The Game...That Made You A Gamer.

[the_great_cessation]

It's hard to say but I'm going to go with Ocarina of Time. I had played games up to that point but it had always been in an extremely casual manner. I never played on my own time (outside of Pokemon which I was obsessed with. When I did game, it was almost exclusive to when hanging out with friends with the rare exception being playing handheld games on the school bus or on long car rides. Ocarina of Time changed all that. I became completely enraptured by everything in the game and Zelda became a huge obsession of mine for a good chunk of my late childhood (fueled by a mixture of my love for OOT, WW, MM and ALTTP, my hype for Twilight Princess, and their relation to both my friendships and my creative endeavors / imagination (writing stories, drawing, etc)). However, I'm hesitant to say it's what made me a gamer as my tastes were largely just Zelda, Pokemon (for a short period of time predating my infatuation with Ocarina) and any Nintendo title that referenced Zelda in some way (I got a Gamecube with Melee just to play as Link and Sheik and picked up Animal Crossing the following year just because of a few Zelda references).

However, when it came to expanding my tastes, I'd credit a slew of 3rd party titles that hit the Gamecube in 2003. The first of said titles was Soul Calibur II, which I admittedly bought day one because of the Link cameo, but would become a multiplayer staple alongside Super Smash Bros. Melee. As the year went on, titles like Viewtiful Joe, Beyond Good and Evil and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time would all broaden by horizons beyond just Zelda. In fact, the following year I would get my first non-Nintendo console (the O.G. Xbox) and it was from there that I would gain my true love of gaming. I gamed most heavily in my early teens while falling out of it in my mid to late teens. I would still play games on occasion but I wouldn't spend anywhere near as much time on them and the amount of games I played to year usually peaked at about 2 big titles a year. I though for the longest time that I was almost done with video games until 2011 when I picked up LA Noire. It completely revitalized my love of games - so that too could be seen as a title which "made me a gamer". Again, it's much to hard to pinpoint just one title...

tldr;

Up to age 7: Casual interest in video games but nothing to serious or commital
1998-2000 (7-9): Almost exclusively played Pokemon games
2000-2003 (9-12): Started to play a wider variety of games but was mostly just obsessed with Zelda (Beginning with my discovery of Ocarina of Time and peaking with the release of Wind Waker).
2003 (12): Started to gain a love and appreciation for a wide variety of games, started playing games not developed by Nintendo. At age 13, I got my first non-Nintendo console.
2004-2005 (13-14): Years of my life when I was most immersed in gaming and gaming culture; played a wide variety of games and extremly knowledgeable on the topic
2006-2010 (15-19): Fell out of love with games, played on occasion but could hardly identify as a "gamer"
2011 (20): Picked up LA Noire; revitalized my love of games through its novel gameplay, moody atmosphere, engaging story and cinematic style.

 

[joshuaayt]

My first gaming memories involve this thing:

That lead me to pick up my dad's gameboy, where I played Tetris and Galaga and F1-Race and also that mario game. It pretty much just spiralled out of control from there.

 

[Mr. Omega]

Super Mario RPG on the SNES. Great combat, great music, amazing world and fun characters. My first RPG ever, but it was what got me addicted to the genre.

 

[Reasonable Atheist]

Civilization 2, multilayer gold edition.
Picked up the habit in the 3rd grade...... cant stop, 1k hours into civ5.....

 

[NortherWolf]

The cartridge with Super Mario Bro's and Duck Hunt on it. That cemented it so damn firmly that I can never stop loving video games.
Heck, I tried to play SMB with a needle attached to my wrist when I was in the hospital, that game was that good*dreams himself back*

 

[BoogieManFL]

The first games I remember playing are Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Death Track, Commander Keen, Zork, BBS games, Tradewars, and some I can't remember on an old TRS-80 that were played off the big 5 1/4 floppy disks. I also have some vague memories of trying to play and watching my older brother play Atari games, but I was too young to do much more than Frogger.

My first long overnight gaming session was WarCraft:Orcs and Humans. I think we played that for like 14 hours straight through the night with my buddies.

But I think when it hit full force was when I saw the majesty that was Doom. We used to hook our PCs up with serial cables and play multiplayer even though the early netcoding needed tons of work and the game gradually slowed down until it stopped completely, at which point you just saved the game and restarted.


...And now I complain when my ping is over 120ms.

 

[Summerstorm]

My parents bought me a cheap LCD-Gaming device (To test if i would have fun with something like that - i wanted a Gameboy - but it was to expensive to just buy me one, they wanted to know if i REALLY liked to play and if an expensive system would be worthwhile)

Something with karate. Man i played the shit out of that thing. Got the gameboy soon after. So the cheap, weird karate-something thingie was my first game and i loved it.

First Game where i loved the story: Mystic Quest for Gameboy.

Game(s) which got me into PC gaming (On the mighty 386SX of my mother's shop): Stunts and LHX Attack Chopper

Game that made me LOVE gaming and drove me to a lifelong addiction: UFO - Enemy Unknown

 

[DrWut]

I had played video games before but the game that truly engaged me and made me into a gamer who takes games as a personal challenge was Ecco the Dolphin. That game was HARD for younger me and yet I ended up beating it.

 

[Sosa Star]

Always so hard to find that one game... but when I break it down: Aladdin for the SNES was the first real game I played and found I could actually play and beat games. Sonic 2 was where I learned about multiplayer and how much fun games were with friends. Pokemon Blue/Red was when I found it was a hobby that could be fun and have a serious time sink.

But Myst was where I learned that games can absorb you, can take you into a new and different world. Myst made me a gamer, and that's why I own 3 different copies of that game.

 

[hermes]

I have played too many to list them, but the turning points were Megaman 1 for the NES and Super Mario World for the SNES...

 

[Halla Burrica]

For me, it wasn't really a particular video game, but video games that made me go for it, at least give games a fair chance. I was fooling around in a hardware and electronics store one day, when I saw a Gamereactor magazine titled: Best Games of 2010. The cover had a bunch of different characters from different games on it, and it just immediately grabbed my attention. I grabbed it (cuz it was free) and saw all this titles, all these names I didn't know anything about, and it set my curiosity on fire.

I know, it's not exactly a game, but if I hadn't read it and started getting into gaming, there's a fair chance I would never have experienced great games like Half-life 2, Bioshock, Psychonauts, Super Mario Galaxy, Fallout 3, The Legend of Zelda (just Zelda in general, mostly), Botanicula, Virtue's Last Reward, Bastion, Portal 2, Analogue: A Hate Story and Fire Emblem Awakening.

 

[go-10]

Zelda A Link to the Past was the first game I played that I knew what I was actually doing and from there on I didn't stop playing until 95-96 but then in 97 Final Fantasy VII came out I was hooked and went on gaming until late 2003. I stopped playing games once I started college and it wasn't until 2011 that I started playing again

so yeah: A Link to the Past and Final Fantasy 7 are the primary reasons I became a gamer

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro for the PS1.

Back in elementary school, I came home and beat that game once a day and then see how far I could get through it again before my parents said time was up. Every day.

 

[MintSM]

Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was probably the first game I found to be as large as the gaming community sees all great games, but I think the game that solidified that for me was the first Bioshock.

 

[Nimcha]

I think the original Grand Theft Auto. So many hours spent in that game!

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

Definitely Ocarina of Time. Close second was Goldeneye.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

Legend of Dragoon on PS1. I still need to actually finish it, but that game left a huge impression on me as a young child. Probably going to pick it up off of the PSN store sometime...when I can be bothered to get a PS3.

 

[TheCorpseMan99]

My dad had a PS1 by the time I was born (he was about 20 at the time) and the first games I played were Crash Bandicoot, Battle Arena Toshinden, and Rogue Trip: Vacation 2012, and I loved them all.

 

[Aesir23]

While I've been playing video games since the NES, I would have to say that it was Final Fantasy 8 that made me into a gamer. Up until that point I'd really only played video games if I had nothing else to do. When Final Fantasy 8 came along it quickly became my main hobby.

I actually haven't played it in a few years. I think I'll give it another go.