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Weekend Open Forum: What's the first video game you ever played, and on what platform?

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On May 21, 2010, 8:14 PM

Visiting Google's homepage today you'll get a fun surprise: the company has transformed its ever-changing website logo into a fully functional game of Pac-Man to celebrate the classic arcade's upcoming 30th anniversary tomorrow. This is Google's first ever interactive, playable doodle and will stay active for 48 hours. To start playing, just hit "Insert Coin" where the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button usually appears and use the arrow keys to gobble away.

By hitting the Insert Coin button a second time, two users can play simultaneously, controlling Ms. Pac-Man with the WASD keys. Much like the original Pac-Man, Google has programmed it to glitch and end at the 256th screen.


The game was imagined by Namco developer Toru Iwatani in 1979 -- partially inspired by a pizza missing a slice, as the story goes -- and reached the U.S. in the fall of 1980 after being renamed from "Puck Man". At a time when shooter games such as Space Invaders ruled the arcades, Iwatani's creation stood out for its originality and simplicity. Pac-Man was an immediate success and has been credited with expanding video gaming to a wider audience.

As you stroll down memory lane remembering the good ol' days when you scrambled for quarters to hit the arcades, we want to ask you: what was the first game you ever played? If you didn't think much of it, what was the first title (and platform) that really got you into gaming? I remember playing River Raid quite a bit on an Atari 2600 back in the day -- and never got the hang of E.T., man that game was awful. Discuss.

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  1. First game I ever played was Super Mario Brothers at a friends house and it was awesome. First game I owned was Tetris when I got a Gameboy which I still have. I always messed around with computers since my parents owned one but my real interests started with some fighter jet simulator, and eventually took off when I discovered an RTS called C&C =D, and haven't turned back since.

  2. Super Mario 3 on Family Computer triggered me into gaming. But it was Game N' Watch with the Fireman-like kind of game that I first played.

  3. The FIRST video game I played was PONG in a pizza parlor in 1977. We thought it was the coolest thing in the world (what did we know....I was only 16 at the time).

  4. Super Mario Brothers on SNES, i guess after that, Mortal Kombat 2 on the SEGA Genesis...

  5. Arcade table console....Space Invaders/Galaxian, then Missile Command when the trackball tables came out.

  6. Pong on a Coleco Telstar, I think they called it Tennis, back in 1976. Later I played Space Invaders and Asteroids at a local bowling alley, before moving up to a Magnavox Odyssey2 (around 1980?) and playing sports games like Football and Baseball. Ah, the good old days...

  7. Super mario.......In a SEGA console....

  8. Hangman program that I had to write (code) to execute...then PONG next ( was so much easier to play with friends who couldn't, do code! ) on Commodore 64 with tape back-up. Out Run (driving game) Missile Command, Battle Zone, Mr Dig, Meteors \ Asteroids, on a "FOX machine" ( AMSTRAD copy ) a 3 inch floppy made Game Loading "simply futuristic". Gauntlet and Parsec when the mono-chrome screen got upgraded. My paper route "wage" spent when I started playing the arcade games eg. Speed Freak [link] And stopped playing Arcade Style games when Frogger- rip off came out and my "Game and Watch" replaced the spend spend spend

  9. Super Mario 3 on Family Computer triggered me into gaming. But it was Game N' Watch with the Fireman-like kind of game that I first played.

  10. C-64 - It was probably Spy vs. Spy, Archon, Aztec Challenge, Boulder Dash, Pole Position, or Spy Hunter. I remember being so frustrated using the one button joystick that never seemed to move quick enough.

  11. Played Pong in 1973, It was a video game and console all in one. Very bacis but it was a video game

  12. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on sega

  13. Staff

    Hard to recall the exact game that was my first but I remember my first console, the Atari XL800 that used cartridges. I remember playing Pacman, Defender, Missile Command, Spy vs Spy, Karate, Enduro, among others.

  14. check it out, the first ever (there is some debate) computer game by Steven Russell (1962) you can download it here.

    http://www.digisys.net/users/cogs/spacewar.htm

    Features

    * True gravitational sun

    * orbital capabilities

    * partial destruction on indirect hits

    * flying ship debris

    * stellar constellations

    * fully configurable game parameters

    * Completely FREE

    * Source code is FREE and AVAILABLE

    and find the story here

    [link]

  15. Pac-Man on Atari. ^_^ I'm feeling the nostalgia.

  16. Oh wow... It must have been ping pong back in the early 80's, on an old atari that is still up un my attic. My most memorable gaming was at the arcade, playing Joust.

  17. Wendig0 said:

    Oh wow... It must have been ping pong back in the early 80's, on an old atari that is still up un my attic. My most memorable gaming was at the arcade, playing Joust.

    I meant "Pong". It's been a while

  18. Chase HQ on ZX Spectrum

  19. hello ...

    was way too long ago LOL ...

    it was in the late 80s, i don't remember the titles, i started with those handhelds, then had an Atari 2600 with 100s of games built-in.

    Yeah to the 1 that said Diablo II, i bow to your great taste LOL ...

    I'm still playing it & need to find time to finish it (with LOD)

    cheers!

  20. Good Ol wolfenstein 3d and I logged some hours on it.

  21. pole position from the atari console back in the 80s. wasnt even 10 back then ><

  22. ahh yes... wolfenstein. the good old days with the good old graphics wish i could go back to my youth play it on my old pc again *sigh*

  23. My First game was a wonderful RTS and FPS game in one, i might check on that, any ways, my first game was "Machines Wired For War". And what an Enjoyment that was,

    Only if that game was recreated again, because win7 or vista can not support it anymore , But still, it logged my lots of hrs in my youth !!!

  24. Staff

    Out Run on the Commodore 64 loaded by tape was probably one of the first, but it's difficult to remember

    Later on I had a Sega 8-bit system which I played amongst others Alex Kidd in Miracle World on

  25. Like many others, pong. On a dedicated home console.

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