How young were you when you started gaming?

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bobmd13

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Mar 28, 2010
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I was about 14-16 when I started to play video games.

No consoles then, actually there was no home PC's either so it was off to the arcade for a game of Space Invaders or Galaxians.

A couple of years later, one of the mates got a ZX80 not an 81 and showed it off to all of us.

After seeing this mighty machine in action, the consensus was that home computing would never take off ( and that shows how wrong a group of people can be).

Roll on a few years after this and then it started, the ZX81,the 64 and the Dragon and the lot of us were hooked.

In at the start and still going.

Prior to 78 I did play the occasional game of Pong/ breakout but video games just were not as exciting.
 

prophecy2514

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Nov 7, 2011
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Playing pac-man on my uncles atari (2600? I think?) was my first memory gaming when I was 2 or 3, but my first system was a super nintendo when i was 4, my first game being bubsy.

Looking back on it now... what a silly silly game
 

DanielBrown

Dangerzone!
Dec 3, 2010
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When I was five years old I believe. Got my own console(sweet Playstation <3) when I was seven and that's when things really kicked off.
 

Autotelic

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May 21, 2013
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No idea, I was probably a toddler. My brother's four years older than me, so I would have watched him play games before playing them myself, and like many little siblings, I often just copied whatever he was doing.

I didn't really get into it until I was about eight though. My brother and I started playing Runescape, and I made a friend who introduced me to Pokémon and explained it was not the spawn of the devil in spite of what some people said at Church. Shortly after that I got a GBA and then a Gamecube. That would be when I first really started considering myself a gamer, and I would play every day - sometimes all day, given the chance.
 

Da Orky Man

Yeah, that's me
Apr 24, 2011
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about 6, I think. I have a really vague memory of watching my dad play Age of Empires, and me having a go after him. I also have a similar memory of Homeworld, but even more vague. My childhood memories are not very clear.
 

Saregon

Yes.. Swooping is bad.
May 21, 2012
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I think 3 or 4. We got a second-hand NES a few years before the N64 came out, with a single cartridge with Super Mario Bros., Tetris and Nintendo World Cup on it. Those were the first games I played too I think, can't remember playing video games before that, anyway.
 

Maximum Bert

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Feb 3, 2013
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Didnt really get into playing them until I was about 5 but I am not sure when I started dabbling probably about 3 I suppose my memory is real hazy around that time though. I remember the new game Outrun and playing that at the arcade with the old man on irregular occasions and that came out in 1986 according to the wiki so I shouldnt be far off.
 

Gray Firion

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Mar 5, 2012
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I was 6. Sega Megadrives and SNES were waxing out (but everyone had one) and my slightly younger brother got a yellow Gameboy Pocket with Kirby's Dreamland for his birthday. I remember both our spare times at home used to be nearly always spent on that Gameboy, until I got one myself (Blue! Fav color ^^) and a new game for each of us by my birthday next year. Best situation for all involved (even the gifters! cost was spread through the entire family for the party, not just my parents). Great birthday party ^^

Adam Jensen said:
5 year old. Surprisingly, I haven't killed anyone yet and I seem to be a very peace loving person.
I know right? It's almost as if you're *gasp* a human being. But That cannot be, surely...
 

TheColdHeart

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Sep 15, 2008
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When I was about 4-5 my friend had a NES and I used to love playing on it, still remember playing Mario and Duck Hunt for hours. Then when I was 7 I got a SNES for Christmas one year and I think I was the happiest kid ever as I had my own games console.
 

teqrevisited

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Mar 17, 2010
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I was 4 when my dad brought home a Sega Megadrive and Sonic 2, along with an armful of other games. Love that thing. I also remember when we got a PS1 and I couldn't figure out how to swim on Tomb Raider. Dad kept saying 'press square' when he meant hold it, so I would just keep tapping it until I drowned.
 

Auron

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Mar 28, 2009
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Atari 2600 around 2 or 3, it was my father's since before I was born though so it might have been even earlier but I don't think I had the coordination.

When I was 4, dad offered me a Mega Drive(genesis for weird people in North America.) and then we got a decent gaming PC and it's been a ride since then.
 

Dr.Awkward

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Mar 27, 2013
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I don't remember playing on the NES until I was 2 or 3.

...But, my mother and aunt said that I would be put in front of the console while it was on and apparently I thought I was "playing", when in reality the demo play was actually playing, and I probably didn't have or know how to use the controller at the time. So it's more likely I was born into it a spectator, and within a few years became a player.
 

OmniscientOstrich

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Jan 6, 2011
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I think I would have been about 5/6 years old, my earliest gaming memories being of me playing Super Mario Land on my Game Boy Pocket and the original Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Mega Drive.
 

Fijiman

I am THE PANTS!
Legacy
Dec 1, 2011
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I was about eight when I really started getting into gaming. I had played games before then, but I'm not really counting those.
 

TehCookie

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Sep 16, 2008
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As soon as I was old enough to press buttons, my parents put a controller in my hands before I could remember.
 

parks_86

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Nov 9, 2010
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I was 3 according to my parents. They picked up an Amstrad CPC464 in '89 and my brother and I would sit on it for hours trying to behead each other on "Barbarians" or getting more and more confused as to what the fuck was going on in "Total Recall". We had an Atari 5200 and a ColecoVision as well, but I don't remember much of those things apart from using the controllers like a phone and playing a few games like Tetris, Missile Command.

From there it was progression through the early computers - Commodore 64, early DOS systems, Win3.1, Macintoshes - and the early consoles like NES, SNES, MasterSystemII and MegaDrive. Always been a PC gamer but always had consoles around as well. Truthfully I'd say I've had a console and computer from every generation. We'd play stuff like Golden Axe, AfterBurner, Sonic 3, Shinobi, Double Dragon and Altered Beast for literally days on end. I can distinctly remember playing California Games, Commander Keen and various text-based games on multiple platforms between home, extended family and family friends' houses and even as computing "lessons" at school, and later on games like SimTower at school, then Commandos, Command and Conquer or Redneck Rampage after school.

My family was very into computer games. There's no words of thanks that accurately convey my gratitude to my uncles that helped my brother and I grow up, whether it be leaving us to play Doom or Wolfenstein for ten hours straight or showing us what strip clubs are like by making sure we could play Duke Nukem 3D without the parental block. I can distinclty remember so many videogames and their controversies in the early and late nineties, like Mortal Kombat, Rise of the Triad, Carmageddon, Road Rash, Doom, Duke Nukem, Grand Theft Auto, Quake, Unreal, Manhunt... plus so many others. My brother and I would ask "if we were going to turn out crazy" and get a huge grin from our uncles from behind a special filter cigarette and the gruff reassurance that we were going to be "better than fine - we'd be actual men."

It was great having a Mum that was fully into console gaming as well - I remember times when I'd come home from school and she would be playing on some crazy-high level of Sonic the Hedgehog 1 or yelling at Alex Kidd over a RockPaperScissors match on Sega, or split-screening Syphon Filter 2 or Twisted Metal with the PSX. Cool Mum! If a new console was coming out she'd be as excited as my brother and I - I remember she actually made the decision to get a PSX instead of an N64 because "the N64 controller was all weird" in her hand. She was also the one that helped us grow up so well-adjusted - not only with hugely violent videogames but with ultra-violent movies as well! Man... My Mum is epic!

Oh man, this thread's dragging up a shitload of memories - playing Pokemon Blue under the covers until 3am with one of those big-ass light setups on my GameBoy, playing stuff like Warcraft or Diablo for the first time, raging as a 4-year old alongside my Mum and brother when Bart vs The Space Mutants would just lock up on the Master System after only one level, having shitty broken PC speakers (because I kept using them as portable speakers) and playing racing games like Demolition Derby, Road Rash and Fatal Racing with our 80's music cranking from our 80's cassette players, staying up for the whole weekend playing GTA Vice City or SWAT3 or Half-Life with a bunch of mates living on nothing but Pepsi and pizza, the crazy flashbacks that come with phrases like "3dFX VooDoo card" or "processor turbo button", or computer cases with keylocks to stop unintended boot-up...

I miss my childhood...
 

freaper

snuggere mongool
Apr 3, 2010
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Consciously, when I was 14 (Runescape). Before that I had played many DOS games and other stuff, but not as often.
 

00slash00

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Dec 29, 2009
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i dont remember how only i was exactly. probably around 4 or 5. but i know it was mario, for the nes, that got me started. i remember watching my dad play and thinking he was the best gamer in the world because he could get to the second level