No problem with a narrow focus. I just wish he would answer his own questions when they apply to him.
Come on, Earth001. Tell us how long have you been playing games, and what game you started with.
My answer: Since I was 5-ish, I think. I don’t know my first game exactly, but it was an Atari game, played on a black and white TV my dad got me. The Atari Pac-Man and Donkey Kong were amongst the first games I got, along with that Tanks game everyone else is mentioning. The first game I beat was called Word Blaster or something, where you spelled out words shooting the letters scrolling very quickly across the top of the screen. (I’m embarrassed at how long it took me to figure out that was what I was supposed to do.) My favorite game at that time was Journey Escape, which I thought was a guy on a jet pack and space suit moving amongst aliens. (I only recently finally beat it on emulator.) And I’m 29 now–which is what I assume you meant to ask.
Real similar to BigT, and others, with the 2600 getting me into this. “Combat”, if I had to pick the first title, but probably Asteroids and, later, Defender. Addiction didn’t really take hold until “Harpoon” on the PC, and Civ 2. Have successfully avoided Warcrack and Everquest, though I’m embarrassed to admit just how much time I’ve burned on Operation: Flashpoint, the various Silent Hunters, and the whole Baldur’s Gate series. Currently, Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate is occupying my video gaming (what can I say; I’m not an early adopter) though if Arma 3 doesn’t suck as bad as Arma, I’ll give it a go.
Thank You! Combat was the name of the tank game I was talking about. It was the first two player-simultaneous game I played besides Basketball.
I always was behind a bit in gaming. I mean, then NES came out when I was born, but I didn’t get one until the SNES came out, and got an SNES when the PlayStation came out. The N64 was my first and last new console.
My brother and I were given a Pong game when they were new - my Dad was given it / won it as a door prize at a convention and he brought it home to us. Then there were the usual arcade games. I bought an Amiga 1000 [and then a 500] and the first games I had on it were oddly enough not isometrics or scrollers [I hate playing isometrically, ‘nintendroid’ style. I hate looking over my own shoulder, the one thing that drives me nuts about guild wars 2 actually.] I can’t remember the names of 2 of them, but the one I spent the most time with originally was some sort of dungeon one, where you more or less walked through corridors and rooms like Dungeon Master and DM 2 Skullkeep, name was something about a cauldron but not that horrid Disney cartoon tie in game. The other game was a fantasy first person shooter that was one of the original attempts at a 3 d sort of walk around in an outside world game. I will have to get Rob to dig out in the barn for the stashed games to find out the names. Then my 3 favorites - Eye of the Beholder 1 2 and 3. I got good enough at EoB 1 that I could dictate walkthroughs off the top of my head, and at one point in time I walked someone through it starting about 20 minutes into game play by just recognizing the description of where they were and the mobs in the room. [I had just had surgery, mrAru set the computer up in my room on an AV cart so I could roll halfway onto my side and play pretty much solidly the entire time I was awake. 2 whole months of it. I adored finally getting internet.] About 1997 or 8 we got a PC as well, and I ended up with Dungeon Keeper and EOB for PC as well. I started playing MMORPGs with EVerquest in 1999, moved to WoW when it went live, then migrated to EVE Online, then LOTRO and now I play GW2. I did a lot of beta testing for different companies and played probably 40 or 50 different MMORPGs and offline games [anybody remember the failure that was Lords of Everquest? Though I liked Warcraft 1 2 and 3 =) ]
I was a wee lad in the tail-end of the Seventies when we got our Pong game, and oh how I whiled away my youth on that thing. Then I devoted even more of my misspent youth to the Atari 2600.
Now, several generations of several other consoles later, and I’m still into video games. Luckily they caught on and became mainstream a good while back or I might have to seriously wonder about my alarming lack of other things to do with my time.
Since Sonic the Hedgehog on the Mega Drive (Genesis), which would have been 22 years ago. I don’t play new games much any more, and certainly don’t pay much attention to what’s coming out. I’m largely even ignoring MGS5, and I love MGS. Nowadays I mostly play old Mega Drive and PSX games. Resident Evil 2 last night.
I remember dad bring home the Magnavox Odyssey when I was about 5. The first game that got my attention was Haunted House.
40 years later I still play games (X-Com: Enemy Within and Guild Wars 2 atm). As for how I am doing, my back is a bit stiff and I probably sit too much but other than that I am fine, thanks.
I started when I was a kid, with text-based adventure games like Adventure, and then I stopped for a long time and picked back up with Portal about 3 years ago.
We got an apple II plus when I was 8 years old in 1979 (35 years), and a space invaders game along with it. I’m pretty sure that I had played some other video type games before then since I knew that this was just one of several video games out there, but my mind is a bit hazy.