The most important game from your youth

[mgb]

Just a dorky kinda a question for you all.

If you can think of all the games you played as a kid and had to pick only ONE as your favorite game
Arcade, Console or Computer.
What game would it be?

For me it would have to be the C64 version of Jumpman.
My friends and I played a lot of games every chance we got but most of all I loved going to my best friends house to play Jumpman on his C64.

The game started as a sort of copy of Donkey Kong but I just love the variety of that game.
I still love it today and my son is pretty fond of it as well.

[keilmillerjr]

Pizza joint had a sunset riders arcade machine. Yeeeehoooo!

[adder]

im gonna cheat and pick 2

for C64 it had to be airborne ranger. it's amazing how much stuff u could do in that game, lots of missions, strategies etc



and on the zx spectrum, knight lore.   just mindblowing and so creative

[yotsuya]

Moon Patrol on the Atari 2600.

[vwalbridge]

This game was released at a perfect age for me. I was just old enough to understand how to play it, yet not too old to blaze through it. A perfect balance of action and story. Totally immersive with thoughtful pacing and incredible music. Even improved upon an already amazing predecessor.

A truly flawless game.

[Phreakwars]

Hogan's Alley. Damn was I awesome at that game.

[jennifer]

   Grand prix.... Followed closely by Aztec, and Asteroids.

[ChanceKJ]

This game was released at a perfect age for me. I was just old enough to understand how to play it, yet not too old to blaze through it. A perfect balance of action and story. Totally immersive with thoughtful pacing and incredible music. Even improved upon an already amazing predecessor.

A truly flawless game.

I completely agree. For those very same reasons and more.

[mgb]

This game was released at a perfect age for me. I was just old enough to understand how to play it, yet not too old to blaze through it. A perfect balance of action and story. Totally immersive with thoughtful pacing and incredible music. Even improved upon an already amazing predecessor.

A truly flawless game.

That is s good game but it's funny for me because in those days around here, you were either an SNES guy or a Genesis guy and I had a Genesis so I never really played those snes titles until much later.
But man, I'd play some hooky in order to veg out on Sonic or Mortal Kombat.

Hell, as a teenager I even called in sick to work to play Pit Fighter

[geeteoh]

Four player Warlords on Atari 2600. We would play it all night long in my friend's basement.

[harveybirdman]

[ark_ader]

Elite on the C64

[GeoMan]

Missile Command on my Atari 2600.

[big10p]

Pac-Man (arcade). Man, I was obsessed with it. Still have 3 books on how to play, using routes. I'm still pretty crap at playing though, even after all these years. 

[yotsuya]

Missile Command on my Atari 2600.

Yeah, this would be a close second for me.

[mgb]

Four player Warlords on Atari 2600. We would play it all night long in my friend's basement.

I especially played that game a lot when I was around 20.
I had a colecovision with the atari adapter. My wife and I used to have a ball playing it.
Still one of the greatest games.

Missile Command on my Atari 2600.

Around 87, I was playing that game every chance I got on my Atari 2600 Jr.
I always played in the easy teddy bear mode though.  I was such a wuss

[EssexMame]

Elite (Acorn Electron, but on a lot of others and I had it on ZX Spectrum and Amiga later also). I could still play it now, too. I didn't have a decent enough PC for Elite:Dangerous.

[JDFan]

Missile Command on my Atari 2600.

Missed so many classes at college due to them having the arcade version of that in the lounge -- had played it enough to be able to reach the 800K point threshold that put it into test mode almost every time (actually gave 176 bonus bases since the programmers figured noone would ever get there and they had it set up for testing their code and left it in.) - would start a game in the morning and wind up playing through my classes rather than go to class !

[nitrogen_widget]

Ultima 3 on the C-64.
played that so much.
Also used a sector editor the raise my dead characters.

[Ginsu Victim]

Pac-man, the game that started this whole mess for me (though I prefer Ms Pac-man over it). After MAME came along, I really wanted to have my own cabinet, then I finally bought a house in 2007 that had room for one. Thanks to The King of Kong, my interest was at an all-time high. In early 2008, I built my first MAME cabinet and have made two others for friends. Now I need to reclaim the other part of my childhood that involved cocktail cabinet Donkey Kong every morning before school with my dad (he would've turned 70 today had he not passed away in Nov....it's been a rough day for me).

[pbj]

Bop the Bishop

[BadMouth]

Eh, legos were more important to me than video games.

I did waste a lot of time on the Mid 80's Sierra adventure games.
The Space Quest series was my favorite, but I also played through the Manhunter series and King's Quest. 
Was too young to get my hands on Leisure Suit Larry.

[DeLuSioNal29]

X-men.  They had a 6-player version at the college that I went to.  (Smash TV is a close second).  I've owned both but ended up keeping the Smash TV (X-men was WAAAAAAY too big).

D

[Vigo]

Tough question. Lots of good memories tied to some of those games. Throwing this one out there for now, because I still reference it today.

Maniac Mansion

[DeLuSioNal29]

Yeah, the Lucasarts adventure games were awesome.  I started out with Monkey Island myself.  Indiana Jones and the fate of Atlantis and Day of the Tentacle are great too.

I liked the humor way better than Sierra games (although I did enjoy the Space Quest series).

D

[deadmoney5]

The Sierra games along with Micro League Baseball on Apple IIc

Donkey Kong on Arcade

[Malenko]

Metroid for NES.


I was terrible at it, but if that game never existed then my all time fave of Castlevania Symphony of the Night would never have been made.Link to the Past is a very close second.

[Cobolisdead]

Atari 2600 - Combat. Man that game was fun!
NES - SMB3. There were a lot of games for the NES that were awesome, SMB, Dragon Quest, Zelda, Ultima, Final Fantasy, but SMB3 was my favorite game on that system.
SNES - Zelda: Link to the past. Such an awesome game!
Genesis - Xmen. I played the heck out of that game, and it was the reason I got a Genesis.
Arcade - TMNT. I know Ms. Pacman, Galaga, Xmen, T2, and the Cruising games were awesome, but TMNT was one of my favorites as a child.

[zanna5910]

Favorite or Most Important?

I was 5 when the NES came out, so SMB pretty much changed the way I thought a video game could be, look, and play.  Truly was awesome.  I'd have to say it was my most important game in how I saw video games.  I spent so many hours just trying to jump over that stupid flagpole and create warp zones by clicking on specific fireworks it wasn't even funny, let alone play for purpose.

My favorite as a kid was definitely Galaga. When I was a little little kid, maybe 4 or 5 or so, there was a galaga at this pizza place we would go to every now and then.  If I was good I could get a few quarters to play after we ate.  My dad showed me how a ship could get captured and how you could free it and it was just the coolest thing in the world.  I used to think, how could they program this to happen like this?  How did that ship know how to capture it?  It was so cool to play and watch my dad play when I was that age.  So many great memories of that and cocktail pacmans and ms. pacmans.


Further down the road, when I saw my first MK cabinet when I was like 10 or 11 my head nearly exploded.  I couldn't believe this was an actual game and was allowed for people to just walk by and see.  So many secret moves that weren't recorded it was so cool to try to figure everything out.  It felt so realistic back then, at least it did to me as a kid and the motion capture was so cool. 

After that, seeing those hologram video games and that 6player xmen for the first time was really, really cool.  Those made me think the industry had many different ways it was going and they all seemed viable and fun.  There was a sense of creativity I felt when you would walk thru an arcade and see all these different types of games with different visuals and play styles.

Sorry, went off on a tanget down memory lane. 

[gildahl]

Most important.  Easy.  Pong.

[pbj]

I was 5 when the NES came out, so SMB pretty much changed the way I thought a video game could be, look, and play.  Truly was awesome.  I'd have to say it was my most important game in how I saw video games.  I spent so many hours just trying to jump over that stupid flagpole and create warp zones by clicking on specific fireworks it wasn't even funny, let alone play for purpose.

Yeah, I think SMB is a pretty good contender for biggest 'this changes everything' moment when it comes to video games.

[jennifer]

Most important.  Easy.  Pong.

   Not just everyone had one of those. You had to have a friend of a friend, and even then had to wait your turn. **Fun story Jennifer tasted her first wine and smoked a cigarette during a sleepover pong party.

[southpaw13]

Arcade=Robotron
At home=Atari 800xl. Jump man.

[nitrogen_widget]

Most important.  Easy.  Pong.

   Not just everyone had one of those. You had to have a friend of a friend, and even then had to wait your turn. **Fun story Jennifer tasted her first wine and smoked a cigarette during a sleepover pong party.

I wish I could find a picture of the pong setup my parents bought.
had multiple games with multiple "men" for things like soccer.

[Ginsu Victim]

**Fun story Jennifer tasted her first wine and smoked a cigarette during a sleepover pong party.

...and a girl went home crying.

There's always a girl who goes home crying.

[Generic Eric]

Arcade= T2
console = phoenix, moon patrol on atari 2600.  Atari 2600 wasn't the coolest ever, but that is what I had when I had free time to play things like videogames.
computer = There was a local computer store, back in the 80's - when there was such a thing.  They had all of the apogee games.  I really enjoyed raptor and the side scroll duke nukem games.  My most favorite was deathtrak.  Current favorites include broforce and super hexagon.  Elite: Dangerous currently eats my lunch, but I like it.  Lastly, if you haven't played risk of rain; treat yourself.

[dmckean]

Pac-man for sure. When I was really young it was the only game I could actually play and not just tossing my quarters away.

Later on when I got a NES, I spent a lot of time with Zelda II. Love that game.

[Baumer]

I spent a lot of time on my Intellivision playing Sea Battle.  It was a 2 player only game which limited it to only when friends were around.

I would say Zelda: Link to the Past on SNES was right there with it too.

[Ginsu Victim]

Pac-man for sure. When I was really young is was the only game I could actually play and not just tossing my quarters away.

Sure, there were no buttons to mess with. It was just four simple directions.

[heykool69]

Moon Patrol on the Atari 2600.

Oh yeah....Moon Patrol.  I used to remember having to take my clothing home to hang dry cuz i'd wasted my quarters on this console while i was waiting for the clothing at the laundromat.

Archon on C-64 floppy disk