The Big Question: What’s The First Game You Ever Played?

The games of our youth.

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In this week’s Big Question we’re getting nostalgic, thinking back to the first games we ever played—or at least the first ones we can remember playing.

Alex Kidd in Miracle World

Andy Kelly, Features Editor

I vividly remember the morning I got a Sega Master System for Christmas. It was in the late ’80s or early ’90s. I can’t recall exactly. Some UK consoles came with Sonic the Hedgehog built in, but others—including mine—came with Alex Kidd in Miracle World instead. This frustratingly difficult platformer was my introduction to video games, and I played the hell out of it, even though I spent most of my time dying. I loved it, but I wish I hadn’t revisited it recently after feeling a pang of nostalgia. It has not aged well at all.

Sonic the Hedgehog

Joe Parlock, TCG Specialist

I don’t remember when my parents bought our first games console, a used Mega Drive with Sonic and Sonic 2. I must have been about three or four, though. Although I didn’t actually beat Sonic until about 15 years later, I distinctly remember being sat in the living room trying to beat Robotnik at the end of Green Hill Zone. It was dark out, the fire was on, and I was eating pink wafers and strawberry custard creams while frantically trying to jump over his wrecking ball machine. Unlike Andy, I’ve never really stopped playing Sonic, so have never had nostalgia to ruin – I’ve just always loved it ever since. Pink wafers aren’t as good as they were in 1997, though.

Kula World

Stacey Henley, Editor-in-Chief

I guess you could say I’ve always been a *drops shades* kula dude. Anyway, Kula World was a game where you play as a sentient beach ball and have to move around a floating stone platform while avoiding spikes and traps. I don’t think there was a story, but I remember some levels were set in Ancient Egypt, and others were inside of a volcano, so this was a very adventurous beach ball. On the Christmas that I got my first PlayStation, my parents also bought me Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot, and Tekken 3 – you know, three of the greatest games not just of their own era, but of all time. I chose instead to start with Kula World. School told me I was a gifted child but I guess they were wrong.

Hogs Of War

Harry Alston, Lead Specialist Writer

I’m certain that the original copy of Hogs Of War I played was on a demo disc for the PlayStation 1. It might even have appeared on more than one. I remember begging my mum to buy it for me, which she did, in the end. If you’ve never heard of Hogs of War, it’s a third-person Worms-like featuring voice actor Rik Mayall, who frequently barks insults at you as you play. All the characters are pigs. I loved the game so much I once woke up at 6am, stalked downstairs, ate four Wagon Wheels and drank an entire box of semi-skimmed box milk, and when it was time to get dressed for school, I promptly vomited all over my school uniform. It was a Hogs of War day after that. The pigs would be proud.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater

Amanda Hurych, Evergreen Content Lead

As much as I would like to say that one of the Halo games was my first, that would be a lie. The truth is I wasn’t much into video games as a young kid, courtesy of a) my parents never buying me a system and b) not having all that many friends with which to play on theirs. I’m not complaining or anything; it was just the way things were. So my first introduction to video games came from my cousin stopping by my tia’s house (my aunt’s house). He brought with him a PlayStation and a copy of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. He showed it to me and my sister out of the goodness of his heart. And while my sister struggled with the controls and learning how to simultaneously move her character and the camera, I took to it like a duck takes to water. I haven’t played the game since, but it was the first video game I ever played.

Pandemonium!

Joshua Robertson, News Editor

Like Joe, I don’t actually remember my parents buying me my first system, rather I just dabbled with the ones they already owned. The earliest memory I have of a video game is Pandemonium on the PlayStation 1, and that was after making sure it wasn’t just some very vivid dream I had one night. All I could remember about Pandemonium up until a couple of years ago was that it was a really fun platformer and it featured a wise-cracking court jester who creeped me out a bit. Having gone back and played it as an adult, I totally understand why child me was disturbed by it.

Adventure Island II: Aliens in Paradise

Andrew King, Evergreen Editor

It’s tough to pinpoint, but my first game was probably Adventure Island II: Aliens in Paradise, a tough Game Boy platformer starring a chubby little dude who rides dinosaurs on a quest to save his girlfriend after she’s abducted by a flying saucer in the opening cutscene. I can’t say if the game was good, but it had killer, dancey music and crunchy sound effects. If this wasn’t the first game I played, it was almost certainly another platformer. My sister, who actually owned our cinderblock-sized original Game Boy, also had a cart for Super Mario Land, and I remember renting Mickey Mania: The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse, Aladdin, The Lion King, and Ristar for our Sega Genesis around the same time. Those games gave me a lifelong passion for jumping and walking left-to-right.

Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe

Justin Reeve, News Editor

The first game that I can remember playing would be none other than Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe. This one is widely remembered as a classic, but the game was released way back in 1991, so you might need a quick refresher. Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe is a combat flight simulator developed by Lucasfilm Games that puts you into the cockpit of airplanes ranging from bombers like the B17 to fighters like the Me262. While hardly anyone talks about this one anymore, the game had a disproportionately large impact on me as I was growing up, getting me interested not only in flight simulators but in actual aviation. I’ve been flying airplanes for over a decade at this point.

Gauntlet

Helen Ashcroft, Evergreen Editor

My first introduction to gaming was courtesy of my older step brother and his ZX Spectrum 128k. It came complete with a built-in tape deck, 15 minute minimum wait to play anything, and a loading sound that still haunts me. The game I remember most is Gauntlet which we played together frequently. It’s one of the earliest multiplayer dungeon crawlers and you hack and slash your way through top down mazes. You can be a warrior, wizard, valkyrie or elf and young Helen loved playing a female valkyrie, who also happened to die less since she had the best armour. This was the early ‘90s so we didn’t have internet access to look up things like the fact the game never actually ends. It also doesn’t have a save function. As a result, we’d leave the computer on for days at a time, desperately trying to reach the end, before finally realising that the levels eventually just cycle back around but flipped or mirrored.

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