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First game you saw as a kid which blew you away?

I think I was maybe six years old, but it was Dragon's Lair that blew my tiny little mind. Even if it was pretty much just an interactive cartoon.




Edit: Otherwise, the first real game-game that got me was probably Duck Hunt (never seen, heard of or played a light gun game - not sure if there even really were any prior to it), then followed by Sonic on the Genesis (dat speed).
 
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Must have been Super Mario World. After the NES and the Sega Master System, that game was insanely impressive to me. Well, still is! 512 kB if I'm not mistaken. Shit.
 
I can literally remember the moment my cousin busted out his new Saturn and how my 7 year old self felt when first seeing Panzer Dragoon:



It's still so damn eloquent even for todays standards; the way the level fades in from black and the orchestral music starts, mind blowing shit when the last game you were used to was Sonic on MD.
 
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Enduro, on the Atari VCS2600. No, really; there wasn't really anything to compare it to at the time, but it had stuff like night driving, or fog, can you imagine what it was like seeing that in the 80's?
 
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My first PS2 game. It's still fun to play and the soundtrack is great. The graphics really did look "real" on CRT TV back in 2002 lol.

2b2913a9b36cb93c02fb38993d94abe6.jpg
 
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Super Mario Bros.

that 60fps scrolling was unbelievable. as was the continuous, luxuriously streamingf level design. most games before this were a single room. Donkey Kong, Pac-Man. Joust.

suddenly Mario comes out, the background isn't just black but a semi-realistic sky blue, the world scrolls with buttery smoothness, the physics on Mario's jump are as finely tuned as any classic hot rod. it was a thing to behold.

it also set the standards for every platform game ever. for the next decade (until the advent of 3D) SMB was pretty much at the core of every 8-bit and 16-bit game released.
 
For me, the C64 was the first real gaming system I had. I'd have to say I spent most time with The Bard's Tale and the sequels. Such a step up from the Ultima and other text games. But the original Elite and a game called The Seven Cities of Gold really opened my mind up to "open world" possibilities.

However my C64 love affair ended when I saw Falcon 3.0 running on my uncle's 386 PC. It was over I could hardly play the C64 after that.
 
jufonuk said:
Some great answers in this thread.

my bro go the new Xbox. He was playing assassins creed Valhalla. I remarked that the game didn't look so amazing compared to the xbone.

the same with the leap from the 360 to Xbox one at first the leap wasn't evident.

is it me or do next generation launches not have that wow factor as the old days.
The leap is so subtle and you have to wait around to the end of the console lifespan to notice it.

probably rose tinted glasses and all that.

also I wonder if gaming never went 3D what video games would have looked like in 2D nowadays?
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The difference is subtile, yes. Mostly FPS, Resolution and draw-distance got in reased.
Valhalla is a looker even on Last Gen
 
Damn,that's a long time ago for me OP......probably Ghost n' Goblins on the Commodore 64.
First console game was certainly Tomb Raider on the PS1 though....those 3D graphics were mind blowing,lol.
 
First game that truly blew me away as a Kid i would say Street Fighter 2, there were some games before that amazed and wowed me, and loved so much and still love to this day, like both TMNT2 and Captain Tsubasa Super Striker 2 on NES (which btw is the best soccer game of all time for me, the OST is just too iconic)

But Street Fighter 2 was next level of mindblown, the game simply changed the standards of quality games, the game was so incredible in everyway possible, the characters, the music, the graphics, the gameplay, and all the innovations surrounding it, it was like just too good that you can't believe how good it is and you are just gonna wake up and it was just a dream, but no this masterpiece AF game was real, and would make everything else shit compare to it. I remember one day at school teacher was talking to me and i was so much thinking about Street Fighter 2 i didn't realize she was talking to me (true story), i even remember i was thinking about Vega, his stage and music, and was very fascinate about this character back then, altho my favorite character to play was Ken lol

There are a lot of other games that blew me after of course, and SF2 isn't even my favorite fg of all time. Just to name some of the most incredible and games tht truly blew me AF and changed my life for some, like MGS1 (my favorite game of all time), Tekken 3, Resident Evil, Tomb Raider 2 or Demon Souls, God Of War both 2005 and 2018, and cie.
 
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The first time I walked into an arcade as a kid. The difference between the home games and what I was looking at in the arcade was a massive difference. Sprites were massive, more colors, more things on-screen, huge cabinets with seats and steering wheels. It was a magical wonderland of video games.

For home consoles/PC it would have to be Super Mario Bros, as it fundamentally changed gaming.

The biggest visual leap I've ever seen is Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast. Nothing has ever come close to the gap between that and the N46/PS1 and Saturn. It still holds up well.
 
Since my first experience with gaming was Pong, the fact that you could interact with your TV, instead of just staring at it in a vegetative state watching shows, was the thing that was the most mind-blowing to me.

As for the first games that blew me away.......I don't know.......it was 46 years ago that first played Pong, so many games between now and then. The games that impressed me back then were most likely due to the gameplay and not necessarily the graphics. It wasn't until the C64 and NES that graphics really started getting "impressive" to look at. I don't know....lost to the ether's of time I guess.
 
I think the first game i ever saw that was not dos was Warcraft 2.. the first games that i remember being really excited by are.. Diablo, Age of Empires and Ground Control...

... Look at this gameplay of ground control.. the really cool green waypoint and selection markers, etc, were really slick.. and you could zoom in all the way down to the shrubs in the ground.. great music, voice acting.. that was the real mindblower:

 
Seeing Sonic The Hedgehog at a freinds house whilst I was an NES owner was pretty jaw-dropping.

The colours, the music, the multiple layers of parallax scrolling, the speed. It was all just mind blowing.
 
Can I cheat? Ok, ill cheat.

Days Gone blew me away by how shit it was. Imagine trying to clone the GOTG(TLOU2) and not even being a decent game. Bruh just call Neil GOATman and ask him how to make a game. Why did sony greenlight this waste of time.

IMO Sony only needs Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Sucker punch and SIE. Along side all the Timed exclusives and Published games such as bloodborne 1-2 games from all the developers listed will always make banger. Shutdown japan studio, media molecule etc etc etc
 
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Sonic 1 on Megadrive/Genesis. Until then I had only played Spectrum and NES games. Those colorful graphics, the music, how fluent everything was...
 
Metroid Prime on gamecube, at the mall

I played it on a testing ngc in the videogames section and I instantly fell in love both with the ngc and Metroid Prime
Still one of my 5 favourite games ever
 
SirTerry-T said:
Knight Lore by Ultimate Play The Game (a.k.a Rare Ltd). ZX Spectrum 1984.
MpmUpiX.jpg

Twelve year old me thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever seen. Still ranks as a very special part of my gaming memories.
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I was going to post this, but you beat me to it. I remember seeing a screenshot on a magazine and thinking "This gotta be fake, there is NO WAY you can do that on a Spectrum!". Then the game came out and I was absolutely floored!
Ultimate were gods in the Speccy world. I loved Jet Pac, Atic Atac, Sabre Wulf and of course Knight Lore. Best of their class.
 
I never had an NES, like we were poor as shit but my brother got an Atari 2600 so it was my only reference for the longest time.. and to be honest looking back that system sucked ass..
but the first time I went to a friends house and played Super Mario brothers, I was just insane for it.. My cousin had one and two of my best friends did so I'd find any excuse to go to their house to play it and they were way over it by that time and on to new games but I wanted to play more Mario.
 
Super Mario World as it was the first SNES game I saw and 16 but was a big improvement over NES games.

Mario 64 was even more of a stunner being thrown first 3D game I saw and played.
 
Star Trek 25th Anniversary. 1992. I remember playing on my Mac Laptop and saying "man, if graphics stay like this from here on out, I'm perfectly fine with that!" Thought it was so f'n cool.

90
 
Pejo said:
This still gets me hyped up 30 years later.
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This is it for me.

After the general 8-bit blockiness of Mario 1 and other NES games, seeing this stuff in Ninja Gaiden blew me away; specifically the cutscenes. "HOLY SHIT, THIS IS ALMOST A MOVIE!"

Ninja%20Gaiden%20-%20Meeting%20Irene-468x.jpg


Seems like a joke now, but to my 5-year-old mind, this was absolute bonkers, I didn't think this was possible. [EDIT: Pretty much what ssringo ssringo said in his post above]

Later on in my childhood, the intro to Tekken 1 blew me away, quite a bit. "THAT FIRE AROUND MARSHALL LAW! WOW" :messenger_tears_of_joy:

 
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Even though I had been gaming for almost decade prior to these games, but it was Tekken 3 and Gran Turismo that made me go WOW. 😯.
 



I was only 11 back in 2013. The first time I saw this, I thought it was real life and the closest games can get to photorealism.
 
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I remember getting gamesmaster magazine in early 2001? you got a VHS that had a load of game trailers on it.

FFX was on it, man the graphics from the cutscenes, the gameplay and the music just blew my mind. I watched that shit a thousand times.

My friend ended up getting it for Christmas and I must have gone over to his everyday for a month as played through it.
 
GTA 3 in the PS2. It's strange because I don't remember having a wow moment as a kid from SNES to N64 (maybe I was too young to appreciate it at that point)
 
Glad to see so many people blown away by ninja gaiden cut scenes on NES.

Another NES game that blew me away (audio)visually at the time is Gremlins 2.

And maybe a bit obscure, but Warbird on the Atari Lynx was amazing.
 
Once when I was a young whippersnapper, it will have been in the 80s, I saw on tv an item about VIOLENT VIDEOGAMES.

It showed some 2d game, I think it might have been on Amiga. It was in a forest, and some monster grabbed some other monster/human in its hand and squeezed it so blood spurted out. Thought it was the most awesome thing ever and it hooked me forever. No clue what that game was...
 
I was always impressed with games but the only game I didnt believe was real at the time was Doom 3. It just didn't seem possible to render that when it was first shown off.
 
Scotty W said:
Super Mario Bros.
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Yes, same with me. Up until then, my idea of what video games were was Atari 2600 games. Even today, playing Super Mario 1 levels in Mario Maker 2, I remember the kind of chills I got 35 years ago when I encountered that game, which had so much personality and felt like a real world you could spend time in.
 
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