What game do you credit for turning you into a "Gamer"?

[Napalm Frog]

I'd been playing games since I was 6 or so (original Mario, zelda, all the popular NES stuff), but wouldn't consider myself a true gamer until around Rainbow Six (the original 1998 one). From there I spread to Uneral Tournament, Half-Life, and have been playing primarily shooters since. Aah, the good old days.

[treemonster]

super mario bros on the nes when i was 6. played games before that but that was my first system and game. had tetris and duck hunt too.

[micro]

for the pc, quake. nuff said.

[LightShadow]

For me, either Pokemon or Mario :p.

Pokemon is mainly what persuaded me to get my first Gameboy (GBA SP) then DS, then so on.

[nukenorman]

Super Frog for the Amiga (Y)

I loved that game. I miss having my Amiga with all those cool games.

[Alan-]

Need For Speed II, Monster Truck Madness, or Pokemon Yellow.

[kaborka]

The original Wing Commander, played on my trusty old DOS machine.

[sanctified Veteran]

Casually, Doom. But Half-Life and Mteal Gear Solid made me take games more seriously.

[Stefano Elia]

Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force Multiplayer.

[Soviet]

XCOM- UFO Defense

Marathon

[shakey]

When Nintendo came out, got it the first day, and Mario made me fall in love with consoles. When my friends dad gave me a alpha copy diskette of "Doom" that him and his company where working on, I fell in love with computer games. Since then, there have been other games that have kept me happy, like Counter Strike, Diablo, God of War, and Star Craft.

[ZakO]

I can't think of a specific game, but the earlier Mario, Sonic, Dizzy & Doom game(s) were definitely part of it.

I did stop gaming for a few years but the N64 (still probably my favourite console :p) got me back into it (Mario Kart, Mario 64, Goldeneye, Conkers Bad Fur Day, Banjo Kazooie, Zelda: OoT).

[Icarus ^i^]

Started out on the NES, but wouldn't call myself proper gamer until the Amiga arrived.. I miss those copy parties in some run down school.. gasping at the latest Kefrens megademo while swapping discs left and right, trying to get hold of someone with a copy of Turrican that didn't have the bytebandit virus :)

[Explore]

Pokemon, Call of Duty (first one), Battlefield 1942, Age of Empires 2 and Red Alert 2 got me into gaming.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

Super Mario and Captain Skyhawk :blush:

[Nebula2020]

KKnD a RTS game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KKnD_%28video_game%29

[REM2000]

Daley Thompsons Decathlon on the ZX Spectrum 48K that and Tapper.

Loved that damn game.

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

[Grex]

This.

From 1982 :)

Holy Crap! Talk about going way back. I totally had that game.

But it was this one that started the addiction.

Linky!

[Soulsiphon]

Ultima IV, The Quest of the Avatar - Commodore 64 circa 1986

This had a triple effect on my gaming, which before had been mainly simulators and arcade style games; 1) my first rpg game, 2) played/quested competitively near head to head with my dorm mate that was working through the same game, in the same room, on a 2nd C64 (actually just the board with drive and monitor attached, the case had been busted!), and most importantly 3) introduced me to Origin Systems.

3 is a biggie because it was my love of the Ultima series lore that made it easy to abandon Diablo via Battle.net and jump right into Ultima Online when it launched fall of '97. I've been a MMOG addict ever since. Single player games rarely interest me anymore - or for very long periods of time as I really jones for the interaction and competitive heads-up type play when other real people are involved as in a MMOG.

Pretty self-explanitory.

For me, it was the Ultima series starting at Ultima IV. Going through the games with

a single character that was "remembered" in the world through the series was

awesome. 100 years would pass, so when you showed up in the next game NPCs

were talking about the legend of the Avatar (you) and claiming you couldn't be him.

Then you spent time searching the world for your old party members.

The story lines were cool, the graphics were awesome (for the time), and when

Ultima VII came out the bad guy actually had a voice and taunted you through-out

the game. "Poor Avatar. Poor, poor Avatar."

I was hooked. And still prefer RPGs to this day.

Btw, same here with Ultima 4. To this day probably the best and most immersive RPG I've ever played. I still advise folks new to RPG's to go back and slomo the PC if necessary to play through U4 ;) While the graphics are dated, you won't find a cooler RPG experience.

[Memphis]

Ultima IV, The Quest of the Avatar - Commodore 64 circa 1986

This had a triple effect on my gaming, which before had been mainly simulators and arcade style games; 1) my first rpg game, 2) played/quested competitively near head to head with my dorm mate that was working through the same game, in the same room, on a 2nd C64 (actually just the board with drive and monitor attached, the case had been busted!), and most importantly 3) introduced me to Origin Systems.

3 is a biggie because it was my love of the Ultima series lore that made it easy to abandon Diablo via Battle.net and jump right into Ultima Online when it launched fall of '97. I've been a MMOG addict ever since. Single player games rarely interest me anymore - or for very long periods of time as I really jones for the interaction and competitive heads-up type play when other real people are involved as in a MMOG.

Btw, same here with Ultima 4. To this day probably the best and most immersive RPG I've ever played. I still advise folks new to RPG's to go back and slomo the PC if necessary to play through U4 ;) While the graphics are dated, you won't find a cooler RPG experience.

Unreal and the Return to Na Pali Expansion and Quake 3.

[Soulsiphon]

The original Wing Commander, played on my trusty old DOS machine.

That game was massive for the time, wasn't that on like 4-6 CD's? Besides that, it was gaming masterpiece. I think it was the first really 'big' game I'd seen up until then, as I said the media it shipped on was bewildering for the time.

[TheBlueRaja]

Manic Miner on the ZX Spectrum...

Ahh - those were the days.

[Soulsiphon]

Unreal and the Return to Na Pali Expansion and Quake 3.

What turned me into a FPS gamer was original Doom, yup, that's right, original Doom over a modem :)

I remember my buddy I'd play with would suddenly develop "modem problems" and disconnect after enough repeated beatdowns from me ;) Funny how all that pwnage affected his modem connection. In all fairness to him though, there were occasions before we'd connect where while talking voice I could hear a nearby country radio station coming through on his modem speaker :)

[spenser.d]

Super Mario Bros 1 and 3 (and a bit of 2), as well as some of the Mega Man games that appeared on NES.

[LaP]

The first Mega Man game.