50

#14: Gunfighter (Showdown in 2100AD.)

• Philips Videopac G7000 (Magnavox Odyssey2)
• 1979

• Unguessed

This primitive video game is one of the first I played. Obviously I am not old enough to played this when it was new however. My mother, in her own childhood, had a video game system during the 1970s. There were a bunch of games with it.

In those days, pretty much all games were first party and they were numbered, staring with one and ending somewhere in the 40s. After I was introduced to video games through other games, which will come up, my mother dug up her old console for me to play. The game that stuck me most was this one. According to our European box art I was supposed to be playing a duel between cowboys in the Wild West, but as box art from other regions prove, these graphics are up to interpretation.

Gameplay is simple; shoot the other and score a point. Single-player didn't exist yet in those days, so this was multiplayer and I played it with my mother mostly, but sometimes with others. The game introduced me to shooters, and competitive play. It also proves, that simple, even in this day and age, can be a lot of fun.

49

Soccer

• Nintendo Entertainment System
• 1987

• Guessed by The_Liquid_Laser

Another archaic game is Soccer. This was one of the 'black-box' games, a series of launch-window titles (in Europe at least) spanning a variety of genres and often with the most generic titles. The most famous of these, likely, is Super Mario Bros.

Soccer was likely my first gaming addiction, as I regularly played it with my cousin, for a, at least from the perspective of a child, long while. The NES I played on was my aunt's, as she was quite the gamer. When she bought herself an SNES, the old NES was moved upstairs for us kids to play. Later still, when she got herself the N64, the NES was moved to grandma's house. And we continued playing.

48

Step On It!

• Apple Macintosh
• 1996

• Guessed by Darashiva

An extremely obscure puzzle platform that was in fact a clone of a more well known NES game; Solomon's Key. This fact was unknown to me for over a decade, even when I actually did know of the NES game's existence.

I assume the development of it and the handful of other games they made was merely due to the developers wanting to do something different every once in a while, as they usually made productivity apps for Mac in the 90s. Spreadsheet 2000 anyone? That's theirs. Or more interestingly the precursor to iTunes.

Regardless, the game's a lot of fun and challenging. The objective, like the game it's born from, is to get a key and reach the exit by overcoming obstacles. The player can create and remove blocks to build bridges or trap enemies. This requires a lot of thinking, which I wasn't capable of back then, because I could never beat it.

47

Duck Hunt

• Nintendo Entertainment System
• 1987

• Guessed by Darashiva

A likely contender for being the first video game I ever played. Because of my young age, I don't know exactly, and because Super Mario Bros. was on the same cartridge it could also have been that, but in any case Duck Hunt is the game that made a lasting impression.

The dog you love to hate was a big piece of that memorability. Obviously, the dog is the character that fetches the birds you shoot, or laughs at you when you miss. It's a one-dimensional character for sure, but its infamy probably made it one of the most well known video game characters ever created. A true icon.

Like Soccer, I played this with my cousin at my aunt's house. I was still a time when I didn't care much about gaming however, even if I thought playing this every now and then was fun, and the game that really made me a gamer still had to come up.

46

Star Wars Rebel Assault II: The Hidden Empire

• Apple Macintosh
• 1995

• Guessed by The_Liquid_Laser

My real father never cared much for technology, and he still doesn't, so we never had anything interesting in the house, but when my parents got divorced and I gained a step-father, all that changed. Shortly after, he came home carrying a huge cardboard box that weighed as much as a car. Inside it was a computer, our first computer; a Mac. With it, he brought a handful of games. One of those, was Star Wars Rebel Assault II.

This game blew my mind at the time. It was my introduction to the Star Wars franchise, and when you have never heard of Darth Vader, his introduction in the intro of this game is quite intimidating.

Luckily, this is also a fun game. In arcade style, the game follows a series of on-rails levels. These levels are usually shooters in either first of third person style, or flying stages where you have avoid obstacles. The game's cinematic presentation with live-action cutscenes set the stage for my love of Star Wars, one of two pop-culture franchises that have stayed with me, and will stay with me, for all time.