What Game Turned You Into A Gamer?
By William on Sunday, June 17th, 2007 at 9:42 PM PST In Gamer Life
Everyone has a great story about their first game or a specific game that basically turned them into the gamer they are today. Here’s my story. Feel free to add yours in the comments. I’m definitely always curious what turned someone into a gamer. Without a doubt it my mind, Dragon’s Lair was that game for me. I was only 6 years old at the time, but it turned me into the gaming machine I am today. While most kids spent their entire allowances that summer on candy or movies, every last quarter I could get my hands on went into Dragon’s Lair.
1983 was the first year I was introduced to the world of video games. I was 6 years old at the time. I would beg my parents to take me to the arcade all the time. I even had my 6th birthday party in one. This was also the year of the great video game crash that lasted over 3 years. This was fortunate for me in ways, because the price of the Atari systems fell through the bottom and my dad bought me one. This was also the year that I found the game that blew my mind at the time. The game was the arcade hit Dragon’s Lairâ„¢.
This was one of the first laser disc games ever made and completely stood out from every other game in the arcades at the time. We would often wait in endless lines to get a chance to play. This was the first detailed game that didn’t use sprites as characters that I ever came across. You basically play as Dirk the Daring, a knight attempting to rescue Princess Daphne from the evil Dragon Singe. What was strange about the game was that instead of controlling his actions, you controlled his reflexes. This was very similar to a Choose Your Own Adventure novel. Although nowadays the game wouldn’t get very far, back then the cinematics and story line alone set it apart from the rest of the playing field for a very long time.
“Dragon’s Lair: The fantasy adventure where you become a valiant knight, on a quest to rescue the fair princess from the clutches of an evil dragon. You control the actions of a daring adventurer, finding his way through the castle of a dark wizard, who has enchanted it with treacherous monsters and obstacles. In the mysterious caverns below the castle, your odyssey continues against the awesome forces that oppose your efforts to reach the Dragon’s Lair. Lead on, adventurer. Your quest awaits.â€
The original Unreal demo that came with my Packard Bell PC is what got me into gaming
ran at 320×240 res like a dream
at higest res, it would go from frame to frame by actually refreshing downward….
that was the slowest framerate I have ever seen up to this date
I also installed it w/out my mothers permission because it was rated M, the picture of the Skarrj on the front just made my pre-adolescent mind go OMG THAT LOOKS SO COOL….
of course, I took it to her asking if I could install it… she said no, knowing of the ESRB.
Later on I wised up and started it up. I still remember thinking
“I dont think i’ll start single player just yet”
“Bot match, hmmm robots seems neat”
and then I started up, and fired the dispersion pistol, “OOOH WIZARD LIKE”
(my short attention span didnt allow me to think of how robots and wizards contradicted each other)
and from there on in, I realized what I was getting into, it wasnt wizards or fantasy, it was what in my mind became the definitive Sci-fi experience. Sure, I had played many sci-fi console games, but this, with its realistic look, and the fact that it made me feel alone, not to mention the violence, made me realize what I was missing out on.
The time that I had started the demo, the Original UT was already out, and when I got online and started doing research, UT03 was soon being heard of and I was excited as ever. I jumped from the demo of U1, to UT03 not even playing UT99 or the full version of U1, the demo got me hooked that much….
that’s interesting that a demo got you into gaming. I guess I’m starting to get so old. We didn’t have demos when I started gaming lol.
I won’t go into detail (like a story) but it was definitly starcraft. Best. Game. EVER.
The first game to really grab me by the nards was Gauntlet. My friend and I would skate down to this local deli which just happen to have a few machines inside. I must’ve stole a million times from my mother’s purse just to play it.
Eventually, Red Alert 2 turned me into a serious gamer, and a serious loser.
I remember when i was six years old and my brother just got Age Of Empires II for his birthday. The first time he let me play it i thought it was super cool and i couldn’t stay away from it. On the weekends i used to get up at six o’clock in the morning and sneak on the computer in the study just to play it even a little bit.
If you mean which game turned me into someone who loved games and wanted to play them all the time – Planescape: Torment
I think the first game that turned me into a gamer would have to be Dragon Warrior for the NES. I played that game for hours and hours
hmmm, it would have to be Total Annihilation, one of the best games ever!!!! perhaps even… duh duh dummmm Duke Nukem 3D, which my dad introduced me to at the age of… 11 ish i think…
The game for me was Star Trek: Elite Force. It is a fast paced FPS, and it got me hooked into the world of FPS games. And wouldn’t you know it, even to this day, i reconfigure the control layouts of any FPS’s i play to the control scheme from Elite Force, dang, that is a great game.
I truly think I was hooked from the age of six, when the fair came to town and I played Boot Hill. Big thumbs up to Brandon’s Gauntlet mention though, the first trul addictive team based game.
Monkey Island.
Doom.
The year was 1998. The game was Half-Life. I had played several video games before then, but that was the one that made me truly appreciate video games.
I’d have to say that Wolfenstein 3D was my first game that I got hooked on (when I had my old 486), but I don’t consider that making me a true gamer, as I didn’t have machines that were good at gaming back then. I really became initiated once I was exposed to Quake 3 Arena, after which I had my friend build me a PC for gaming. After that, I never stopped
Street Fighter 2
Zork I. Mom took me to the Apple Store and the salesman sat me down with a copy of Zork and the next think I knew it was a half hour later and they were telling me I had to leave. I was totally hooked.
Diablo. No question.
as far as i can remmember , playing DOOM II on my crappy old computer was probably one of the first games i ever played. i loved how everything was “so realistic”.
GTA 3 on ps2 need i say more…
The Year, 1994.
The Game: the first console FPS: Duck Hunt.
Street Fighter II. End of (love) story.
Bards Tale I
I’m as old as dirt it seems
Socom II for the Ps2 got me heavy into it.
OK I’m really dating myself (not like, DATING myself, making myself look old…
) … Anyway, the first game that got me hooked was Ultima I. I talked my mother into spending $600 on an Apple IIe just to play it.
There have been many others since then… Notables are: the Zork series, Wasteland, Red Alert, Age of Empires II, Wolfenstein 3D and then the Quakes (especially Quake III.), Counterstrike, Battlefield 2.
Of course, the ones that I have spent days upon days wit: Ultima Online, Everquest, and now… World of Warcraft.
The game that got me into gaming was the same as Ex0du5’s; Duke Nukem 3D. And after I beat the single player a few times I started playing online which is what really got me into multiplayer gaming.
Mappy Land for NES
The old Ultima games, yes starting with those on the old Apple //e and other old computers like the early IBMs. Ultima still is and always will be one of my favorite storylines and worlds..
I would have to say that I was a game from a very young age. I can remember playing space invaders on a Texas Instruments computer, I don’t recall the model, but it was just before the C64 came out I believe. That system was my intro. Then my brother and I shared a Sega Master system and we played the hell out of the wonder boy games, and my personal favorite, space harrier. After the master system, I was done with games, other than playing at a friends place from time to time.
I was re-introduced to the world of gaming after I bought my firs PC, I had other PC’s but this was the first one that was MINE in my own place! It was a 486 dx2 at 66mhz that managed to o/c to 80 mhz, it was crazy! Quake turned me hard core! I couldn’t really play quake on that box, so I had to buy a new one. And then with the newer pc, I discovered a sierra screamin’ 3d video card with the Rendition Verite chip. This chip was actually way ahead of it’s time in terms of tech, it just didn’t have the horsepower of a 3dfx card. But when I fired up VQuake,(rendition’s eq to glquake, not quite as good, but close) that was it, I haven’t looked back since and gaming has not only been a major part of my life since, but I’ve introduced my children to gaming on the pc, on a console, games is just part of our lifestyle now, and we all love it.
I can still remember playing GL Quake via modem against my step dad, that and warcraft2 via modem as well. The battles were epic!
Duke Nukem 3D, thanks to this game by the time I was actually old enough to go to a strip club I knew exactly what to expect for my dollars.
The game that really took my life away from anything real world would definitely be starcraft, huge downhill turning point in my life.
Cool article !
2 games come to memory.
First was Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight. The thrill of slicing through stormtroopers with my father’s lightsaber was unlike any other game I’d ever played. Me and my middle school friends would all hop on the zone and play matches with new maps and mods we got from The Massassi Temple.
The second was System Shock 2. This was the game that truly made me feel that games could do more than entertain, they could be art. It scared the hell out of me, it came to me in dreams, it gave me a whole new appreciation of Alien. This is what made me think “This is what games are about”, it’s what kept me around to this day. (And waiting for Bioshock like you wouldn’t believe)
Hmm the old AD&D CRPGs by SSI, the gold box ones, like Gateway to the Savage Frontier, those I’d play for hour son end as a kid, still would if they’d run well under windows
my god i feel old. Does anyone remember wasteland? that’s what got me into games, of course, everyone’s heard of Fallout, the unofficial sequel of wasteland
I think it was Escape Velocity, back in 1997. I’d played games for years before that, but EV was the one that truly got me addicted. Now I’m going to school for video game design…
Pong!!!
– Yeah I’m that old.
I bought a pack of jewel cases with a demo of warcraft orcs&humans and I’ve been with it ever since. Also another pack with a Thief demo and now I am sneaksie!
Def Dragon Warrior for me too. Excellent Attack!
Old dos games on our old dos computer back in the late 80s early 90s. From there to nintindo, gameboy, gamegear sega and StarCraft was the first real windows game I ever got into. GOGOGO.
The first game I remember being very serious about was Combat on the 2600. I was only like 7 when we got ours, but I was hooked on games since then.
first streets of rage 2
then TeraNova got me back into it.
I used to love DareDevilDennis on the BBCB Micro.
But as for proper “ok, just another half an hour” gaming, Elite, again on the Beeb ate literally months of my life. The next few years were mediocre, but then along came Robocop 3 on the Atari ST, and the keyboard-mouse FPS combo was etched deeply and permanently into my being. Yes, Robocop 3 was actually a really good game, and worth every moment spent swapping floppies.
Amen! I will never ever forget Dragon’s Lair. Nerd alert: do you remember that the game was also in the Stratton’s mansion in the show Silver Spoons? I’d actually watch the show just to catch a glimpse of the arcade cabinet, that’s how obsessed I was with it. It was amazing, and between that and the Tron arcade game I was hooked on gaming forever.
I also HAD to own it once it came to Sega CD!
Ahhh, the early days of College. Late nighs playing Red Alert with themes. We’d all name ourselves something Russian sounding and drink vodka and listen to cheesy Russian sounding CDs until the wee hours of the morning. The first real multiplayer realtime strategy game I got into…
I remember what we would call “roaching” … basically your whole army would be destroyed except maybe one lone technician or tank and you’d run around looking for crates, hoping for a mobile construction unit to secretly rebuild your army in a corner of the map. Sometimes it would blow up and that would be the end of your game or you’d inadvertently discover one of the bases and get your poor last man zapped by a tesla coil.
Good times.
Well, this may seem unbelievably cliche, but the game that introduced me to the gaming world was Super Mario World. My brother was dieing of AIDS at the time and, being around five, I didn’t know that he was dieing, so when he let me play his games I was stoked. We visited him a lot during that time and I played his games a lot. Eventually my mom told me that he died and that he gave me his Super Nintendo and his games for it. It will definitely be something that I will never get rid of, physically or mnemonically, for it is the only thing that I have of his.
It was actually because of him that I was allowed to play videogames. Until then, my mom wouldn’t allow videogames in the house EVER! Sort of mixed feelings about the whole thing…
The game that dragged me into the life to never look back was Dragon Warrior for the NES. I had played some other games for my NES like duck hunt and super mario bros. to name a couple, but nothing effected me like Dragon Warrior. I have been an avid RPG player since then. I guess I’m getting old too cause I’ve been playing for 20 years now. No demos when I started either, and also no place to rent games in my town.
Starsiege….
Dungeon Master on the Atari ST, then on the PC.
I am old, yes, I know
2 games.
The original Castle Wolfenstein (no, not the FPS) and Wizardry, Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord. I returned to gaming via WC3 and now I play WoW a bit. I am really more waiting for SC2 tho.
pwn ya noobs!
That would be the first game I ever played – Moon Patrol for the Commodore 64. I still remember plugging that cartridge into the keyboard for the first time…
http://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/moon-patrol/screenshots
Pokemon.