Where we are and where we have been?

[Legion]

As a person who enjoys games I often wonder what got people into gaming and what they enjoyed about those games.
So here are my questions.

What was your first game? megaman
Why did you choose that game? My dad wanted me out of his tools, got me a Nintendo. The cover looked awesome.

What is your favorite game today? DuesEX3.
Why did you choose that game? Well the game is a pleasure to play touching on the fps rpg like madness I enjoy.
What is it about that game? I love games where I feel my actions have a effect on the world around me and I'm sci-fi addicted.

[Shaderow]

First game Quake 3.
Why? Brother and his friends needed someone to frag and I ended up doing said fragging.
Favourite game?
I will never be able to answer that question. I have so many great games, each of them so exquisite I can't call favourites. Between Brutal Legend's soundtrack, Darksider's story, Dues Ex's choices, The Witcher 2's evolving world, Mass Effect's emotional investment or inFamous making me feel like the super hero I've always wanted to be.
It just seems evil to love one more than another.

[pArkEr]

What got me started on gaming was those old Golden China videogame consoles. I fondly remember wasting away hours in front of the television playing Contra with my cousins, not knowing what I was getting myself into with this little past time of mine. My first PC, along with Max Payne, Starcraft and countless ****ty reports, soon followed.

Favourite game? Probably Prey. It was like playing one of my favourite science fiction novels (Rendezvous with Rama), except with the addition of guns, enormous aliens, portals and vomiting.

[S7wede]

What was your first game? Battle Tanks
Why did you choose that game? It was one of the first multi-player titles that I could play with my then 3 year old brother

What is your favorite game today? League of Legends
Why did you choose that game? It's free to play, and is quite addictive. The community can be atrocious at times, but the skill required to defeat an organised team of opponents in the ranked league keeps bringing me back for more.

[Drakus]

What was your first game? adventure island
Why did you choose that game? parents got me a nintendo just to stop me from saying "but all my friends have one".

What is your favorite game today? Mount & Blade Warband.
Why did you choose that game? Wooing ladies, climbing the political ladder, raising and training my own army...what's not to like.
What is it about that game? basically answered above.

Adding question: What is it about gaming that you love? I love the fact that you could be anyone, doing any thing, in a universe with a rich background story. Breaking the normal routine of daily life and experiencing something that is ... unusual.

[Toxxyc]

My first game? Technically, Tetris on a crap old 286 machine. Then followed Sink Sub Pro, along with Lemmings, Ski and Plumber. The first game I played that actually meant something though was Duke Nukem 3D.
Why did I choose the game? I didn't. My parents went to the Netherlands for a holiday, and stuck me with my older cousin. D3D was what he had on his machine, and he couldn't get me away from it. Many moons ago...
What is my fav game today? Dragon Age: Origins. No competition.
Why did I choose said game? Unknown reason. Maybe because I spent many, many hours pouring over missing pieces of armor to power up my character just right, maybe because the story is awesome, the graphics blew me away and it featured some of the coolest enemies I've ever seen when playing it. Maybe it's just that I quite like RPG's, and Dragon Age pretty much sums up all that's good in an RPG. I LOVE IT.
What is it about that game? Ever-changing, and never the same. Party relationships, everything just rules. Just wish they would've made the game a little more grown-up, but for what it stands, it's perfect.
What is it about gaming that I love? I love thrills. The challenge, the thrill and the occasional scare is something I love. I love the feeling of beating something I'm struggling with, though I don't really like struggling too much (Angry Birds is the exception). Also the story, making me feel like I mean something in the virtual reality and the magic gets me.

[Sinner-PWA]

My 1st game was Jet Set Willy on the ZX Spectrum 48k. It came with the Spectrum but was always a favourite of mine back in those early days of gaming. (showing my age)

It's hard to believe such entertainment was less than 48k.. A desktop wallpaper takes more than that these days.

[Cyberninja]

What was your first game?

Street Fighter 2, in the arcades. (Starforce on console and Alley Cat on PC)

Why did you choose that game?

It was usually the most crowded machine in the shop. It got everyone's attention, including my own. When I saw the game, I thought it looked cool. Also, the characters threw fireballs. That was the first time I had seen that. Many coins were inserted.

What is your favorite game today?

N/A.

I still need to play many more games before I decide on that. Some favorites so far: Vanquish, Bayonetta, Rayman Origins, Plants VS Zombies, Super Meat Boy, Batman Arkham Asylum.

[.exe]

I'm betraying my age I guess, but my first game (that I can remember) was Parachute, on those old Nintendo handhelds that could only play one specific game. My sister had Snoopy Tennis. :) Good times.
Why did I choose that game? Well, there really wasn't much of any kind of choice those days.

I don't really have a current favourite game mostly because there are a fair amount that are all of extremely high standard. Forced the choose, I'd say Skyrim. Clocked in nearly 700 hours so far.
It was a very good game anyway, but with all the incredible mods out there for it, the game is transformed into something utterly fantastic and extended it's lifespan to basically infinitum. The modding community for this game is amazing, and I can't express enough my gratitude for their astounding work.

Why Skyrim? Well, I loved Oblivion and I regret not playing enough Morrowind, so I knew Skyrim would be an epic, grand adventure.

[Legion]

lol.
Oddly I have used:
Spectrum ZX "color"
80286
Apple IIe
Golden china and or Nintendo.
80386
Sega genesis
Gameboy
Gameboy advance

The list goes on and on I could be here all day naming devices and games.

[DarkPrince]

What was your first game? That game with the tanks on the Atari 2600

Why did you choose that game? Only game I had on it

What is your favorite game today? Dark Souls

Why did you choose that game? No matter how much you level up you can still be beaten, PvP keeps things interesting and the game never gets old because of it.

[nukehead]

What was your first game?
I think it was Space Invaders. I was quite young though and generally only recall having to wait whilst my bother or mom would rewind the cassette for me. Then along came the Golden China and my childhood was consumed (Except for that damn 'No TV games during the week' rule we had enforced).

Why did you choose that game?
I did not choose it. It chose me.

What is your favourite game today?
There are far too many but if I go by hours invested then it is easily Rock Band/Guitar Hero
(edit: mind you the Metal Gear Solid series has consumed a fair chunk of my life too... and Timesplitters 2... and Jak & Daxter... and Tekken 3/5...)

Why did you choose that game
It just clicks with me. I love music. I love games. The game revolves around playing music. I have good rhythm. I am good at the game. You know? Clicky.

[ZoRPA]

What was your first game?
On the PC (XT) it was Decathlon.
On Atari, Space Invaders.

Why did you choose that game?
It was the only game I knew how to start from Floppy. Later on, I was very proficient in bashing Z and X for the 100m dash.
Soon though, games like Zaxxon, Castle Adventure, Donkey Kong and Sopwith followed.

What is your favourite game today?
I spend most of my free time in DayZ and I really enjoy this gem of a mod.

Why did you choose that game
I like how the game makes me feel. Feeling isolated and desperate and curious as to what lies in the next town. Feeling exited when you find a map or matches or a bigger back pack. You need to plan ahead, scout ahead, make sure you have enough food and drink to travel, take calculated risks and if you make a mistake then you die. No loading from a previous point if you die.

[wir]

What was your first game?
Emerald Mine on my dad's Amiga. After that... a few other I can't remember. We got a Playstation around 1997 I'd reckon, played it parallel with PC games for a while and ended up sticking with mainly PC games from there.

Why did you choose that game?
I don't remember choosing it, but I remember enjoying the crap out of it with my dad.

What is your favourite game today?
Eh, hard to say. The Half Life franchise is great, I played a lot of TF2, as well as CnC2 before we had ADSL. Didn't play Quake 1, but Quake 2 was one of my first games which I loved. Lately, I'm playing a bit of Quake 3(CPM).

[willbeonekenobi]

What was your first game?

For me that was Donkey Kong but the first game that I really enjoyed (an also got into trouble because I was too young to play it) was Wolfenstein 3d.

Why did you choose the game?
I was about 4 or 5 for the donkey kong and about 7 for Wolfenstein 3d and as far as I remember I stumbled upon them.

What is your favourite game today?
Honestly Mass Effect 3 at the moment, but I also like Max Payne 3 and La Noire.

[BladeMaster]

My first game: WarCraft: Orcs & Humans

Why?: Well, lol. It was just the first game I discovered. I loved it though and my love affair with the RTS genre began.

Favourite game now?: It's a toss up between all three Mass Effects and Half-Life 2 plus Eps. I will always love HL (even HL1)

Why?: I'm partial to emotionally engaging media and I could argue that the most emotionally engaging games of our current generation are ME and HL2. I can't think of any games post 2000 that had me so emotionally engaged.

That's probably why I had no problem killing innocent NPCs in games like Oblivion, Skyrim, FO3 and New Vegas. They are more like emotionless puppets than a representation of an actual human being.

[Grimnebulin]

What was your first game? Zork II, if memory serves, which it doesn't very well. Probably my clearest memory of the game that truly started 'a burning fire within' was The Black Cauldron in '86.

Why did you choose that game? Didn't choose it; my father came home one night with a set of floppy disks, one happened to be a copy of the game. it was obviously just meant to be.

What is your favorite game today? This very second, The Book of Unwritten Tales. Quirky and fairly amusing point 'n click. But it was something else yesterday and will be something else tomorrow. Precisely why I love gaming so much.

Why did you choose that game? I'm such a sucker for point 'n clicks, it's nostalgia in a slow-release drip feed...

What is it about that game? Cheesy Sierra style humour, lateral puzzle solving, pretty graphics.

What is it about gaming that you love? It's been a constant presence in my life for more than 2 decades, so I don't really have any recollection of what it would be like without this hobby. I love that there is pretty much any game for any mood, any level of skill, any level of involvement. It's a way to wind down for an hour in the evening, or to find myself breathless at 3am in the morning with no idea of how long I've been immersed; it's living a story, participating in a way that's impossible in any other medium.

[Gammaray]

What was your first game? It was either Asteroids on the Atari 2600, or Zaxxon on our first XT.

Why did you choose that game? It was already in the console when I found it and my aunt set it up for me to show me what that strange contraption was. My dad loaded Zaxxon for me seeing as MS DOS was still too alien.

What is your favorite game today? Impossible to say really, but at time of writing I would say Batman Arkhum Asylum/City

Why did you choose that game? It's one of the games I couldn't put down and have spent quite a considerable amount of time on.

What is it about that game? The gameplay, combat, plot and comic to game universe was pretty spot on.

What is it about gaming that you love? In short, I love unravelling a good story in most games. The mechanics and graphics are secondary to gameplay and plot. Yes now and then I'll take a break and play sport and fighting games, but my love is for a great story. That's why I loved games like Heavenly Sword, the Metal Gear series, Heavy Rain and God of War series.