "2005-05-13T17:25:47Z")
> [@tremorviolet](#): > > [Star Trek](http://www.cactus.org/~nystrom/startrek.html) on the University of Florida mainframe sometime around 1973. Do I win? 🙂 That was my first one, too! But you beat me by a couple of years! After Pong and Asteroids, I was introduced to [Rogue](http://www.hexatron.com/rogue/index.html?) and was hooked by the amazing graphics!! That was high tech RPG at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Dragwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dragwyr/32/2855_2.png) [@Dragwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragwyr)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-video-computer-game-you-ever-played/303658/51 "2005-05-13T17:33:36Z")
My first experience with a video game was Pong. It belonged to a friend. A year later, my parents got one for my brother and I for Christmas. My first arcade game was Space Invaders that was at the local bowling alley where my mom played in a league. My first online game was “Collosal Cave Adventure” that was ported to VAX/VMS. This would have been circa 1984-5. I was at my uncle’s house and he had a IBM clone with a 300 bps modem. He would dial into his company’s mainframe and start up the game for me. I was absolutely enthralled. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-video-computer-game-you-ever-played/303658/52 "2005-05-13T17:39:28Z")
I can’t remeber. One of the atari games, I think. I remember playing Raiders of the Lost Ark as a child, as well as moon patrol, haunted house, dig-dug, river raid, yars revenge, etc. ---
**Author:** ![NurseCarmen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5daacb/32.png) [@NurseCarmen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NurseCarmen)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-video-computer-game-you-ever-played/303658/53 "2005-05-13T17:48:58Z")
> [@Heart On My Sleeve](#): > > Pong…it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. As it turns out, bread was not sliced until 3 years after Pong’s debut. ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-video-computer-game-you-ever-played/303658/54 "2005-05-13T18:01:15Z")
I think that would have to be some extremely silly haunted-house game with horrible graphics that came on these floppy disks. I wish I still had it, just for the antique value. That, and Lemmings. Does anyone remember Lemmings? ---
**Author:** ![Anastasaeon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Anastasaeon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anastasaeon)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-video-computer-game-you-ever-played/303658/55 "2005-05-13T18:06:18Z")
> [@Kythereia](#): > > That, and Lemmings. Does anyone remember Lemmings? Yes… and Christmas lemmings… ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-video-computer-game-you-ever-played/303658/56 "2005-05-13T19:56:51Z")
**Star Trek** on a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model II. The school’s woodshop teacher had one, and was teaching rudimentary compsci during lunch. Ended up teaching myself programming as a result. \ 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![kimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f0a364/32.png) [@kimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kimera)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-video-computer-game-you-ever-played/303658/57 "2005-05-13T20:08:33Z")
Digger was the first game I remember playing. I still know the theme of it by heart and all the moves. (it was very basic) I think I was only able to get up to the 7th or 8th level, but my brothers hogged the computer. ---
**Author:** ![Monstre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@Monstre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monstre)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-video-computer-game-you-ever-played/303658/58 "2005-05-13T20:56:08Z")
Adventure (two-word command variety) games on a TRS-80 Model III, I think. That, and I remember an arcade-style game on that machine also (I forgot the name of it), landing a rocket on a pad to pick up little refugee guys at the bottom, then navigating up to the mother ship (dodging and blasting meteors). The first of those adventure games I played on it was a pirate one. Solved it, too. \> Say YOHO ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-video-computer-game-you-ever-played/303658/59 "2005-05-13T21:01:47Z")
> [@Monstre](#): > > The first of those adventure games I played on it was a pirate one. Solved it, too. > \> Say YOHO I remember those. Great fun. ---
**Author:** ![Strinka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/strinka/32/512_2.png) [@Strinka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strinka)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-video-computer-game-you-ever-played/303658/60 "2005-05-13T21:02:26Z")
Paintbrush. I was 5 or 6. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-video-computer-game-you-ever-played/303658.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-video-computer-game-you-ever-played/303658.md?page=4)