I’ve been using Tumblr more and more recently and one of the things that I came across are the “30 Days” of something, be it TV shows or video games. I was going to keep this solely to my Tumblr account but I’ve decided otherwise. So for the next thirty days, you’re stuck reading 30 Days of Video Games.
Day 1 – Very first video game:
I know my parents had an Atari when I was born and I must have gotten my little hands on it but the first game that I remember playing is the original Super Mario Bros from 1985 for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Even though I don’t have the original cartage from when I was a kid, I do have a copy of the game for my NES that I play from time to time. I also have said game for my GBA and the Virtual Console for the Wii. This game is a classic and should be played by all, no matter what year you were born. This is platforming at it’s finest and nothing says adventure like going down a drainage pipe.
I do remember playing this game as a child but I don’t have any real solid memories from it, unlike a few handful of games from the same era, like Life Force, Donkey Kong, Q-Bert, Duck Hunt, Ice Climber and so on.
In 1986, an arcade game by the name of Bubble Bobble was released by Taito for the arcades. There was this family restaurant down the street from where I lived called Lums and they had a cabinet of this game. I would eat a grilled cheese sandwich and beg my dad to give me quarters to play this platform game. I was happy when I got this game for the NES and creeped out by the ghost that would appear when too much time passed.
Most of the games that I played during my early childhood were either based on the NES or in the arcades, which consisted of side-scroller action/adventure games, shooters and fighting games from the 8-bit era, mixed in with puzzle games like Tetris and causal games like Pac-Man.
I started gaming at a young age and I have no regrets about it, save for pinpointing my first memory of my first video game, but that’s irrelevant in the end.