Use this thread to share some of your earliest memories of video games.
The big three for me as a child were the Atari 2600, Commodore 64, NES, and arcade machines. The Atari was just there, some friends had them and I would occasionally have the privilege of playing Adventure, Missile Command and other games. Simple, amusing and quick. Granted, even for an imaginative kid it was hard to figure out what to do. I'd look at the illustration on the cartridge and try to figure out the story and goals. IIRC, at least one person even had an old Pong system.
Soon after it came out, I had a chance to play Super Mario Brothers at another kid's house. After being used to Atari, I was amazed at the graphics. Mario shot pepperonis and when I made it past Level 1-1 I thought the game was over. Dropping into 1-2 found me having met my match. Couldn't make it past that level my first time playing. Fortunately, my dad got me an NES for Christmas in '88 (I thought it was '87, but according to Wikipedia, the Super Mario/Duck Hunt cartridge was not out then). After watching my dad cuss and grunt trying to connect it I was finally in business. Amazing how much harder it was to hook up an RF cable back then was compared to today's home theater components. I'd attempt to memorize the manual and spend hours playing Super Mario, trying to shoot that stupid dog and looking in Nintendo Power and at cheat books for the shortcuts. Those old NES cartridges worked great in the trailer park as well. Much more durable than today's DVD-based games, they saw steady trading amongst a group of us kids. I'd trade my Bump 'n Jump for someone's Castlevania II, then trade that for Super Mario 3. Of course, sometimes it was hard to get your game back. I remember not wanting to give Bionic Commando back to the kid who had my Jaws cartridge. Erol's was a great place to rent games, prior to Movie Time and Video World moving in and Blockbuster buying Erol's out. Babbage's at the mall was the place where T&C Surf Designs and other games were bought. The Game Genie probably came from there as well, it was a Christmas present and one which ruined me for life (still have it, the SNES Game Genie, and a game Shark or Action Replay for just about every system I own).
Before I even got my own NES, however, I was faced with a dilemma. Granted, the NES was the most successful system, but the Atari 7800 and the Sega Master System were both going strong as well. The Master System had those cool 3-D glasses and the electronics section of Montgomery ward had displays of it as well as the NES, making it hard for an eight or nine year old to decide. Throw in the Sears Catalog, with its pictures and descriptions of all three systems and each game, and the problem was exacerbated. It wasn't a simple matter of checking online at reviews, or looking at exclusive games (though having Super Mario didn't hurt the NES). Needless to say the NES did win out as it was not only my choice but the choice of millions of others.
The Commodore 64 was another early game system to me. My stepfather owned it and considered himself somewhat technologically savvy. He would play golf for hours on end, but if I were home sick or otherwise home without him being there I would have a chance to play. Ghostbusters was one of "my" games, as was a flight game where you faced off against space invaders.
Then there was the arcade. The Farm Fresh grocery store had a Rampage machine and I would manage to bum quarters every week to play it while the parents were checking out. Later, Farm Fresh became The Grocery Store and the Rampage machine was replaced by P.O.W. Pac-Man or Mrs. Pac-Man machines were at local Pizza Huts in the form of tabletop machines and Dairy Queens (uprights), and other games such as NARC.
By the time I got my SNES I was very interested in video games, and appreciated the more complex games and graphics the 16-bit systems offered. By that time I was a teenager and had outgrown the naivete of my youth. I knew Super Mario spit fireballs instead of pepperoni, that games consisted of more than one or even ten stages, that games I used to love were actually quite crappy (c'mon, Ghostbusters?). In retrospect, it was great growing up experiencing the rebirth of video games, and watching giants born (Nintendo) and killed (Atari). Though I still have some great memories extending well into the '90s and even 2000s many of my fondest memories of video games are my earliest. When GI Joe was still my primary pastime and acorn fights were the norm for bored kids in the trailer park. Seems like the NES changed everything. Or maybe it's just me.
