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Your Gaming Story -

So what's everyone gaming story and how you all started on this hobby?

If my memory serves me right my first foray into gaming was something called Nintendo but in my country we called it Dendi. I am from Russia and back then no one spoke a lick of English or knew how to even read English.

Either way I remember playing Mario and Charlie Circus. Me and my sister would rage at Charlie circus. Fast forward to getting a PC I became obsessed with tech and one day I played a game called DOOM on MS DOS and Redneck Rampage and Heretic. Me and my dad would fight and argue over who plays when and what. I forgot that Nintendo even existed and never knew what is a console or a PC was, To me they were just toys that played games.

One day my father brought me a copy a game called Half Life from the russian/Moscow PC market out in the streets. I installed it and got to the part when the experiment failed and then was introduced to the headcrab zombies and hesdcrabs themselves. Ever since then, I was terrified as a child and had nightmares as a kid and refused to play the game and hated it. The same thing happened with Resident Evil, hearing a zombie groan and watching a corpse come alive from a floor made me scream. Oh and don't get me started on the dogs jumping out of the the windows. I hated Resident Evil.

In the year 2000 I moved to USA and in 2001 the Xbox commercials started to roll out on TV and I saw ads for Halo and Oddworld Muncie Oddysey. I asked my parents to buy it for me. I ended getting a PS2 with State of Emergency and FF 10 because the cover looked cool. FF 10 was my first FF game that made me fall in love with FF series and JRPGs.

I skipped ps1, 64, dream cast, genesis and so on) I was strictly a PC gamer that was addicted to FPS and RTS titles such as AoE and WC3 and SC before diving into ps2 and Xbox.

Then I started getting into all the original Xbox titles such as DoA 3 and all the fighting games. My most anticipated and biggest hyped game as a kid was Fable for the Xbox and Gears of War. As a PS2 kid I got into DMC, onimusha, GTA. it was not until GameCube that I gave resident evil another shot when I got older. Now horror games are some of my favorite franchises. As a matter of fact RE7 was my #1 horror game from last gen, and it looks like RE8 might do the same.

I eventually played half life and was amazed at how good the game and story was but it was thanks to me playing CSS on my PC back in 2003-2004 days that me me play HL1 again and give it an honest shot.

I can continue on , but that will take forever so the TLDR is that I love ALL gaming and own all the current gen systems and I would never ever in my life want to pick a different hobby as I know also work in the game industry and love my job.

What were your favorite memories as a kid? When did you realize that this was IT and you knew what you wanted to enjoy for the rest of your life? What games changed your perspectives? And have there been any games that you once hated but tried again and loved it?
 
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Orta

Banned
80's:
My brother borrowed one of those home Pong machines, that was my first ever experience of gaming.
I played on my best friends atari vcs on a portable black & white tv in his house for a few years
Got my own VCS but upgraded to an NES just one year later

90's:
Upgraded to a Megadrive, my brother bought a Mega CD soon after. Both were two of my all time favourite systems.
Bought a Gameboy too, my first ever taste of portable gaming, not that I ever got to use it much, my parents became hopelessly addicted to Tetris
Bought an SNES
Got a Saturn, some of my favourite gaming memories were had with it.
And a Playstation, despite my contempt for Sony at this point, being a Sega fanboy. Must admit I had an absolute blast with it. Some incredible games.
And an N64 to the collection, hated it instantly thanks to that fucking controller.
Bought my first PC.
And my favourite ever console, the Dreamcast. Home gaming peaked with it.

00's:
PS2 purchase coincided with my interest in games dropping, console games, I was far more into PC gaming at this point. Regardless I still bought the following but they were largely neglected.... Gameboy Advance, Gameboy Micro, PSP, Xbox, Gamecube, PS3, Xbox360, Wii, DS

10's:
Interest was still low but I convinced myself it would come back with a purchase of a new console. I bought a 3DS, Wii U, PS4 but barely played them. In fact I only unboxed my Wii U last week and mentioned in in the Wii U thread on here. Six years in the wardrobe it spent. Also bought a PSVR and played a certain Astrobot game. It was the most fun I had with a console game in about fifteen years. Skipped the Xbox One. Interest in games was still low despite the Astrobot experience but I bought a Switch and Breath of the Wild on a whim having never played a Zelda game, thinking they were full-on RPG's, a genre I hate. Played it, and played it some more and more and more till I had clocked up about 200 hours between the date of purchase, March 2017 and the end of the month. Bought several more Switch games and played the shit out of them. It had switched something back on in me, returned to my older consoles and my Steam backlog and have been playing games, not quite as much as twenty years ago but I make time to put in a few hours each week now. Am really happy at that, though I always held a huge interest in videogame software & hardware during the bleak years I never had the urge to actually play them. Would have been a hell of a shame to have lost interest completely.

As for the 2020's, I can't wait to see what Nintendo does next, I'll likely buy a PS5 a lot further down the line, certainly if we get another Astrobot VR game that's a good as the original. Xbox, there isn't any point, I still consider myself a PC gamer first and foremost and that's where most of my future purchases will be made. I'm 41 years old in May, been playing games since I was about 6 or 7 I think. That's 35 years give or take of thumb twiddling I've put in. Fucking hell!
 
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devilNprada

Member
I grew up playing board games.. When no one was left to play board games with I built a gaming PC.

Games like Civilization 2, Neverwinter Nights, Panzer General, Age of Empires, and Magic The Gathering really got me into PC gaming.
Counterstrike and WOW somewhat took it to the next level.

Edit: I also had consoles, but console games weren't much fun back then, and until maybe Ocarina of Time, I couldn't sit and play for hours at a time.
 
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Jeeves

Member
My earliest memory is when I was 3 I played my first video game, Super Mario Bros.

I liked games quite a bit and I can remember I can remember doing things like watching my dad play Zelda, or inventing levels in my head for Mario 3 and mapping them out on paper (yes, I did grow up to love Mario Maker).

Eventually we got an SNES. My parents surprised me with the Mario World bundle, but there was something wrong with it I guess because before I could even play it they had to return it and they exchanged it for the Donkey Kong County bundle (I ended up not playing Mario World until the GBA port). DKC was my shit and I played it over and over and over. Well, I was only allowed to play for 20 minutes before school each day but I savored that time. We had a few SNES games but DKC was my go-to. I remember looking at Super Metroid on the back of the console's box and thinking it looked cool (didn't play a Metroid until Fusion). One of my friends has a Genesis but I only played that occasionally, not enough to build any strong memories.

Mario 64 blew me away profoundly. I'm sure many of you had that same experience so I'll leave it at that. We bought a copy of Ocarina from a video store, so it already had someone's completed save on it. I spoiled the whole game for myself and didn't care, had a great time. I really loved the player's guides for both of these games, and the OoT one in particular I would pore over and read it cover to cover several times. When Majora's Mask was an upcoming game, I learned HTML to create a fansite for it rife with hotlinked IGN images and stuff. When Super Smash Bros. came out I was horrible at playing it until I found Smash World Forums. These were the years that brought me from "person who likes games" to "game enthusiast".

Partway into the Gamecube gen I became an insufferable console warrior until I chilled out towards the end of the Wii. Since then...I mean I'm still a fanboy, but I'll play on any platform and don't hate any of them.

Of course there's plenty more to say but I'll spare you my life story. Those first three Nintendo generations were the foundational ones for me.
 
I have a vague memory of playing one of the Sonic games at my dads house one time but it's extremely vague.

My first console was the PlayStation 1 sometime in like 1997 I think so I would have been 6. I didn't play a whole ton of games back then but I did play some all time greats like Gran Turismo 2, Resident Evil, Chrono Trigger, and MGS. It was technically shared between me and my older sister. I was still mainly playing soccer in my yard and riding bikes. I also remember having a Atomic Purple GameBoy Color but I'm pretty sure I only had the Pokemon TCG, and Pokemon Red on it. I don't even remember much about how I got it because our family never had a ton of money.

I also played a bunch of games on PC like Janes games, Delta Force, Quake, and Starcraft but I dropped PC when the PS2 came out.

Then I got a PS2. This was the first console that was actually mine and mine only. This is when I really got into games, and was always playing them. I remember basically all my presents being games and figures (Ultimate Soldier figures to be exact which were like realistic GI Joes). Again we never had a lot of money so we rented a lot of games as it was easier to spend $3 for 5 days at Hollywood Video then to drop $50 on a game. I mowed a few lawns every week so I was slowly able to buy some games myself along with Christmas and birthday money.

My mom/stepdad won some money at a casino and bought me and my step brother Xbox for Christmas one year. Got it with Halo and Project Gotham Racing and while I loved those games I still mainly played my PlayStation. I never had a Gamecube but one of my friends did and I fell in love watching him play Wind Waker.

I remember the 360 coming out and my mom asking if I wanted one because she would try to get me one for Christmas but I said no because I knew the PS3 would have MGS4 (fuck haters, I still love this game). When the PS3 finally came out I sort of lost hope because it was so expensive and I knew my mom wouldn't be able to afford it, but was surprised at Christmas when she was able to get me a 40GB the year after and I remember crying because I thought my mom was going to go broke for buying me it along with a game. I will always remember that memory so clearly, telling her to return it and I'd save my lawn money and birthday/christmas money until I could get one. She refused of course as seeing me happy was enough.

PS3 is when I hit an all time high when it came to gaming. I got into online and had 1000s of hours in stuff like COD4/MW2/MAG/Killzone as well as stuff like GT5. This was also when I was able to finally buy a lot of my own games. I got a 360 when they announced the Slim and got back into Halo and Forza but again played mostly on my PS3 as it was my favorite and I was used to PlayStation. The 360 was my first credit card purchase ever. Also had a DS I bought used loaded with ROMs, as well as a PSP. When I got a Vita it became my most played handheld of all time.

I'm not going to say much about the PS4/XBO but I was able to buy a PS4 and Xbox One at launch by abusing Best Buy's Gamers Club Unlocked (back when it had the magazine with the coupons) and then trading games back to Gamestop. This gen was also when I got back into PC. Still played a bunch of games but with stuff like a full time job it wasn't nearly as much as it was before. I also had a WiiU.

Currently have a PS5, Series X, Switch, Vita, PC.

tl;dr PS1>GBC>PS2>Xbox>PS3>PSP>NDS>360>Wii>PS4/XBO>WiiU>Switch>PS5>Series X timeline wise.
 
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Ps5ProFoSho

Member
My dad used to rent gaming stations on the weekend in the mid 90s and we would play all weekend for hours. When I got my first job when I was 16 I bought a PSOne with my first paycheck
 

Orenji Neko

Member
Msx
Famicom
Game Boy
Super Famicom
Mega Drive
Mega CD

Add PC here and have one always go forward。
PlayStation
Saturn
Game Boy Light
Game Boy Color
Dreamcast
Wonderswan Color
PlayStation 2
Game Boy Advance
Gamecube
DS
PSP- Monster Hunter!!
Wii
3DS LL
Switch
Still have most。Games and machines in storage some given to daughter。Only PC and Switch I do play however I have copy many games to emulate with no clutter。
My family did possess PC Engine Mark III and Nintendo 64 those years but they belong to younger brother and sister。My father possessed Atari however I did not play with much。
 

brian0057

Banned
My father taught me how to play DOOM on PC when I was a kid.
He also had a cybercafe where I played Counter-Strike and Half-Life for the first time.
Around this time I got my first PlayStation and ever since then I've become part of the most oppressed minority... a gamer.
 
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Neolombax

Member
My first game was a shmup called Sidewinder, played through a diskette on my father's work PC. After that, he kept on giving me new games that he got from his friend who works in IT at the time. I only got to play during weekends when he would bring me to his office so that I could play while he did his work.
 

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
I too played games on my dad’s computer. It’s where I played a lot of ski free. I’d play Chip’s Challenge because that game was one of a kind. I always wished my version of Windows came with it. I had Windows 95 Plus, so I got to play pinball. I use to download a lot of freeware as a kid and DOOM, Lemmings, and Jazz Jackrabbit were some of the games I enjoyed the most. DOOM was a game I introduced to my friends as a kid. They still bring it up in conversation to this day.

As far as consoles. I saw Mario Bros on NES at a neighbor’s house. It captivated me and it was the coolest thing on earth. I couldn’t believe that I could control something on the television. I ended up getting an SNES Super Mario World bundle with F-Zero, and Pilotwings. I eventually would rent a lot of games. I owned Star Fox and Super Metroid too. My parents got me a TV for my room. Which some people criticize that and tell me they don’t want their kids to be that way. My dad worked late and I was out of my mom’s hair. She would sleep and I would play. I road my bike a lot and I played sports. The nights were always about games. I had the first N64 on the block. I’d invite kids over to see it too. I had a bunch of memories with the Genesis, PS1-5, Dreamcast, Xbox - Xbox One, GameCube - Switch. I always tried to get the console at launch. I had a great time going to the arcades a lot and playing the fighting games. I really enjoyed the shooting games like Time Crisis and even NFL Blitz. The very first game I imported was ShenMue and another game I have fond memories of is Ocarina of Time/OO7/StarFox 64. Lots of memories of JRPGs for PS1. Which really stengthened my enjoyment of the PlayStation brand.
 

Spokker

Member
Reading all these brings back a lot of memories, especially when they align with my own timeline.

My first video game memory is looking out my bedroom window and my parents/grandparents bringing in a large bag. It was a Nintendo Entertainment System with Mario Bros., Duck Hunt and the light guns. My first memory of actually playing an NES game was Bart Vs. The Space Mutants, dying and screaming at the game. My parents yelled at me for yelling. If I was playing the game in its release year, then that would put me at 5-6. Prior to this, I have flashes of memories of seeing Nintendo games at a neighbor kid's house.

Then there is a blank, and my memories pick up at me playing various NES games at my grandma's house. My favorite games at the time were Classic Concentration, Double Dare, Sesame Street, Pinball, Duck Tales, Little Mermaid, Duck Hunt and of course, Mario. The music, graphics and animations of these games are forever etched into my brain. I remember them better than games I beat a month ago.

Looking back, I realized that my parents probably got me an NES when it was on sale after the SNES released. I know I had an SNES by 6th grade though, as my summer before 6th grade was dominated by Final Fantasy III/VI. By this time I was reading video game magazines like Gamefan. I also loved those huge issues of EGM.

By 1995-96 I asked for a PC and got it, and it was one of those HP Multimedia PCs with a 90 MHz CPU. My parents were not into computers but my friend had one, so I asked for one. I tried to convince them that it would help me with school. Whether they bought that argument or not, my grandfather would eventually buy me one at Circuit City.

It had a front end for kids that I would eventually learn to bypass (though it had a very cool program that explained all the parts and functions of a PC, which got me up to speed quickly) and get to DOS, where I played Doom, Duke, WarCraft II and so on. My mom would also buy me those cheap games in jewel cases in the spinning racks at CompUSA. I got a modem and learned how to log into local BBS dial-up servers, where I played Legend of the Red Dragon and slowly downloaded my first softcore porn pictures. I would eventually discover a multi-line BBS that allowed you to connect with others to play head to head matches of Doom, Duke and War2.

I would eventually install Windows 95 on it just to play Beavis and Butthead in Virtual Stupidity. I had zero supervision with the PC, but whenever I got in trouble my dad would threaten to destroy it with a baseball bat. He never did, though he was angry in general because I stopped playing sports and turned my attention to computer games.

Ever since then, I've been switching between periods of playing mostly PC games or mostly console games. Right now I'm in a console phase, my longest yet.
 
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V4skunk

Banned
When I was 2-3 years old with my dad on the C64 in the late 80's.
First console was Sega Master System in the late 80's. Gameboy first handheld in 1990ish or when ever it came out in Britain.
Then early 90's was amiga and snes, mid 90's pc, N64, PS1.
Then Ps2, GC, DC, PS3, x360, ps4, Switch.
PC is my go to.
 
Dad worked for a bank and had a computer at home back when they were just green text and a keyboard but cost like $15K in the early 80s. Brother and I got into text games and basic coding back then. Moved through all the eras of PC graphics cards becoming a thing, home consoles like Spectrum, Atari, C64, Apple II etc all the way through to today's gen. I recall friends coming over after school to play DOS tennis games, DOOM and more. I can close my eyes and teleport back to NES in the basement days playing SMB or ice hockey with my mate down the street. Arcades will always have a special place in my heart from the days of putting your coin up on the screen to have a shot at the king of the day getting free game after free game of SFII. We used to lug our PCs and CRTs around to form coax networks to play those original multiplayer games on before hubs and CAT cables were a thing (screw you unterminated coax cable). I remember having the old rotary phone rubber suction dial up or a Hayes 300 baud modem to play MUDs on. Connecting 3 player dial up for Diablo on Battle.net was a revelation. Fast forward to the comradery with roommates duking it out over Mario Party or Kart or Diddy Kong when more than 4 were wanting to play. Halo 2 online was something else that changed everything.

I love gaming with my family/kids and friends. Aside from Covid I still hold an annual LAN weekend party at my house and have guys and girls from 3-4 different states turning up. I'll be gaming until the day I die.
 
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Thurible

Member
One of the first games I remember playing was Smash 64 at daycare. I mained kirby because I thought it was so cool he could suck people up and take their powers. We also had a gameboy color at home where I would play super mario land. Then we also had Donkey Kong on the gameboy and my Dad played it all the time (he had his own gameboy and liked playing the bathroom).

I really started getting into it as a hobby with the gameboy advance. I played Emerald all the time with my sister, Firered was also my jam.
 
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I played Atari and Intellivision in the early 80s. I kept playing and owning basically all game consoles today. I will likely continue to do so until I die.

Pretty much how my gaming story started too. Except I had the Pong home console before the Atari.

I should just repost my “Introduce Yourself” blurb from when I signed up here.
 

Neff

Member
Spent a lot of summers being spoiled rotten by relatives during the time I'd stay with them at a seaside resort, which meant lots and lots of time in arcades. I liked arcade games, and I liked the idea of video games and computers in general, but Space Harrier was what did it. It absolutely blew my mind and set me on the path of videogames obsession.

got a C64 as a christmas present and started buying bad conversions of all the arcade games I loved. One notable exception was Bubble Bobble, which was an excellent port and managed to cram the entire arcade game in one tape load. It was also the first time I fell in love with an actual piece of video game design. The way you use the bubbles to both capture enemies and bounce on them to move around struck me as shockingly brilliant, and made me begin to contemplate how games were made at a pen and paper level rather than a purely technical one.

I was primarily a Sega guy thanks to Space Harrier among other classics, to the point where I'd view Nintendo -as their closest rivals- with derision as a result. Got myself a Master System, then a Mega Drive. I consumed games magazines furiously. Sonic was my hero. I started taking an interest in Nintendo games, particularly Mario, but they were the 'enemy', and I had to devote all my attention and endorsement to Sega. Then one day, for no reason at all, my mother returned home from shopping with a SNES and Super Mario World. Nintendo became my entire world. The quality of SNES games, man... it was just staggering. The sound, Mode 7, the non-stop stream of must-have classics from Nintendo, Capcom, Konami, Square, and so on. Still to this day it's my all-time favourite console.

The next major event in my gaming life was the discovery of the difference between NTSC and PAL. A friend of mine imported a Super Famicom, and seeing it running SF2 on a RGB monitor made my PAL SNES look antiquated. It was so crisp, so smooth, so colourful, and I had to have it. I sold all my PAL gear, including my beloved SNES, and replaced everything with Japan/US imports. And I never looked back.
 
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_Ex_

Member
I started playing video games in 1982. I've seen some shit since then. But I can quit this "hobby" anytime I want.
 
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Northeastmonk

Gold Member
I remember the Christmas I got the GameBoy Tetris bundle. It was in a large box with the magnifier lens, Cool Spot (the 7Up game), Yoshi (the puzzle game), and what could have been Kid Icarus. My took my sister and I to K-Mart and got us both Mario and the Six Golden Coins. I have no idea if my sister even played it, but I beat it. It was a lot of fun. There were games like The Simpsons and even TMNT that really were exciting as a kid. I was around Mortal Kombat a lot at the arcades, so I owned MK2 for GameBoy. Some may consider it to be the worst port of the game. I even think we had a thread on the worst MK games a while back. I eventually had to have a Game Gear. The most I spent playing that was Columns, Judge Dredd, and Sonic Adventures. I don’t even remember what happened to it. I just wish it would have had more games to it.
 

drganon

Member
Had a genesis, but didn't really get into gaming until the ps1. Due to financial strains, didn't play as much during the ps2/gcn/xbox era. Played a lot during the 360/wii days, but tapered off toward the end due to growing apathy. It was getting the ps4 and finally getting into more Japanese stuff that has resulted in me playing and buying much more than I did in the past.
 

Soodanim

Member
One of my earliest memories is of The Flintstones on the Sega Master System. The first level is you as Fred trying to paint a wall by moving a ladder and going back and forth to wet your brush while Pebbles gets out of her cot and draws on the wall. There's also a time limit. I did not often get past it.

I would have been about 3 or 4, and I think the SMS was originally my uncle's (he later showed me Mortal Kombat for the first time, and I remember him using the blood code). Other games I got were R-Type, Shinobi, and Alex Kidd in Shinobi World.
 

Caio

Member
Mattel Intellivision
Commodore 64
Amiga 500
Playstation
Sega Saturn
N64
PS2
XBox
GameCube
PS3
XBox 360
PS4
Switch
PS4 Pro
XBox One X

Next PS5
 

Maogp

Member
In short:
C64
Sega Master System 2
Game Boy
Pentium 2 233mmx (since then always had a pc with consoles)
Snes
PlayStation
Sega Dreamcast
PlayStation 2
GameCube
Xbox
Xbox 360
PlayStation 3
Nintendo Wii
PlayStation 4
Xbox one
Wii U
PlayStation 4
Xbox one
Switch
Xbox Series X
PlayStation 5
Gba
Nds
3ds
Gba micro
Psp
PsVita
 
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Nitty_Grimes

Made a crappy phPBB forum once ... once.
Started properly with the ZX Spectrum 128 (with the metal heat sink lol) that overheated so replaced it with another that did the same. Swapped for a Commodore 64 then and never looked back.

Had Atari 2600 before that but only flittered with that.

Probably had every computer or console since with small exceptions like NES or Master System never bothered with.

Today, rocking a PS5, Series X and waiting for my master race Ryzen 5900 / 3080 spec pc to be built.
 
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