What was the first computer game you played?

SMcA · Sep 23, 2014

I’ll start this off with the first one I played. It was Golf played on a Burroughs machine in the mid 1970s. Played with a keyboard and printer. I worked at the factory that made them in Cumbernauld.
It went something like this:

The hole is 170 yards away and the wind is 10 miles an hour from behind.

What club? >
5
What strength? >
3.6

The hole is 50 yards away and the wind is 10 miles an hour from behind.

What club? >
2
What strength? >
4

The hole is 10 yards away and the wind is 5 miles an hour from the front.

What club? >
1
What strength? >
4

Congratulations you have scored a hole in 3.
Continue Y/N ? >

Those were the days, when you had to oil your computer.

Nuarda · Sep 23, 2014

My first Game was Breakout on the Sinclair ZX81 circa 81/82.

You moved a oblong shaped thing at the bottom of the screen. You had to keep batting a 'ball' when it hit the ceiling a block would disappear. The object was to remove all the blacks at the top of the screen. The Game got faster as each block was removed!

Not a game that would hold attention today!

The only other early game I remember playing was The Hobbit on a mate Spectrum 48k! I think it was the first text adventure with graphic pictures. I remember the pictures being very slow to draw!

Iskariot · Sep 23, 2014

Must have been something on an Atari 2600.

Cody · Sep 23, 2014

Does a '60s coin-op electro-mechanical arcade game count as a computer game?

If not, it would have been Asteroids, I reckon.

Calico Jack · Sep 23, 2014

Rad!

Edit: Just found one on eBay - I'm going to re-create my childhood by hiding under the duvet covers, and playing it after my bedtime. That'll confuse my other half.

calculon68 · Sep 23, 2014

I started with Star Raiders, the great-grandmother of all space-sims on the Atari 8-bit 400/800 in 1981. I had access to Pong, 2600 and a plethora of arcade video games too, but I lost my computer gaming cherry to Star Raiders.

Pretty certain I wouldn't be here right now if it weren't for that game.

sabrex449 · Sep 23, 2014

this >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdUlS_cSMoE

Hurtz · Sep 23, 2014

Kings Quest on the Tandy, must have been mid 80's

Jason S · Sep 23, 2014

The first computer game was a text adventure game on a Vic 20 at my friends house I only remember chopping a tree down and climbing inside to end up in a maze.

I cannot remember the name of the game, I mean it was over thirty five years ago.

The first electronic console game I played was pong and basketball.

Oh and there was fabulous Fred as well which was a hand held game.

Frank · Sep 23, 2014

The first Arcade I played was PONG!

The first computer game I played was Star Trek on a PDP-10. I really can't remember much about it, but I can remember playing Lunar Lander on that mainframe as well <grin>. The only terminal I could get was one of those paper TTY ones. You can imagine the amount of paper I got through.

el_tel · Sep 23, 2014

For me, it would have been one of the Psion games that came with my ZX Spectrum (Flight Simulator, Hungry Horace?)

Antmax · Sep 23, 2014

First actual game on a computer I played was Scramble on the Vic20. Just before my best friend got an Acorn Electron and Chuckie Egg. I got my BBC B the following Christmas and Elite came out about a year later.

I had a handheld electronic game in the 80's which was just a bunch of red dots with one bright red dot that represented you and you could fire bright red dots to destroy the others moving on the screen. Incredibly simple circa 1978

Jason S · Sep 23, 2014

Not the first game but the first games that I really thought wow was civilization, Elite and Halo.

Ben Ryder · Sep 23, 2014

SMcA said:
I’ll start this off with the first one I played. It was Golf played on a Burroughs machine in the mid 1970s. Played with a keyboard and printer. I worked at the factory that made them in Cumbernauld.
It went something like this:

The hole is 170 yards away and the wind is 10 miles an hour from behind.

What club? >
5
What strength? >
3.6

The hole is 50 yards away and the wind is 10 miles an hour from behind.

What club? >
2
What strength? >
4

The hole is 10 yards away and the wind is 5 miles an hour from the front.

What club? >
1
What strength? >
4

Congratulations you have scored a hole in 3.
Continue Y/N ? >

Those were the days, when you had to oil your computer.

Rated +1

Ben Ryder · Sep 23, 2014

If it wasnt combat zone, maybe it was

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNAdtkSjSps

or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhaVFlSxmjk

izzy · Sep 23, 2014

The first computer I played was an Atari 1040 STF (probably in 1986 or 1987)

Yaffle · Sep 23, 2014

Pong was the first I played, but on a home computer it was Kingdom on the BBC welcome tape.

Jenner · Sep 23, 2014

Starflight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starflight

Played at a neighbor's house. My family didn't get a computer until later. Fond memories of Starflight, though.

In school I remember playing Oregon Trail, although I cannot recall if it was before or after Starflight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oregon_Trail_(video_game)

CMDR Texas Stu · Sep 23, 2014

First computer game: Adventure (XYZZY) on a main frame and other text based games (Wumpus comes to mind?)

First Arcade: Pong ('72 or '73)

Computer arcade was either space invaders on Atari 2600 or snake game on PET computer ('77)

IIRC

SMcA · Sep 23, 2014

Frank said:
The first Arcade I played was PONG!

The first computer game I played was Star Trek on a PDP-10. I really can't remember much about it, but I can remember playing Lunar Lander on that mainframe as well <grin>. The only terminal I could get was one of those paper TTY ones. You can imagine the amount of paper I got through.

I played Kingdom on one of those.

What was the first computer game you played?

I wish I was English like my hero Tj.