Poll: Moment You Became a Gamer?

[Chris Sharka]

My parents were gamers, though they would never think themselves as such. Tetris, LoLo, Super Mario 3, etc. My father even bought the original DnD books (if he had kept them I'd be a very happy person right now).

Though I was never technically a gamer from ages 0-4 I was destined to become one since birth.

 

[IridRadiant]

I started back in the 80's with Carmen Sandiego and Oregon Trail on the Apple IIe's at school, Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, and Pool of Radiance on my dad's Commodore 64 (later 128), and the Legend of Zelda and Mario on the ol' family NES.

I also remember a math game with robots on platforms that you had to cross the screen on the Apple IIe and a logic teaching game for the C64 that also included analogies, similes, and metaphors. Many, many times I typed: Load "*",8,1 then Run. I also remember well the Tandy 386 in the early 90's with DosShell's Gorillas and Nibbles among other Gold Box games on 3.5" disks and Win 3.1.

 

[FretfulGnome]

When Halo came out. Yeah I know it's not cool to like Halo, but who gives a fluck.

I played many games before that, but I never considered myself a 'gamer'.

 

[The_Echo]

Somewhere between '95 and '99. I was born in 1993, and we'd already had an NES and a Sega Genesis at my house. I must have started playing games when I was four or five, maybe earlier than that as I must have gained an interest in games before garnering a Game Boy Pocket around said ages.

Basically, I've been a gamer my whole life.

 

[Avatar Roku]

I've played games for a long time, my farthest back memories are from when I was 3 and I remember my brother had a SNES, although I only remember some Ninja Turtles game on it. I remember getting and playing on an N64, especially Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. I remember getting an Xbox and loving Halo, but I think the game that finally made me obsessive enough to fit into my image of a gamer was KotOR.

 

[jacobschndr]

well, this is an interesting way to see what the majority age group is on this website.

 

[Signa]

Around '86 for me. My first games were on the Commodore 64, and I played some random-ass kid's game (all I remember was typing "Menu" to run it. I also remember a forklift moving shapes around on a black screen to match them to another shape) and Donald Duck a lot.

 

[LorisBoi]

When I completed Golden Axe Warrior. I must have been about 5 or 6. That game still holds a very special place in my heart to this day. Yes my balls did fall off with joy when it was included in the Sega Collection's extras for 360.

 

[WrathOfAchilles]

I played more than my share of doom but my earliest gaming crusades were on the atari and I have faint memories of something before that which ran on floppy discs. Old floppy not the hard 3 1/2 inch ones.

 

[Slash2x]

Wolfenstein 3d Shareware version on a 3.5 in "floppy" nuff said. Every game since then gets compared to that first FPS. Beat the entire game except the boss with the knife and earned my nickname Slash from my friends.

 

[RadioKnight]

1984... Atari 2600.. Defender. Stayed up all night, rolled the level counter over.

 

[chieften]

It was March 2004 and I was in Gamestop getting Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life and I had extra cash from my birthday money I was spending, I asked the dude at the counter what he recommended and he suggested a game that came out a few months earlier, Call of Duty. I got it and was hooked. then a month later I discovered Final Fantasy XI Online and still play that shit in college now. Not to mention I joined an online gaming community that ran Call of Duty United Offensive servers and have been an admin with them for over 2 years now.

 

[Sovereignty]

Nintendo was kinda just *there* in the house. Super Mario was a hot commodity and I sucked at it.

My want to be the best pushed it forward followed by a disgusting pokemon fetish, and finally some playstation shenanigans all leading up to an Xbox live IV drip.

Yeah it was written in my DNA from day one.

 

[Kavonde]

I was five. My parents bought me an NES and Super Mario Bros. for Christmas.

The actual Transcendental Moment of Gamer Awakening, though, was probably in 1994 when I made my parents drive me to near a dozen different stores to find a copy of Final Fantasy 6, though.

 

[keillord]

For me it was in 2003 just after I completed the 3rd level of Halo: Combat Evolved on Legendary. (Still one of my favourite levels in any games I have ever played to this date.) After dying an innumerable amount of times I found myself thinking. "That...was fucking AWESOME!" Still on my high of fun I develed back whole-heartedly into the game and I haven't looked back since. I still love enjoying a game and I think that on a whole gaming has bettered my life.

When was the moment that everything just clicked and thought dawned on you, "My god I am a gamer."

What game were you playing?

What were thoughts?

What year was it?

Were you happy/depressed at the thought?

Share your stories/comments.

I never really thought about it. I have always played videogames since I was a kid. I guess I have always been a gamer.

 

[Slash2x]

I knew I was a gamer when my dad came home with a circuit board that could be inserted into the cartridge slot of an Atari 2400. (This is the era when four color graphics was a technological REVOLUTION, and some computer games had no graphics at all (ZORK, anyone?).) The circuit board allowed me to place different games/chips into a slot on its surface. The next day, he took me to work with him, and we spent a few hours writing our choices of games onto dozens of chips. I was the only kid on the block to even HAVE a game console, let alone a library of games.

I also remember playing an actual PONG video game machine in a 7-11. My opponent WAS Jesus, and he kicked my ass.

Lol my dad gave me a Commodore 64 and pages of code that turned out to be space invaders. Had to rewrite the damn thing if the system got shut off, until he bought a blank to save it on.

 

[Booze Zombie]

Around when I was ten (ten years ago), I played Duke Nukem 3D and that started me off down this wonderful path of violence, titties and fine stories (and not-so-fine stories).

 

[RussetRanger]

Sort of been on-and-off, but I started getting into it with GTA3 back when I was 13 (I'm a bad wittle boy I know).

 

[blindthrall]

When I grew the balls to turn god code off in DOOM. Keep in mind, I was 11, and this was the first game I ever played.