Potentially HOVER! on the ol' Windows ME machine iirc.

Age of Empires 2 also comes to mind.

I think it was Lost Vikings on an old DOS laptop.

Mario Kart on N64

Good old Pokemon Yellow

Roadrash and prince of Persia

Going to my step dads house when my mom first started dating him and playing Pitfall on his Colecovision in the late 80's. I was 3.

I think it was Adventure on the Atari Flashback 2

Hard to say, but possibly Spectron for the Spectravideo SV-328. The first game I remember really having an impact was Super Mario Bros. Played it at my friend's house and afterwards I begged my parents for a NES. That was a happy Christmas.

either Super Mario Bros. on a famiclone or Circus Charlie.

I remember being spooked the fuck out by those "fire rings". man, they looked and still look otherwordly. the whole game gave me creeps.

Minecraft Buzzy Bees update. I still remember my first few days on the school computers, getting ore, digging a hole, finding a village...

I don't have the world anymore, but I have, as you say, fond memories.

River Raid for the Atari 2600

super mario bros on one of those NES bootlegs that have "16000" games while in reality it's more like 50 60 pirated games repeated across the whole list. remember i couldn't finish the second level really couldn't time the moving platform jump over the hole. it was fun.

Microsoft Adventure

Math Munchers on one of the old school Mac desktops.

Iirc it was a Sega Master System racing game. Can't remember the name.

Xonix lol

Boulderdash 2 and Kickstart 2 on the Commodore 64.

Descent. My dad had a joystick setup for it and I remember being stunned by the graphics and the ability to fly around

Either Combat or Pitfall on Atari 2600.

Blew my toddler mind. Which happened again the following year when Santa delivered an NES for Christmas with Super Mario & Duck Hunt.

My first gaming experience was when I was stuck in the hospital for days due to surgery on my feet when I was super young. My mom's friend let me borrow her kid's NES and, as I couldn't get out of bed, I did nothing but play River City Random, Super Mario Brothers, and one other game I no longer remember.

I doubt it was the literal first game I played, but Ghouls n' Ghosts for the sega genesis was my favorite as a kid, with sonic 2 as a VERY close second

Mazogs on my godparents ZX81. The game was basically navigating a maze and occasionally fighting spiders. Which was a luck based thing where you just ran into them and waited for the result. Not very exciting but novel at the time.

But it probably wasn't the very first game. I grew up in a tiny coastal tourist town that had four arcades. So it's more likely the earliest games I played were in them but I don't have a defined 'first' memory. They were fairly ubiquitous arcade games so: Space invaders; Donkey Kong; Pac-man; Asteroids; Frogger; Pole position; Paper boy; Lunar lander, etc.

I think the first game that I ever got addicted to (partly because I had the pocket money to sustain the addiction) was Ghosts and Goblins. Been chasing that buzz ever since lol.

Man I don't remember I was like 1. Probably kidpix or something like that lol. Some of my earliest memories are watching my dad play Doom though

Probably something on the Amstrad CPC computer, and I couldn't tell which game specifically.

I had the Donkey Kong arcade port on it, ironically better than the NES one because it had the full 4 levels instead of just 3.

Other game of note was Jet Set Willy. Despite the simplistic style that game was creepy as hell to me. The intro music was a pretty good 8-bit rendition of the Moonlight Sonata. Not sure how much of this is due to the game, but that music still kind of gives me the creeps.

Then on that computers I had lots of forgettable games, often in compilations. And a few bad ports (Salamander a.k.a Life Force), okay ones (Contra) and a very late addition of Lemmings, probably the best game I had on it yet not the best version of the game by far.

I got a NES as a secondary gaming platform at some point. Super Mario Bros 1 and 3 were not the first games I played, but after playing so many crappy platform games on the CPC they definitely had a huge impact on what I still consider good game design now.

I think it might have been Falcon 3.0?

Either btd5 on pc or Block dude on a ti calculator

I don't really remember. Maybe Kirby on my aunts Gameboy?

Edit: Should read the whole post instead of just the title. So it'd probably be Bomber Jack. It was on a Gameboy cartridge with other games my dad got me when I was in the hospital as a kid (don't remember what for).

Backyard Football and Baseball for PC. I'm pretty sure there were some earlier puzzle games but those two had me loving sports and stats for years.

Mario kart on the Wii. still load it up on occasions to play with friends

It was either the dungeon crawl game "Eye of the Beholder" or a Japanese translated strategy game “Romance of the Three Kingdoms III” on a floppy, around 1991-1993 I think.

The first game I played was somewhere between those Disney Storybook Games on PC, and the Tonka games. And sitting on my Dad's lap playing Police Quest and Wolfenstein 3D Shareware. Eventually we got a PS1 with non-point and click games with Spyro the Dragon and I think Crash Bash and CRT. Can't remember which one we played first.

Fond memories i have of Golden Axe and Warcraft 2. They werent my first games. But ones i played alot. My Dad had an Amiga and the only game i can remember by name is Golden Axe :) maybe Gianna Sisters too

It's weird reading through the posts and seeing how vivid these moments are for some. I think I may have a memory problem because it's honestly hard to say what I played first. It was sometime around 1988, and my guess is original Mario for NES since it's the first console my parents got, and it came with it. I remember playing it but it's hard to say if it was the first since I may have played something at a relative or friend's house. Played a lot of random NES games after that. My parents also owned an intellivision so it could have been something on that as well.

Scarab of Ra

The very first game I remember was Alex Kidd on Master System II, my mother was always playing it!

The very first I played was probably NFS 3 on PC with my father. I remember playing it during the 1999 Athens earthquake aftershocks and getting scared

how about the earliest game that had a profound impact on you? Ultima Exodus for me. it had an immersive world you could explore way bigger than zelda. lots of hidden side quests and some mind-blowing secrets. i mean, tracking the phases of the twin moons was actually part of the game. some of the secrets were essential to completing the game which is why i never was able to complete it until i used a walk-through years later.

years later as a veteran DM, it was absolutely the most influential game i ever played.

Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door on GameCube. I am super excited for the switch remake.

Crash Bandicoot was also my first game! I was only around 2 years old give or take. I enjoyed the NES and Sega genesis a lot more until I got a bit older as it was easier to get the hang of.

The second game I saw(but did not play) was tomb raider. It made me cry when the wolves jump scare you in the first level lol.

First i remember playing was Pitfall Mayan Adventure on pc, through an emulator. First I finished, Dark Souls Remastered, last year

Technician Ted

I think it's either Super Mario Land on gameboy, or Super Mario Bros on NES. I can't remember which.

Probably "ports of call" on PC. Still haven't found an actual modern version of it. There were some half assed attempts in recent years, all with such huge flaws that they still haven't managed to be considered "playable".