How did your gaming evolve?

[Galliam]

That was vague, but I couldn't really think of a very succinct way to say what I meant. So my question is this: How did your life as a gamer, start and evolve to your present day tastes? What games did you play as a little tyke, and what do you do now in gaming?

As a kid, we just didn't have that many consoles but we always had a PC and a decent amount of games. We had a nintendo, and my brother had a sega genesis that I wasn't allowed to play.

We would play Mario Bros 3, American Gladiators, Wheel of Fortune, RBI baseball, Tetris, Double Dragon and some random jump out shooter whos name I can't remember. These were the early days when I only had an NES. lets say 93 - 96 or so. My brother had Played on his Genesis, but I played it so little that I wouldn't count any of those games towards my personal evolution.

I definitely went towards PC gaming when my dad brought home our first PC. With it came game CDs that he probably pulled out of the bargain bin somewhere, but we didn't care, cause the games were AWESOME. There were TONS of games, but I'll list my favorites. O.M.F. 2097 was at the top of my list. I spent HOURS modding that game with the little tools I downloaded from the internet. I played Xargon, Jill of the Jungle, Duke Nukem 1 & 2 fairly consistently, but I had a hard time as a kid with platformers. Other favorites include Magic Carpet, Sim City (and every other sim game), Major Stryker, Commander Keene, Terminal Velocity and plenty of others that I can barely remember. Then came a time around 1999 where I stopped gaming altogether in favor of well I don't exactly remember what all I got up to, but I wasn't buying new games other than pokemon for my gameboy. (literally my only game boy game)

I finally got back into consoles around 2004 when a friend gave me his PS2 and xbox with all his games for both. I took no time modding them both with hard drives (I was a bad kid, I know). I played some of the games he gave me and bought a few of my own. I spent time playing Fatal Frame, Jade Empire, Halo 1 and Halo 2, Soul Calibur 3, both KotORs (on xbox and pc) Battlefront 1 and 2, x-men legends and ultimate alliance. This was the point in my life where I got into RPGs hard, and I started PC gaming again when a friend introduced me to Diablo. Not long after I bought a WoW account and spent a year playing WoW and Halo 2 exclusively (in college)

When the 360 came around, I never bothered to buy one, and once again got left behind for a few years by technology. Finally I built my current PC, which is made for games, bought Dragon Age Origins, Mass Effect, ME2 etc and now I but pretty much any RPG that looks decent.

So I'm going to ask the community to take a little time and tell me how you got to where you are today. Im curious to see how others came up.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Contra and Mario were my gateway drugs.
Legend of Dragoon and Grandia made me shift my focus to JRPGs.
NIS practically raised me the next generation.
Got hooked on Atlus.
I OD'd on Bethesda and Bioware next.
I am now a NIS, Atlus, Bioware, Bethesda, and Aksys junkie who needs his RPG fix.

 

[DanielBrown]

Not sure about the first game I played, but I think it was NES/SNES at a friends home when I was probably around 6. A year later or so I got a Playstation from my mother with Spyro the Dragon and Crash Bandicoot. Played those games like crazy.
The other major shift was when I started playing Final Fantasy. I think I was around 9-10 when I played FFVIII at a friends home. After that I bought the avalible games for PS(FFIX had pretty recently just been released!).

When I begun in a new school and started hanging out with the "cool" kids, Counter-strike was the recent fad. We'd sit in internet cafés and play pretty much on a daily basis. Sometimes we'd even spend an entire night there. It was my first encounter with online gaming.
Took a stop there though. When I was 13-14 I got more intrested in drinking my head off whenever possible and listening to music, so I didn't do much gaming. At the age of 16 I got introduced to WoW however, which kept me occupied for years.

Now I got both a 360 and PS3, which I've bought tons of games to, and I play a lot of different MMO's. Currently LOTRO is the one for me, and it will probably stay that way for a few years to come... hopefully!

 

[baseracer]

Super NES to N64 to Gamecube to PS2 to PC

A few years ago, I went through a phase that I loved everything Valve.

 

[Galliam]

Not sure about the first game I played, but I think it was NES/SNES at a friends home when I was probably around 6. A year later or so I got a Playstation from my mother with Spyro the Dragon and Crash Bandicoot. Played those games like crazy.
The other major shift was when I started playing Final Fantasy. I think I was around 9-10 when I played FFVIII at a friends home. After that I bought the avalible games for PS(FFIX had pretty recently just been released!).

When I begun in a new school and started hanging out with the "cool" kids, Counter-strike was the recent fad. We'd sit in internet cafés and play pretty much on a daily basis. Sometimes we'd even spend an entire night there. It was my first encounter with online gaming.
Took a stop there though. When I was 13-14 I got more intrested in drinking my head off whenever possible and listening to music, so I didn't do much gaming. At the age of 16 I got introduced to WoW however, which kept me occupied for years.

Now I got both a 360 and PS3, which I've bought tons of games to, and I play a lot of different MMO's. Currently LOTRO is the one for me, and it will probably stay that way for a few years to come... hopefully!

You remind me of me, I got distracted by fun outside of gaming kinda stuff. Basically being a vagrant and general menace to my hometown.

 

[The Grim Ace]

Everyone in my family were gamers except for my parents, more of the stuffy conservative type. So, you could say I had a great deal of second hand gaming watching my uncle play Sonic, Ninja Gaiden, Streets of Rage, and Judge Dred. The first game I actually got to play was Extreme G back when I was at some day care thing back in kindergarten -- that's about when I got hooked. It took a good two years of pestering but I got my first console, an N64, in the second grade with Bomberman Hero and -- soon after -- Super Mario 64. I was still limited in my game playing time until a year later I got a GBC and Pokmon Blue. Needless to say I burned through batteries like a mad man and that is where my focus on gaming really began.

From then on I mainly stayed with RPGs, fighting games, and shooters. Things haven't really changed much since then when it comes to genres but I've moved from consoles to my PC since it's more cost effective for me. I'm not sure where I'd put Minecraft but I've been hooked on that since I first got it and I've had some long flings with Half-Life, Portal, Painkiller, and Dragon Age.

 

[Alithia]

I used to sit on my big brother's bed and watch him. As a little girl I idolized him and wanted to do everything he did. He played Tribes at the time and I would jump on his PC when he was called to take out the trash etc. I wasn't too aware of many forms of gaming, just fps PC games. He eventually let me play for longer periods of time and then counter-strike after he got half life.
When he became obsessed with WOW our gaming tastes parted company. I discovered Xbox and the Halo franchise and he ran around all day casting spells. I still play fps games but can only play on a PC because I get sick using a console.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I started playing on simple atari games when I was about 5 or 6. I think my dad wanted me to be a boy because he always bought everything computer related that I asked for. (After he realised I was a spaz at most sports ) I remember getting told off because I had sneaked downstairs and set up my new atari console I had gotten for christmas.

A little while after that we went to a friend of my sisters house and played on alex kid, so that was it I wanted a master system. I carried on with getting every console (usually second hand lol we weren't rich) up until the playstation then I started getting interested in PC gaming. I would play FPS games non stop on the PC and but still carried on with JRPGS and suchlike on my consoles.

I tend to keep to PC now although I do have a PS3 and XBOX for exclusives. I also have a DS and I enjoy playing that for some lighthearted fun. My nephew has my wii atm I bought him a ds for his birthday a couple of years ago aswell.

 

[tharglet]

As a kid, I liked to play the sonic games and columns mainly on the Megadrive (Genesis for the American lot). The first PC my family got came with Assault Rigs, Wipeout and Mechwarrior. Of the three, Assault Rigs was my fave lol.
My parents bought my brother Half-Life, which I played a lot, but didn't complete all the way through properly for a long time (used to get stuck and load levels at random and play through them), and that was the start of my love of FPSes lol.

 

[wolas3214]

I grew up a pokemon addict, Made my parents buy me the cards and i had every single poke-game to come out(and beat them and consequently traded them with my other 1st grade pals... .yknow come to think of it my first theft ever in life was stealing some kids shiny charizard card) and everysingle hand-held system to come out i also played alot of jurrasic park warpath on the ps1

Today im nostalged hard because i dropped off at SP and black/white and SS and HG are seriously making me want to go out and buy a DS. I play mainly RPG's and RTS now. Mainly rpg, and i think i have pokemon to thank for that.

 

[CAPTCHA]

First games I played were on Atari, but I was very young then and can't remember much of it.
My first computer was an Amstrad 128 that was hande down from my dad.
First console was a Sega Master System, which I later upgrade to a Sega Megadrive.

My Golden Age of gaming came in the mid ninties starting with a 386 and later a 486 DX/100. This introduce me to most of the genres that would shape my current interests (stratergy, rpg and shooters). Towards the end of school I got myself a PS1 and was introduced to JRPGs, a genre which hasn't endured as well as the other for me, although I'm prone to revisiting them every so often via emulators.

After leaving home I couldn't afford a PC so I was stuck with consoles. Over time I've owned nearly every console, though none have been as memorable as my golden age systems.

I recently sold all my consoles to help fund building a PC. The final part of my PC should arrive later this week (yeah!), so I guess I'm going to be a PC gamer once more. I hope that it'll impress me more than the consoles of the last decade have.

 

[Joshica Huracane]

I started off with Alex Kidd in miracle world and sonic on the sega mastersystem.. then moved on to crash bandicoot on the PSone. From there, it's all rather blurry, but I had always liked racing games and platformers. Then one day I just thought, bugger it, lets try something new. And now I like shooters, rpgs, platformers, hack and slash... really anything that doesn't involve me sitting in a command centre in the sky ordering the faceless, nameless cannon fodder to do my bidding. Never got into RTS... dunno why. Oh and JRPG's. Just no... I can accept that people like them, but they miss their mark with me.

 

[Saelune]

Well, I started with the NES and mostly played Mario Bros and Gauntlet. My parents had a Genesis, but at the start I played the NES more because it was in my room. When we moved, the Genesis was in the basement so I played it more, primarily Sonic 2, but also Dune II. I also had a Gameboy, my first own game device, playing Donkey Kong Country and eventually Kirby's Dreamland 2.

I would somehow end up playing Duke Nukem 3D and Quake on PC, but then I got my own N64 and that and the Gameboy took my time up. I mostly played Ocarina of Time and Mario 64, but later on Duke Nukem 64 and Mystical Ninja starring Goemon (and why I think I am a Japanophile) would become games I rented constantly, along with Ogre Battle 64. During this time I would rent tons of games from Blockbuster each week. I would try out many games, but often re-rented many games I loved, never thinking just to buy them. As for Gameboy, I played Pokemon, and many other games I bought on a whim from Toys R Us, including Dragon Warrior Monsters, and some other monster focused smaller games.

Ultimatly, I like variety...and monster owning/raising. Hard to say what specifically lead to what, but I got used to mature themes early on, and again, Mystical Ninja made me love Japan, particularly its traditional culture.

I could have become a PC gamer, but I prefered playing games too much to focus on making PCs be able to play games. (Hence why I hate being stereotyped, since I have the heart of a PC gamer, but I like the simplicity console offers in actually playing games, and the intuitive way I use a controller over a keyboard and mouse)

 

[NerfedFalcon]

-The game that really helped my skills in games evolve was actually Croc 2. If you've never played it, it's a hub-based 3D platformer with a few levels that I simply wouldn't do as a kid. And then eventually, I started going further into each level. And further. And further, until I'd managed to clear all of them. Then I went through them all again, and eventually beat the game %100. I was really proud of myself that day.

Nowadays I can do all that with about five hours assuming I don't have any breaks, but that's what really got me to evolve as a gamer. Besides that, Left 4 Dead 2 eventually pushed my focus onto first-person shooters for a while, I grew up with Pokemon and that's why I prefer JRPGs to WRPGS, there's a few good reasons why I think Sonic is better than Mario...The list goes on.

And most of my knowledge of Japanese folklore that came from video games, came from Touhou. (I've never played Okami, BTW.)

 

[The Wykydtron]

The original Rayman on PS1 (it was awesome) Then everything blurs into a massive Croc/Rayman 2 fest, until my first FPS which i think was Halo i might remember wrong but it was the best FPS i'd played up 'til that point... Oh and KOTOR offically made me love Bioware and i probably missed half the stuff in it, it also made me start paying attention to gaming news rather than just picking random shit off the shelves

 

[TH3_D15HWA5H3R]

as a kid i used to sit and watch my dad playing streets of rage on the good ol' sega megadrive. from then on i got my first gameboy started playing small, you know tetris and such, just time passing games really... until the nintendo 64, and legend of zelda... that changed me, i became obssessed i played through every save file completing it 100%.

After that it was the gamecube and the GBA i played any game at first but i was holding out for zelda once again, after wind waker completion became an norm, finding evry hiddin item, every secret area in every game.

As the years of the gamecube went by i found my self in love with gaming more and more, i wanted to get in to the gaming industry, any aspect from retail to gam design, i just wanted to be invovled in it somehow.

i went through school working hard until i got my brand new 360, the threat of a red ring didnt boher me, too me, the x box was perfect for casual gaming throughout the week and hardcore gaming on the weekend. as the years continued i found my self with various jobs, too pay for my addiction, until i got at GAME.

I now own the Wii, PS3, 360, 3DS and hundredsof games. I manage the local GAME storea and have recently submitted my portfolio at ANU to get a degree in game design... all and all i think my evolution as a gamer has been quite an amazing one

 

[teqrevisited]

Spoiler: Spoilered for length

I started off playing the Sega Megadrive. Mostly Sonic 1 & 2, but I also tried to play Fatal Labyrinth and Super Hydlide (Still haven't finished that damn game...). I played Golden Axe and Streets of Rage with friends round at a child minder's house too. Slightly before that I'd played on the SNES round another friend's house, Super Mario Land, Super Ghosts n Ghouls and Street Fighter 2, but I've never owned a Nintendo console.

A while after, dad came home with a shiny new Playstation and for the next few years I played things like Tomb Raider (1-5) Command & Conquer, Worms, Doom etc. Shortly after that he bought me my own console and along with it things like Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, Road Rash, Abe's Oddysee & Exoddus and all Final Fantasy titles on the PS1.

Skip a few years down the line and I'd ended up with my very own pc. Granted it was a dinosaur even by the standards then but that didn't stop me from pushing its hardware to the extreme limits. 800mhz and playing things like CoD (min 900mhz) and Dawn of War (min 1.4ghz...)

I got a PS2 sometime after that, spending most of my time on Gran Turismo 3 & 4, FFX, Devil May Cry 1-3, Red Faction, SOCOM, NFSU and, of course, GTA:VC / SA.

A couple of years later my pc power significantly increased and I played CoD 2 & 4, all of the orange box, BF2, C&C3 and WoW. More recently I upgraded again and have since played things like BF:BC2, Metro 2033, Fallout 3 & NV and some slightly older titles my hardware had kept me from (Example: Bioshock).

 

[darth.pixie]

Mario, Jasper's Journey, Crystal Caves, Supaplex...pretty much anything of that formula.

Eventually evolved into FPS, action and RTS. Then I played Baldur and it was mostly RPGs.

 

[Trolldor]

Charmeleon has reached level 36.

What? Charmeleon is evolving!