My first memory of Mario was when I first got it on my DS back in Christmas 2005, and I got the special Mario kart pack and I played it so much and from then I've always loved Mario games.

Everyone has a nice little story about the plumber!

Well, I loved Donkey Kong in the arcade but of course he wasn't called Mario until Donkey Kong Jr where he was the antagonist.

So the first game where you actually played as him named Mario was the original Mario Bros, which I loved. However, Super Mario Bros was the paradigm shift in the gaming world IMO, particularly with home consoles. Like the arcade of Pac Man before it, it set the standard for what a video game could be.

Donkey Kong in arcades - loved it back in early 80s - actually, if I don't count Mario Karts, that's about only game with Mario I really liked.

Hard to remember my first impression when I grew up with the NES. I was regularly playing the games when I was 2-3 years old, we have a VHS of me when I'm 3 years old, waking up in the morning when I'm half-asleep and immediately going to the NES to play Mega Man...

Don't think I played the original SMB much at all, though. I thought it was too plain, so I preferred the second one (I was born 87, so it was already out) - lots more stuff to do there, more colorful, better music, characters, etc etc. I never owned the third one, but remembing loving it when playing it at others' houses. I enjoyed them a lot, but overall, Mario was never quite a top tier franchise for me, always second to certain games on the systems (Mega Man, Zelda)

I visited my elder brother house, one day a cousin of ours was staying with him and I saw him playing the NES, with SMB. My first introduction to the video game craze was from that game and from then on, I was branded a Mario-fanatic. Probably still am! Haha-hahh!

Crash Bandicoot

I remember playing Crash for the first time at my friends house. They had a Playstation while I only had an N64 at the time. I again, was a young kid at the time when I first played it. I remember thinking it was just a decent game with a pretty cool character. I liked playing Mario much more though, this was partially because I found the game to be hard. I then moved on to playing the racing game and I remember liking it a lot but couldn't play it too often because my family didn't have a Playstation yet...now, Crash isn't the same and it kinda sucks but nothing I can do about it...

While I was exposed to a Crash game, I did get expose to the character on one of the first commercial for his debut game. Made me think of him as the wilder version of Sonic the Hedgehog, but he was a rather cool character in his own rights. And I was like, "wow, now we got Mario for Nintendo, Sonic for Sega and now a newcomer from Sony represent them, Crash!" I think I was one of the few that actually hated the console wars (the bashing to be more precise) in the beginning, but I still got swept in it when Sony got in the picture.

But then, the unexpected happened, Crash on a Nintendo product, I can understand for Sonic after the Dreamcast plug was yanked, but this blew my mind. One of the few reasons why I actually did real digging in the industry... I'm still sad of what happened to him. I really did view him as Sony's star to Mario and Sonic is for Nintendo and Sega respectively.

My first memory of crash bandicoot was probably when I first got nitro kart in 2003/2004 on my gameboy advance and at the time one of my favourite driving games. I really liked it but it seems to be the only crash game I have, I hope one day it will come back onto handhelds again.

crash bandicoot 2 was the first videogame I ever played. I remember going to my cousins house during the summer and playing this game a lot with my sister.