Still vividly remember the day I saw and plated Space Invaders (1979) for the first time. I was walking home from primary school and there was a new machine, that Was Not Pinball!, in the arcade (called pinball parlours then).
I watched for about 30 minutes while I waited my turn, played 2 games and was hooked and still am 45 years later.
It was a Sinclair ZX81, which I built from a kit with my brother. I was astonished when it actually worked.
It came with a tape which included about 6 games in BASIC - all extremely simple since they had to fit in 1k of memory, of course. I can’t actually recall what they were exactly though.
remember sears arcade systems? i think that was their knock off of intellivision. white/cream color, and i think its controllers could actually be unplugged.
we had a c64 in my family at one point too. ghetto blaster/street beat, pipeland, dart tower, street surfer, bc quest for tires [you play as a caveman riding around standing on a wheel], one man and his droid. i played those.
My first one was NES. I was just the right age in the late 80s to be caught in all of it. Funny thing is, I don’t remember asking for it. I think my parents just got me one, but I fell in love with games from that point on.
Heck, my second system was the Genesis, and I didn’t ask, or know about it, either! One of the best memories I have of growing up.
Went to the movies with family friends. When I came back, my dad had set up the Genesis and had Altered Beast playing on the tv. Coming from only knowing the NES, my mind was blown.
I was scarred by the OG Crash and it took a long time to convince myself to buy the remastered version. The time it took to go for platinum still haunts me :D
Some kind of Pong game. I was really little and it was my grandmother’s, so I don’t even remember what the actual unit looked like.
Then the Atari 2600 (my aunt’s), then the Atari 5200 (my grandmother’s - she was unstoppable at Pac-Man and could start from Cherry and work all the way up to nine keys without dying once).
Then there was the day we rented an NES. That day changed my life.
It was Super Mario Bros. Start the game. “Oh hey, the screen moves sideways! Good lord, this is a huge game.” Dies a bunch.Find pipe shortcut. “Oh wow!” Finally beat level 1-1. “Yay, I beat the game! Oh wait, World 1-2? WTF?!?!?”
It’s hard to explain the feeling when the most immersive game you’ve ever played was Pitfall.
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