First video game/arcade game you remember?

[JJBers]

What is your first video game/arcade game you remember?
I'm a bit younger than most people are on this forum, so the earliest game I can remember is Mario Kart DS...for the Nintendo DS.

[Big John]

Pong.  At the arcade, Space Invaders.

[7/8]

Sonic the Hedgehodge (the original from 1991!) on the Sega Genesis. It's 4 years older than me . My older cousin lent my family the Genesis before we bought the PSone in 2000 (CTR and Spyro got lots of play on that). Unfortunately, my parents threw out the Genesis, but I still have all my other consoles, including the PSone.

[MikeTheActuary]

I think the first such game I ever encountered was Space Invaders.  I was too short to play the original cabinet version at the time.

The first video game I ever played was almost certainly Pong on a friend's Atari (a 2600 before it was called a 2600). 

I probably played Asteroids as a table game as my first arcade game not that long after.

*sigh* I'm old.  I remember a world before Pac Man.

[Max Rockatansky]

Probably either Donkey Kong or the original Pac-Man.  I miss the heyday of the arcade beat-em-up and fighting game.  There was a lot fun as playing Double Dragon and Street Fighter II at the neighborhood pizza joint with friends.

[Duke87]

Difficult to say. For the computer we got in 1994 it would have been either Minesweeper or Solitaire. But I know I definitely played something on a system someone else owned before that... just don't remember what it might have been.

[jp the roadgeek]

Had to have been one of those classic early 80's games like Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, or a driving game like Monaco GP or Turbo.  My parents also had Pong, and I got the Atari 2600 for my 8th birthday.

Used to have this on vinyl:

[DandyDan]

Pac-Man for me all the way around. I played the arcade game version at the roller skating rink we used to go to, the Atari 2600 version on my friend's Atari, and that was the primary reason I wanted my own Atari 2600.

[slorydn1]

Coleco had a home gaming system that had a Pong-like game loaded on it. You flipped the switch and each side had 1 stick (tennis) or 2 sticks (hockey). The controllers were hard wired into the console and the only movement was up and down. I think that was about 1978 or so.

My first arcade game was either Asteroids or Space Invaders, I'm sure I played both my first visit to the arcade I just don't remember which one I played first.

[1995hoo]

Since the thread title includes "arcade game," I have no problem saying it was probably some sort of pinball game, though I don't remember which one. The one I always found the most interesting was Haunted House, which had three playfields in the single pinball machine. If you were to restrict it to video games, probably either Space Invaders or Asteroids.

The first place I remember seeing either type (pinball or video games) of such games was at the old Time Out and Time Out 2 arcades at Springfield Mall. The number of pinball machines they had gradually declined as the number of video games increased.

The dumbest place I remember trying to play pinball was on the ferry to Newfoundland. They had a pinball machine, but the problem was that even a slightly rough crossing caused it to tilt.

[LM117]

The first I remember is Nintendo's NES console that my older cousin had (either 1993 or 1994). We were living in Belleville, MI at the Belleville Manor trailer park off of Belleville Road and my cousin, aunt and uncle lived down the road in Inkster, who were fixing to move to nearby Wayne. I got hooked on it and wanted one. On Christmas Day 1994, 5-year-old me got a Super NES, which included "Super Mario World" and "Super Mario All-Stars". "We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story" was thrown in for good measure since I liked the cartoon movie the game was based on. I had also gotten one of those red Radio Flyer wagons (without rails) that same Christmas and I put to good use...by rolling it in front of the TV in the living room, putting a pillow in it and laying my ass in the wagon while playing my Super Nintendo. I don't think that's what my folks had in mind when they bought me that wagon. That's a day I'll never forget.

I still have my Super NES and it's still going strong...for most part. A lot of the games won't save anymore because the little batteries inside the cartridges died. The controllers are also crapping out. The "Select" button in one fell out and the "Start" button in the other controller requires the hammer of Thor to mash it hard enough to make contact since it's so damn wore out.

[roadgeek01]

Most likely either Tonka truck games for PC, or the 60 in one arcade machine at a restaurant that that serves ice cream, as well as regular food.

[Takumi]

Super Mario Brothers on the NES circa 1988.

[berberry]

The first PC game I remember playing was an MS-Dos version of Solitare, in 4-color CGA graphics. Soon after that was a CGA version of Wheel Of Fortune.

I was such a pinball freak that when video games started popping up in the arcades I didn't pay a lot of attention. But then I got a job at a nightclub where they had a tabletop version of PacMan. Pretty soon I was hooked on that. From there, back at my favorite arcade, I started playing the Robotron and Joust machines. I was much better at the latter, but both were a lot of fun to play.

[berberry]

Since the thread title includes "arcade game," I have no problem saying it was probably some sort of pinball game, though I don't remember which one...

Yeah, I guess I didn't pay as much attention to that. If we want to go back to the pre-electronic era, which is when I first started visiting an arcade, then it was definitely pinball for me.

[inkyatari]

First of all, I co-host an arcade video game podcast, The Pie Factory Podcast. Every episode we talk about two classic arcade games, and tie them together with a theme.  Last episode I believe was Duck Hunt and Super Mario Brothers.  In post production are the games Two Tigers and 1942.

As for the question at hand, the first one I recall seeing was Space Invaders at the Sears store at the Louis Joliet Mall in Joliet, IL.

I like where I live because the Chicago area has so many great arcades, as you could argue most of the big players in arcade video games were located here - Williams, Bally / Midway, Stern, Gottlieb / Mylstar, Rock-Ola, and Eugene Jarvis, formerly of Williams has his own company, Raw Thrills which is based out of the area.  They just released a Space Invaders sequel called Space Invaders Frenzy, which I hear is amazing fun.

In roughly an hour from where I live we have Star Worlds arcade in DeKalb, IL, Underground Retrocade in West Dundee, Pixel Blast (Happy first anniversary!) in Lisle, the Chicago Street Pinball Arcade in Joliet, 257 - which is a restaurant arcade run by Namco - in the Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg (It takes up about a quarter of the Sears store, both levels,) and the largest arcade in the world, according to Guinness, the Galloping Ghost in Brookfield.  Sadly I don't get to many of them, because of home and family obligations and money.

As for home games, we had the Coleco Pong ripoff, Telstar.  Wish I knew what happened to it, as Pong was and is great fun.

[inkyatari]

Coleco had a home gaming system that had a Pong-like game loaded on it. You flipped the switch and each side had 1 stick (tennis) or 2 sticks (hockey). The controllers were hard wired into the console and the only movement was up and down. I think that was about 1978 or so.

Telstar.  Had it as a kid, and had great fun with it.

[inkyatari]

Used to have this on vinyl:

On episode 15 of Pie Factory, we talked to Jerry Buckner of Buckner and Garcia about the song.

Episode 15, part 1
Episode 15, part 2

[PHLBOS]

Pong at an Italian restaurant in Revere/Saugus, MA called Pasta Time circa 1974.

[mgk920]

This sort of belies my age, but the first true arcade games that I remember were the electro-mechanical relay based pinball machines (I MISS THOSE!) and an electro-mechanical relay based bowling game where one slid a metal puck style 'ball' under a rack of faux pins and the machine would raise the 'fallen' pins based on what switches were hit by that puck on each roll, also keeping score (up to four different players too!).  I seriously wonder if any of those still exist.

As for non-relay based games, the tabletop Atari Football from the late 1970s was a BLAST!

The first home computer game that I remember was a BASIC-based Star Trek game from about 1979.

Mike

[Mr_Northside]

electro-mechanical relay based bowling game where one slid a metal puck style 'ball' under a rack of faux pins and the machine would raise the 'fallen' pins based on what switches were hit by that puck on each roll, also keeping score (up to four different players too!).  I seriously wonder if any of those still exist.

The bowling machines still exist.  There are a few bars around the 'Burgh that has them.   There was a place in the Allentown neighborhood that was a skee-ball based version of that.  At some point that stopped working.

[inkyatari]

As for non-relay based games, the tabletop Atari Football from the late 1970s was a BLAST!

I hate football, but man, is that game ever fun!

[Ian]

I remember my first ever video game experience I had was with Spyro the Dragon on the original PlayStation. My father bought the PS1 when it first came out in the US in 1995 (initially for himself as I was only about a month old when it was released), then bought Spyro for me when I was around 3 in 1998 when that was released. I logged many hours on that game growing up.

[cjk374]

For me, my first & only game console was the Intellivision by Mattel. Great games like Astrosmash, Night Stalker, Maze-a-Tron (based on the 80s's Tron movie).

Arcade games would have been Pac-Man, Joust & Donkey Kong.

Us old folks had the best games when we were growing up!

[7/8]

I remember my first ever video game experience I had was with Spyro the Dragon on the original PlayStation. My father bought the PS1 when it first came out in the US in 1995 (initially for himself as I was only about a month old when it was released), then bought Spyro for me when I was around 3 in 1998 when that was released. I logged many hours on that game growing up.

Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage was one of my favourite games on the PS1. It was a cool moment when I played my PS1 in January 2014 for the first time in many years and suddenly all these memories of Spyro were coming back to me. I spent a lot of time playing that game!