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[paragonpro]

5.) playing super mario world on our super nintendo with my older sister in 2p mode. And was just about to get my playstation 1. Would have been around 1998

10.) 2003, my mom just took me to target to buy a new copy of mega man x7. I had saved up the money from doing chores for two months.

15.)2008, my first serious girlfriend sits next to me in boredom while I make her watch me play fallout 3 on my "just about to red ring" xbox 360. Im very sorry btw. That year mass effect became my favorite game of all time

20.) its 2013 and im waiting in line on a freezing cold november night to pick up my pre ordered ps4 from gamestop. I went home with the system, and by that point had already bought killzone shadowfall and knack. Thouroughly dissapointed by both. Played the hell out of resogun

25.) hopefully by that point ill have built an amazing gaming pc ive been using for a year or so

 

[WhateverItTakes]

5: Bugs Bunny and Taz Time Busters. A good platformer that I could play co-op with my twin brother. One of the very first games we played and honestly the my playing Bugs and him Taz really set up what I thought I was vs what my brother was. It's kinda silly, but that's a constant story for playing games for us, he'd play the dark path, I'd play the light just to spite him. Naturally we haven't turned out all that different really but writing this actually made me reminisce on how I used to be...

Could also throw FF9 as an in between here. That left an impression on me.

10: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Man I wanted to be link so bad. That shot of him sheathing his sword was my background for a while. The 'harder edge' they tried to sell really worked on me as a dumb kid. This was my last Zelda, and probably will be for down time now.

15: Arkham City. Man I fucking loved Arkham city. The original started an interest in comics and I'm so glad it did. Otherwise this game really had me invested, 100% riddler and all that business. Just couldn't get enough.

20: Now to the past year... Honestly as for what experience I think is gonna last it's probably Undertale. Last Guardian was good but I won't think it'll stick with me like Undertale did. Uncharted 4 was a great ride now I think about it. And the Witcher 3 had such an excellent world...

I dunno. Ask me in 10 years and maybe I'll have a real answer.

 

[jyoung188]

5: Super Mario Bros (NES) played this a few years after release but it's my first gaming memory.

10: Banjo-Kazooie & Spyro the Dragon. Had a N64 at my dad's house and a PS1 at my mom's.

15: Tony Hawk's Undergound. Around this age I wasn't gaming as much, skateboarding ruled my life but I always played the hell out of the THPS games.

20: Dead Space. I was in college and playing and following the gaming industry more than I ever have before this point. I also got into gaming podcasts big time, RIP 1UP Yours and GFW Radio.

25: The Last of Us is my favorite game of all time. I'm also a huge Giant Bomb fan so Ryan Davis' death hit me hard that year.

And for what it's worth I'm 29 years old today.

 

[Voras]

5: Didn't really start playing games until 7 or 8.

10: Pokemon Red, I still remember the night I started playing it too.

15: Star Wars Galaxies, my first MMORPG. A very flawed but very cool game.

20: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. I got into MGS big towards the end of high school so MGS 4 was the first big MGS came to come out after I became a fan of the series. It was a pretty big moment. I remember playing through the game a bunch of times.

25: Persona 4 Golden, I had just received a Vita and I tore through that game in a couple of weeks.

 

[Rad Shadow]

5:Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

10: Secret of Mana

15: Tactics Ogre

20: Suikoden 3

25: Persona 4

30: Tales of Xillia 2

Love me some RPGs!


I have great memories with all these games.

I remember playing SoM with my brother for hours and now ToX2 is great since I could now play RPGs with my girlfriend.

Life is grand.

 

[Iokis]

5 (1993) - Pitstop II. I suppose people will rightly wonder "well gosh, how does a game from 1984 find its way here?" Unique family situation, I suppose - my dad was the person who got me into video games, but he never took it further than owning an Atari 800 (despite, of course, 16-bit consoles being available by this point) which means my youngest years of video gaming were spent around his Atari 800. I don't have a clear recollection of what exactly I played at the age of 5, but Pitstop II is a very vivid memory and more or less suits the timescale.

10 (1998) - Banjo-Kazooie, which would solidify a love of 3D platformers and collectathons (and yes, yes I am happy that this genre is getting a renaissance in 2017 with A Hat In Time and Yooka-Laylee)

15 (2003) - Beyond Good & Evil/F-Zero GX, I'm going to cheat and mention two games as I'm still waiting for sequels to both, fourteen years later. Two very different but indelible experiences that really helped inform what it is I like about video games.

20 (2008) - World of Warcraft - 2005-2011 was my WoW junkie period. I don't regret the time I spent, but I also doubt I will ever play another MMO. But the friends and experiences I had will remain irreplaceable, and things I learned about the world and myself through the interactions this game provided helped my journey to who I am today.

 

[Incendiary]

5 - Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt. The original NES. I didn't own one at this age yet but I would play it at friends houses and eventually I complained enough that my parents got me one.

10 - Earthbound. I still remember the scratch and sniff cards that came with the strategy guide. Still one of my favorites RPGs to this date - although at 10 I probably wouldn't have gotten to the end without the guide.

15 - GTA 3. I associate this game with my high school years so while I wasn't exactly 15, this game is what shaped me the most in that time frame. I started realizing what exactly was possible in video games and how much the medium was changing. Lots of time spent driving around and exploring every nook and cranny with my friends.

20 - Super Smash Bros Melee. College years - this was the game we played the most and why the Smash series always has a special place in my heart. So much time spent crowded around the TV playing and laughing when we should have been doing things like studying.

25 - Rock Band 2. Again, this was the game that defined the social aspect of my gaming life at this time. Hanging out with friends, going on tour and jamming on plastic instruments. Good times.

I would do 30 but that was just last year and I don't feel a nostalgic pull for a year that just happened. Nor do I think I could know what exactly is going to stick with me.

This was interesting to do - I was surprised which games immediately jumped to mind for what time periods. Especially Rock Band.

 

[lordmrw]

I'll give this a go

5: Super Mario Bros. - this was one of the first games to have an actual soundtrack that played while the game was running.
10: Mega Man 3 - my personal favorite in the series as well as soundtrack.
15: Chrono Trigger - I remember a friend of mine rented this and gave it to me since he didn't like it. I absolutely loved the soundtrack and remember leaving the game idle at certain spots just to listen to the music.
20: Final Fantasy IX - While I preferred the soundtrack in FF8 more there are still a lot of really strong tracks in this one

 

[Tigress]

5 - Erm Parsec or Hunt the Wumpus? that is if i was gaming that young (not actually sure what age I was when my parents gave me the TI-99)

10- MS Flight SImulator and other flying games

15- MS Flight Simulator, Some driving game that I can't remember but had you worry about getting pulled over by cops too much (I mistook it in my memory for Need for Speed but recently learned it was a different game, Driver maybe?), Need for Speed, Police Quest, Full Throttle

20 - FFVII , Twisted Metal, Gran Turismo, Need for Speed (yes, I like driving games... oddly I don't have any right now).

25 - Smuggler's Run, Midnight Club (PS2 just came out so games that came out with it), Fallout (a little before this but closer to 25 than 20).

30 - Drakken, some dragon game?, Okami? (not sure when Okami came out), some racing game with airplanes (I wonder if I still have that one, it was actually pretty fun.. come to think of it that one might have been when I was around 25 and working for CNN cause I think the guy who got to review games gave it to me as I did the web editing for his stories and he knew I liked that stuff).

35- Random iphone games as I didn't have the money to justify PS3 and finished most PS2 games I was interested in (and didn't think to see if they still were putting out PS2 games. And when I got the PS3 (I think at age 36 if my timing is right), Skyrim, Assassin's creed, Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas

40 (now) - Fallout 2 (finally... I actually started Fallout 1 originally years back so I could play 2 which came out around when I started 1), Fallout 4, Witcher, GTA

 

[NoKisum]

5: I didn't really know what gaming was, and wouldn't for I think another year or two.

10: By then, I was a full swing Sonic fan, so it probably was Sonic 3 & Knuckles. I think the PC version was out by then?

15: Oh man, I was full swing into GBA stuff. I'm sure I was obsessed with stuff like Sonic Advance, Mario Kart Super Circuit, and Golden Sun at this early age. Also, I think Yoshi's Island came out in that period, and this was my first time playing the game in any incarnation.

20: Ah, 2007, my bum year. I didn't get much done socially that year. My head was in hanging with friends on random days, and obsessing over games like Pokémon Diamond and God of War II. Also, DDR at a far arcade with new friends, but that didn't last long.

25: I believe that was the year I got my 3DS. Plenty of early titles to play through, plus playing through and finishing up Pokémon Black 2.

30: Ask me again next month.

I believe from 15 and up, it's hard to pinpoint exactly every game I've been playing. But I know it was a bevy of rhythm, platformers, RPGs, racing, character action, and puzzle games that overtook the majority of it (with some wildcards here and there).

 

[Nydius]

This thread will be a stark reminder of my middle-agedness.

5 - Pole Position (Atari 2600) - A defining moment as it was the first game I spent my own money (well, allowance) on.
10 - Tie: Mega Man 1 and Maniac Mansion
15 - Tie: Wolfenstein 3D and Mortal Kombat
20 - Final Fantasy VII

Moving on:
25 - Tie: Jedi Knight 2 Jedi Outcast and LoZ: Windwaker
30 - Tie: Bioshock and Uncharted
35 - Mass Effect 3
40 - Let's see what 2017 brings.

My early teens were defined by arcade games when I think back on it. Even though I had a NES, Genesis, and SNES, I spent way too much time dropping quarters in Street Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat, Cyberball, Hard Drivin', TMNT, NBA Jam, X-Men, and The Simpsons... just to name a few.

 

[Stuggernaut]

5 (1975)- Pong (Stand alone): I still remember my Dad coming home with this odd little box and we as a family had so much fun with it. It made almost zero sense to a 5yr old but I loved it.
10 - Atari 2600: Probably Space Invaders or Pinball as those were the first games we bought. I used to be a god at pinball, man I can keep that ball alive forever.
15 - Atari 2600 Still: By now I was deep into games like River Raid, Enduro, Pitfall, and I think I got Crystal Castles for my birthday.
20 - NES/Sega Master System: Mario, Zelda of course... but mostly I was still playing Phantasy Star which I only got a year after release. Spent SOOOO much time. best game ever.
25 - Arcades/PC: Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter series. Mostly. I worked at an arcade so that helped. Also was getting into PC gaming and Internet in general.

 

[Bane]

These aren't necessarily the most memorable or best games those years but they're good choices off the top of my head.

5 - 2600 games like Yars' Revenge, Adventure, and Haunted House. I honestly wasn't too into these but would play them as a curiosity now and then.

10 - Super Mario Bros. 3. Don't really need to say much here.

15 - Chrono Trigger. Or here.

20 - FFIX. It was cool to see the return of the older, medievil style. I loved the soundtrack and by this point I was importing them from Japan before the games were out in NA so it was neat to see what the tracks were about in the game.

 

[exmachina64]

5 - N/A
10 - Final Fantasy IX
15 - Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
20 - Mass Effect 2
25 - Broken Age

 

[Zeuanimals]

5 - Spyro
10 - MGS3 or FFX
15 - TES: Oblivion
20 - TLOU

 

[Kastrioti]

5- Super Mario World, actually got the game with a SNES SMW bundle which introduced me to the world of video games

10- Pokémon Red- I was going to put Super Mario 64 here but I first played it at around 8 IIRC. At 10 I was all about Pokémon

15- Counter Strike 1.3- All the way up to CS 1.6. Played a ton of CS back in middle school and high school

20- Halo 3 + COD4- After playing the shit out of Gears of War for about 5 months at around 20 I had moved onto Halo 3+COD4 for my multiplayer

 

[Cubed]

Some of you are way too old and some of you are way too young. Gaf is for 16-40 year olds!


Anywaaaaaay:

5 - SMB
10 - Resident Evil (original)
15 - GTA III (really at age 16, but only by three months)
20 - Resident Evil 4
25 - Red Dead Redemption
30 - MGS V

 

[Marko_Baomoro]

25

 

[ocean]

6: Super Mario 64. Oh god what fun I had with that.
11: FFX + KH
16: Oblivion
21: wasn't gaming at all at this age
26: DESTINY (GOAT)

 

[exmachina64]

Some of you are way too old and some of you are way too young. Gaf is for 16-40 year olds!

I like to think GAF is for 5-95 year olds.

 

[Sami+]

5 - Sonic Adventure. My uncle lent me his Dreamcast and I fell in love with the game. In spite of flaws I still do, and playing through it with my niece a few years back is one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had.

10 - Kingdom Hearts II. If not for Souls, this would still be my favorite Action RPG, and it's by far my favorite in the series. I've beaten it so many times on PS2 and am excited to play through it again on PS4.

15 - Demon's Souls. Literally the best game I've ever played. I can't gush about it enough. The gameplay is as close to perfection as I've felt a game to be, the story is intriguing and filled with detail, the atmosphere is engrossing, the characters are endearing and memorable, etc. etc. etc. Everything about Demon's Souls is just sublime.

20 - Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. This game affected me in a way I didn't expect haha. I've always been a single player story kinda guy and to this day just avoid multiplayer most of the time. I played Melee and Brawl back in the day casually but never had a copy of either and since my only two siblings were my sisters who had no interest in gaming and I was seldom allowed to invite people over, I never cared that much and skipped Smash 4 for a while. My friend Paul brought me to tournaments with him and since then I've fallen in love with the game and community to the point that it's become a pretty important part of my life.

 

[qko]

Born in 82. Get ready for some Smithsonian level stuff:

5: Might have just gotten a NES via older brothers, but I was raised on this

A handheld called FriskyTom. I will always have the fondest memories of this piece of junk, such a marvel in my youth.

10: Mega Man 4 on the NES and Roger Clemens MVP baseball on the Gameboy: I memorized every single aspect about MegaMan 4 and I swear Roger Clemens on the Gameboy was my Ken Griffey... I might had completed like 4 or 5 162 game seasons of that game in my early lifetime.

15: The parent refused to buy me consoles after the SNES, so I got into PC gaming.

Doom was so much fun and on the side I'd play Caesar 2. I still say "PLEBS ARE NEEDED!" every once in a while

20: In College, broke, broke up with a girl and bought a $99 GameCube with Smash Bros. Melee the day after she dumped me. My 20s were never the same again as my love affair with console gaming was rekindled.

25: Handhelds are for BABIES... hold up, NEW Super Mario Bros? MEGA MUSHROOM?!?!
I plunked down $150 to buy a DS and NSMB after seeing that commercial just one too many times.

30: Sequel, sequel, sequel... Hella people are complaining about this game only Europe got on the Wii... eh it's a good excuse to get a Classic Controller Pro...

And I never let go. Xenoblade Chronicles became a 70-80 hour saga I have bought twice since (N3DS, WiiU VC) and will continue to run around Gaur Plains just for the music. As a matter of fact, imma go do that right now.

35: This June, if Breath of the Wild holds up I'll probably be adventuring through Hyrule the rest of the year.


EDIT: oh we're going past 20 to current age...

 

[Marvie_3]

5 - Legend of Zelda
10 - Wolfenstein 3D
15 - Goldeneye
20 - Metroid Prime
25 - Guitar Hero 3
30 - Borderlands 2

 

[ClayKavalier]

5 - Doom. I used to play it with my dad, it was the first game I played that wasn't educational software. My mom didn't like me playing and at one point my grandma found out I was playing it and threw a fit and I wasn't allowed any more, but it was a blast while it lasted.

10 - Ocarina of Time. The scope of the world blew my mind, and it was one of the first games I played that had puzzles. I have great memories of talking with my friends about how to get past certain rooms, or where to find secret stuff. I hate to use this since it's so overused but at the time it really felt epic, like you were exploring this world full of secrets and never knew where it would take you next. The same game wouldn't leave the same impact but as the first game like it I ever played it really left a mark.

15 - Halo 2. It was the first game where the release felt like a huge cultural event. Nearly everyone at my high school was excited to play it to some extent, and I played so many hours of it online with friends and at LAN parties that one of the nerd clubs at school would coordinate. The day it came out I had a doctors appointment, and my dad told me if we got back home after the school day was half over I could just go home to play it. Unfortunately the appointment only took like half an hour, but I still got to pick it up on the way home. Target was giving away a free strategy guide and I took it school. I walked to my friends and said "Check it out!" and tossed it on a desk and it opened to a page that started "This is the first level while you play as the Arbiter, an high-ranking Elite" or something like that. Our excitement was ridiculous, we could not wait to get home and see it for ourselves.

20 - BioShock. Still one of my favorite games. Masterpiece of environmental story telling and atmosphere. Feels dated now that every other FPS features audio logs, but at the time, and as someone who never gamed on a PC so had not played System Shock, Deus Ex, etc. it was mind blowing. At the time I was playing fewer games and thought I was growing out of them, but BioShock was really exciting and made me feel as long as people were creating stories that interesting, I'd still play them.

 

[Back-In-Black]

5- Super Mario Bros//Duckhunt
10- Metal Gear Solid 1
15- Metal Gear Solid 3
20- Mass Effect 2
25- The Witcher 3

 

[Triscuitable]

5: Got a GBA. First gaming device, period. Played a lot of Frogger's Adventures and Bionicle on it. Five year olds don't know good games from bad, so it's not like I was too concerned with the quality of those games.

10: My mom bought me a DS for Christmas back in 2004, so around 2006... I guess I'd be playing whatever came out on the DS at the time? Some psychological trauma that occurred around this time period has left this period of my life a bit of a blur. You'd think my one escape from the awful shit I dealt with in school would stand out, but I can't recall anything.

15: Mass Effect 3 and Dishonored. Absolutely loved the both of them. My defining games of 2012, really; I continued to play ME3's co-op well into 2014. Just an excellent, excellent mode overall. Similarly, I still boot up Dishonored once a year to play through it again.

20: At this point I've built two gaming PCs and bought an Xbox One and PS4. I play a lot of video games. If it interests me, I'll pick it up. The list at this point is too big, because it's literally been the last few months of games.

 

[tturunen]

this was fun:

5 - Alley Cat
10 - Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Alone in the Dark
15 - Tomb Raider, Red Alert, Total Annihilation
20 - Star Wars Jedi Knight II, Grand Theft Auto3, Civilization3
25 - God of War II, BioShock, HL2:Ep2, Uncharted, Mass Effect
30 - Far Cry 3, Civilization V (still playing), Skyrim

 

[AirPowerFTW]

Some of you are way too old and some of you are way too young. Gaf is for 16-40 year olds!

40? That's the very (literal) birth of gamers as we know them, people who grew up playing from the teet. Beyond 40 are the pioneers who inventing computer gaming as we know it, why should they not be a part of GAF?

I do agree though, the first post from that kid who apparently joined at 7 or 8 years old is kinda weird.

5 - (1980) - Space Invaders - Atari 2600. In between Nintendo Game & Watch, this game defined video games for me and became a formative memory along with Pacman a couple of years later.

10 - (1985) - tough choice! Spy vs Spy / The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy / The Dam Busters - Apple II. Sorry for the split decision, but there were SO many games at this age that I remember fondly.

15 - (1990) - Prince of Persia (Apple II) / Tetris (Gameboy). I didn't own a gameboy, but at school I borrowed the crap out my friends!

20 - (1995) - Doom II (PC) - No coming back now folks. Duke Nukem 3D followed soon after (and Quake, HL etc etc etc)!

25 - (2000) - Team Fortress Classic / Falcon 4 (PC) - This may be the hardest era to pick a favourite. So much time to play games at that age, so many good games. Sniff.

30 - (2005) - BF 1942 mod Desert Combat / IL-2 (PC) - I can't pick one, my tastes were and still are so varied.

35 - (2010) - Battlefield BC2 / Red Dead Redemption (PS3). Special mention to Uncharted 2 which just a year before became my the best videogame entertainment experience of my life.

40 - (2015) - Valiant Hearts (PS4). The older I get, the more story matters. This game was brief, but unforgettable.

I'm quiet sure my 2020 entry will include VR, or whatever it's called then, it has already changed how I look at gaming, and I'm excited for the future!

 

[Trickytoon]

5 - Parsec (TI99/4A).
10 - Outrun (Arcade).
15 - John Madden Football (Megadrive)
20 - Quake (PC)
25 - Baldur's Gate 2 (PC) / Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance (PS2) / Diablo II (PC)

No wonder my career stalled at 25.

 

[TLZ]

You guys.... So young..... That or most of you stopping at 20 on purpose

5- All I remember is pong and some Atari games.

10- SMB3 and double dragon on Famicom. The year and console that changed and shaped gaming forever for me.

15- Captain Tsubasa: Get in the Tomorrow

20- Soul reaver, resident evil, winning eleven.

25- Winning eleven 9, Burnout, God of war, Splinter cell, Arc the lad, Need for speed.

30- Heavy rain, Final fantasy xiii, Yakuza 3, God of war 3, GTA episodes, Rdr, Lego harry potter 1-4, Civ 5, PES 2011, Def jam rapstar, Naruto Shipuuden UNS2, GT5 (what a year)

35- Duke nukem 3d megaton, The order 1886, Final fantasy x/x2 HD remaster, Mario maker, PES 16, Transformers devastation, Yoshi's woolly world. (I have a lot of games from 2015 but I bought them sometime in 2016 as I stopped buying most games day 1)