First Encounters

Last week we ran a feature in which we quizzed the likes of Peter Molyneux and Cliff Bleszinski on their earliest gaming memories - their first encounters. Yesterday we turned our attention to the VideoGamer.com community, to ask once again: Do you remember the first time? Today we, the VideoGamer.com staff, recount our childhood memories.

Tom Orry aka TomO

I had played games before this, but of all my childhood gaming memories it's this one that stands out the most. I had gone with my family to stay with my auntie in Stoke-on-Trent and she had two sons who were both a few years older than me. I can't remember if I was excited about going, but I do remember playing on my cousin's Amstrad CPC an awful lot. I'm sure he had loads of games, but the one that always comes back to me is Barbarian - the game in which you could chop your opponent's head clean off.

I'm sure these days the game would have carried an 18 rating, and kids would only be able to play it in shady back alleys and underground clubs, but back then games were still seen as toys - toys in which once a head was decapitated, a small goblin creature would come along, kick the head off the screen, then drag away the body. It's this strange little critter that I can remember most clearly, more so than the game mechanics. I'm not even sure if you could fight another real person or if it was purely you against AI opponents. So, there you have it: My earliest gaming memory isn't Pong, or Mario, or Sonic, or any of those 'classics' - it's Barbarian on the Amstrad CPC.

(Check out the head-chopping here. Be warned. It's not for the faint-hearted.)

Neon Kelly aka mydeaddog

Aside from the Afterburner cabinet on Brighton pier, my earliest gaming memory is of playing a submarine game with my Dad, on a computer that belonged to a family friend. I was far too young to really understand it - especially the sections where you looked at a map to plan your route. Still, I remember being absolutely entranced by the bits where you looked through the periscope and fired torpedoes at ships - especially when you were only targeting some poor chap in an inflatable dingy. I did a bit of digging around a while back, and I'm pretty sure the game was Silent Service on the C64. That came out in 1985, and I was only born in 83, so I reckon I must have been little more than a toddler.

I also had a run-in with an ultra low-fi adventure game on a black-and-white Mac - again, the machine was at the house of a family friend. I was staying over for some reason and was allowed to play on my own. It was one of those text-based games with basic illustrations, and I remember being really freaked out by the deep ringing of an in-game belltower. I subsequently climbed the tower and then fell out of it by typing something foolish, resulting in instant death and a blood-curdling scream. The sound chilled me to my core, and I had nightmares that night... but I still came back for more the next day.

Martin Gaston aka squidman

Sonic the Hedgehog was the first game I ever played, but the first game I owned was Alex Kidd in Miracle World, built into the Master System II, which meant I didn't get to handle one of those gorgeous chunky cartridges for months after getting the machine. I was still pretty young, and I remember trying to write lyrics for the music that played over the start screen. It basically involved me singing "Alex the Kid, Alex the Kid, Alex the Kid in Miracle World" in tune with the music.

To this day I insist it is one of the cruellest games in the history of time, with absolutely no way to save your game and an abundance of boss battles that required you to play games of rock, paper, scissors. I distinctly remember one level, set in a volcano, that had a boss with a hand for a head, and I think the level that came afterwards was in a forest and started with you on a motorcycle - those were the two levels that I regularly came a cropper on.

One afternoon, though, I managed to fluke my way to one of the final battles of the game, only to fail the luck-based boss battle. I remember the rage: I think it might have been the first time I ever used the F word.

Jamin Smith aka Jamin

I suppose I would have been about four or five, that fateful day when some kid from down the road wandered over with his Game Boy. I can't even remember who he was - a boy called James, I think. Anyway, this is where it all went wrong for my poor mother: James let me have a go on Super Mario Land, and for the next couple of years, I whined incessantly about wanting - needing - a Game Boy and a copy of Super Mario Land. My life was pointless without one, I told her.

The next couple of years were indeed without point; I never did get a Game Boy.

Instead, when I was seven, after saving about three months worth of pocket money (no Mighty Max or trips to the sweet shop after school for me!), I bought a SEGA Master System II from Argos for £34.99, and my life suddenly had a purpose. While my very first video game-related memory is more than a little hazy, I can remember Sonic the Hedgehog, which was built into the console, in all its glorious 8-bit detail. This I consider my first game.

Before getting a Mega Drive for Christmas the following year, I played little else other than Sonic. I knew the perfect route through every level, the location of all six Chaos Emeralds and can still whistle the soundtrack to Bridge Zone flawlessly. This was where it all began, I suppose.

Emily Gera aka Geraface

In 1992 my idea of a great game was one that could help me realise my goal of being able to speak to orca. For this reason and many more, I begged my parents to buy me my first console: a SEGA Mega Drive (SEGA Genesis, back where I'm from), which would finally open me up to the world of Ecco the Dolphin. Ecco is the reason why at the age of seven I decided it was my life plan to become either a game designer, or a dolphin. University was the reason the former didn't happen, when my stint in programming went tits up; the latter I'm still working on. The greatest generation had World War II, but I had dolphins fighting giant squid, and that's probably just as character-building.

Tom Pearson aka TomPearson

Nigel Mansell's World Championship Racing was released in 1993, which would have made me four years old. It wasn't until a few years later that I received my first dose of wonderful gaming. My dad had brought home with him some mystical device; I hadn't a clue on what it could have been, maybe a fancy toaster. There was a slot where bread should definitely fit; yes it had to be a toaster.

No, I was so very much mistaken. It was in fact a magical blessing from the gaming gods - a SNES complete with a game close to my Father's own passion: motor racing. To me the game had it all, the speed, the competitiveness, and most of all, pit babes.

My fondest memory of this game had to be when our family went on holiday in Cornwall. My Dad and I decided to take our new games device down with us. Here we would spend hours every night trying to become world champion, something the title of the game had deceived us into thinking we could actually achieve. After many attempts we finally nailed it, and we awaited our glorious trophy, but there was none. All we got was a pat on the back and a "see you next year champ". The effort was totally not worth they pay off.

James Orry aka jtorry

I was going to write one of these, but as I began to tell people my first memory Tom piped up and said I was telling everyone his first memory. So, to save me some time go and re-read TomO's entry. Oh, After Burner in the arcades on a holiday somewhere along the south coast was another memory - not sure which came first.