Your first video game wow moment

[tz101]

For all of us, there has to have been an event in our lives where we recall first being wowed by a video game or system. A defining moment we will never forget. I will show my age and tell that my first video gaming "wow" moment came in the late 70s as I stepped into a Sears store in our town and saw an Atari VCS (wasn't yet called the 2600) for the first time. Up to that point I had seen a Pong system at some relatives' house and that was about my level of exposure to video games. Every electronic game I had ever seen in a public venue had been pinball or some derivative thereof. Atari and Sears blew my juvenile mind with the shear amount of games I saw displayed on that wall rack. Who knew you could have one appliance that offered so many awesome game playing options? Bowling, Space Invaders, Circus Atari, Combat. They were all there in grand array at that Sears store that night. My life has never been the same since.

[Mirage]

Hearing the voice in Beee Seventeeeeen Baaaaaawwwwwwwwmmmmerrrrrrrrrrr!

[DaytonaUSA]

My first game was playing on my dad's old pong system (God I sound old haha) until we realized we liked gaming together so much that we got an NES. Mario bros is really my main memory from my childhood as we played it so much together.

[VectorGamer]

What the hell is this ugly thing?

 

Oh, wow! It's Pong! (sitting in the middle of a Two Guys department store)

[nathanallan]

The first WOW moment for me was seeing Dragon's Lair in the arcade, then the biggest letdown was when it was always broken ARGH!! There I was, pocket full of quarters and the ONE game I really wanted to try was always broken.

[MagitekAngel]

Never really been wowed by a videogame from a technical standpoint to such an extent that it stands out in my memory as something worth writing about. On an emotional level, my first strong reaction was probably the end of Link's Awakening. Broke my heart. But it's a secret to everyone.

[kool kitty89]

The first thing I thought of in that context was seeing Super Mario 64 at a freind's house some time in late 1996, I must have been 7 years old. We had an NES growing up and a fair number of games (and later an SNES, but rather late, I'm not sute if '95 or '96), but nothing really blew my mind like that. (impresionable sure, Air Fortress in particular, but not what I'd call "wow")

 

However, thinking on it more, I think X-Wing may have been the first game to really amaze me, it was the DOS PC CD-ROM edition, I think we got some time in 1995. (definitely before we had an SNES)

 

Maybe 3D Dinosaur adventure would count, I was pretty amazed by that back in 1994. (heh, we had to upgrade to a color monitor on my PC for that game ) The preceding Dinosaur Adventure had an impact as well (lots of neat streaming video), I'm not sure though, I was pretty young for both of those(moreso the latter), plus I was initially playing on a grayscale monitor, so Dinosaur was somewhat less impressive at first.

If nothing else those games (and X-Wing) had a heavy influence for my linking of FM synthesis.

 

 

And I have to mention my first time playing our VCS, it must have been 2000, spring I think. I'd known about the boxed VCS (light sixer) my mom had gotten from a garage sale before I was born, but we'd never set it up (RF and AC adaptors missing), but one time with my uncles over babysitting my younger brother and I convinced one of them to try to get the Atari working so go over to radio shack and picked up one of those cheap manual video game switches and a universal AC adaptor (which we ended up setting at 7.5V as it was the lowest value that worked and weren't sure what was propper), and we set it up on the TV.

That was pretty awsome. Playing Combat, Space Invaders, Space Chase, Circuis Atari, and Outlaw.

But that was definitely not my first "wow" moment for video games.

[Austin]

This is a tough one. There were so many periods of technology improvements that were impressive.

 

The ones that struck me most, though: Killer Instinct (Arcade). It seemed like a technological breakthrough for fighting games (and arcade games) at the time. Mixed the best of everything that was out there, while doing what other fighters hadn't by also incoporating 3D backdrops with the 2D sprites, FMV that seemed seamless with the gameplay (at the time).. I had been excited about arcade games before, but not "blown away" like I was when I first saw this game in action. All the crazy special effects and top players doing ultra combos didn't make it any less impressive, that's for damn sure. That then led in to hyping the the Nintendo 64.. While we didn't get the original KI, when I first saw Mario 64 in action on a promotional video from Nintendo Power, I didn't know what to think. I was so shocked I just watched it over, and over, and over again. I think I actually watched it so much that I was bored by the time the system actually came out, but nonetheless, that was definitely a leap forward. Lastly, the Dreamcast was the only other system that made me sit and gawk in awe and wonder. When I saw the intial whale chase sequence in Sonic Adventure, my jaw dropped. I don't think I was able to move it for the next week or so, haha.

Edited December 31, 2009 by Austin

[BDW]

First seeing Bowser from SM64. Absolutely scared the sh*t out of me.

[2600Lives]

Probably the first time I laid eyes on Super Mario Bros. on the NES. Growing up with Pong and the 2600 and such, and never having a home computer, it FLOORED me, and I went back to Wal-Mart anytime I could just to see it in action. After that, it was probably the fist time I laid eyes on Super Mario 64. Seems the Mario games really were the trendsetters for many gaming generations.

[Vic George 2K3]

Seeing an old TRS-80 Model II (or something) computer run a game was my first wow moment. It was my first introduction to computers, by the way, back in like the early 1980s.

[DaytonaUSA]

Probably the first time I laid eyes on Super Mario Bros. on the NES. Growing up with Pong and the 2600 and such, and never having a home computer, it FLOORED me, and I went back to Wal-Mart anytime I could just to see it in action. After that, it was probably the fist time I laid eyes on Super Mario 64. Seems the Mario games really were the trendsetters for many gaming generations.

 

 

I have to agree with you on both counts. I still remember the first time I saw an N64 and Super Mario 64 in Toys R Us. I remember holding the controller and feeling so giddy, and watching in amazement at what was on screen. I swear the grass looked so much more impressive back then. I remember day dreaming about how amazing the environment looked for the rest of the week.

[TwinChargers]

I think my first real "wow" moment came when I first saw and played Donkey Kong Country. At the time, being 13, I thought that this was as real as it could get.

[AtariLeaf]

Space Invaders on the VCS in a display kiosk at Consumers Distributing in 1980. Awesome

Edited December 31, 2009 by AtariLeaf

[+Ransom]

One 'Wow' moment I recall was playing Adventure for the first few times, seeing how different video games could be from the shooters and paddle games I'd been playing. It was like there was a whole world for me to explore inside the VCS.

 

A later 'Wow' moment was playing Intellivision for the first time. AD&D = "Wow, it's like Adventure, but you're not a blob and you can actually shoot arrows!"; "Tron Deadly Discs = There's so many guys on the screen at once, and nothing's flickering!"; "Utopia = Amazing!"

[pinball22]

First wow moment was playing Adventure at a friend's house in about 1981... made me go home and start saving up for a 2600 right away. Second wow moment was much later, playing Super Mario 64 on Christmas morning 1996. It seemed like such an amazing leap forward, like I was really in a 3D cartoon world.

[doubleminor]

My first wow moment would be playing an NES for the first time.

 

First games played:

 

Super Mario Bros.

Legend of Zelda

Balloon Fight

Rad Racer

[NE146]

Pong didn't really "wow" me, even though I saw it (or a clone of it) when I was young. When I finally got into videogames later, after getting addicted to arcade Space Invaders I can remember a couple of early wow moments

 

1. Demon Attack. Seeing and playing this thing on the 2600 when it was brand new was an amazing moment for a lot of VCS players if they happened to be around then. I was definitely one of them.

 

2. Seeing MARIO BROS (not SMB) playing on a famicom display in Japan around 1983. It looked so much better than the 5200/2600 versions. thought "Wow.. they have these advanced games here and we don't have that". Of course a few years later, the NES would indeed actually come in the states.

 

Lots of others.. hearing the background music in arcade Gyruss and thinking it went with the game action . Colecovision Donkey Kong's graphics. The explosion in arcade Defender & the explosion of the base in Eliminator. Seeing a Playstation with Battle Arena Tonshiden. etc. etc. etc. Just tons of them.

 

Course, now you can do pretty much anything in a videogame.. so the wow moments are getting less and less.

[STICH666]

Really the only things that impressed me was the level of detail in Project Gotham Racing 3. Also I nearly soiled myself after seeing Gears of War for the first time.

[DaytonaUSA]

Really the only things that impressed me was the level of detail in Project Gotham Racing 3. Also I nearly soiled myself after seeing Gears of War for the first time.

 

Something tells me you won't get a lot of people relating to you on this forum .

[STICH666]

Really the only things that impressed me was the level of detail in Project Gotham Racing 3. Also I nearly soiled myself after seeing Gears of War for the first time.

 

Something tells me you won't get a lot of people relating to you on this forum .

Yeah, true. I never really noticed technical innovation until about 2004.

[DaytonaUSA]

Really the only things that impressed me was the level of detail in Project Gotham Racing 3. Also I nearly soiled myself after seeing Gears of War for the first time.

 

Something tells me you won't get a lot of people relating to you on this forum .

Yeah, true. I never really noticed technical innovation until about 2004.

 

Wow, how old are you again?

[STICH666]

Really the only things that impressed me was the level of detail in Project Gotham Racing 3. Also I nearly soiled myself after seeing Gears of War for the first time.

 

Something tells me you won't get a lot of people relating to you on this forum .

Yeah, true. I never really noticed technical innovation until about 2004.

 

Wow, how old are you again?

18

[+save2600]

Growing up literally with arcade pinball and video games in the house, I wasn't really ever impressed all that much with graphics/sounds of consoles from the 70's and 80's. That's not to say I didn't love and appreciate them for what they were of course, but no real 'wow' jaw-dropping factor for me until I saw NewTek's DemoReels for the Amiga computer back in '87. Next "wow" factor wasn't until I saw Sega's Virtua Racing followed by the deluxe sitdown pneumatic car version of Cruisin' USA and then Killer Instinct right beside that. Guess my only other technological "wow" factor had to be what was the debacle that became of the Atari Jaguar - but that was not a good 'wow' by any stretch of the imagination. lol

 

Other notable arcade wows from back in the day:

 

Star Wars cockpit

Omega Race cockpit

Vanguard upright

Star Trek (any version)

Tron

Dragons Lair

Time Shock (or whatever that Sega hologram arcade was called)

 

...umm, very last 'wow' for me had to do with a recent restoration job on a Sega Zaxxon arcade upright. WOW, I can't believe how unnecessarily heavy this sucka is! lmao

Edited December 31, 2009 by save2600

[godslabrat]

My first moment was seeing SMB, and just trying to register the concept that "Wow, it's a cartoon, and I can control what happens!" The next was a series of surprises brought by the SNES-- First, the scaled sprites in SMW were so impressive at the time. Second, having digitized images in games rather than drawn tiles was so realistic. I thought the Home Alone SNES game looked great, just because the cut scenes looked just like the movie. It would be years before I realized how those effects had their own limitations, and how the SNES and NES were more alike than different.