What is the first video game you remember playing?

Those are US releases, btw. I’m sure Japan had many other early games.

 

I know on the Video Game History Podcast, they often note that release dates are a kind of hazy thing, until you get to the PS1 / N64 era. Until then, you'd have things like the West Coast or major markets getting a game months before the rest of the country, or vice versa, or games shipped by a publisher on Date X but not actually available until Date Y.

So at least for now, in Japan, the first non-Nintendo game for the NES was something called "Nuts & Milk" by Hudson Soft, in July 28, 1984. Three days later they released "Lode Runner." Namco came out with "Galaxian" in September 7, 1984. There were about 50 games released before SMB in September 13, 1985, and it's pretty clear what a quantum leap that game is vs. the previous ones.

On the other end of the spectrum - the last Japanese releases were "Wario's Woods" and "The Legend of Zelda" on February 19, 1994. The latter was a port of the U.S. version, because of it has a battery. Final U.S. release was "Wario's Woods" on December 10, 1994. "The Lion King" was the final officially licensed released, in Europe on May 25, 1995. This and "Aladdin" (Dec. 31, 1994) were never released in North America. Kind of amazing how much staying power the system had.

 

The first game I can ever remember there being a big deal about the release date for was Mortal Kombat for the SNES and Genesis in (I want to say) 1993. To this day, it's the only game I've ever pre-ordered. There was so much hype for it that I just didn't want to risk having to wait weeks or months.

 

ABACABB.

 

I believe it was D, U, L, L, A, R, D for MK's cheat menu. Not even kidding.

 

I just remember for MK3 I had a strategy guide that I had to consult for damn near every finishing move. One of the best things later games (or at least MK10 had it) was giving you the move set for each character when you pressed pause.
It's also the reason Street Fighter II was the superior fighting game of the two. If you can master the quarter-circle + A move, you've got half of Street Fighter licked. Mortal Kombat's moves were like they threw all of the controls into a random number generator.

 

First TV video game was undoubtedly Pong.

First arcade video game was probably Asteroids. Pac-Man came along about a year later. My best game that I could play forever on one quarter was Konami's Kicker, followed by Joust and Gauntlet.

Of course that doesn't count the multitude of pinball games that were around at the time.

 

You haven't lived until you unplug the machine to reset the best score.

 

MK also has a ton of balance issues - All characters do the same damage, so special moves make a huge difference. Some characters are practically unbeatable when played by the computer, because of the speed of the game and how much area their specials cover. SF2 is better in this respect.

 

The combo system was what turned me off.
I, being a human with normal motor skills, could never pull off more than a basic 4- or 5-hit combo because of both the insane number of buttons you had to press and the speed at which you had to do it. Meanwhile, you have these assholes who have mastered 20- and 30-hit combo patterns that drain your entire health bar. By the second or third hit you know what's coming and the fight is basically over as your character gets pummeled around the screen for 30 seconds and you're helpless to stop it. It sucked the fun out of the game, at least as far as playing against other people. If you can't do the combos, you almost can't win.

 

Speaking of Street Fighter, these are a few years old but still hilarious. There's a whole series of them you can go down a YouTube rabbit hole with:

 

Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode was the first game that really grabbed my attention and got me hooked on NES. It was followed by Metal Gear, then Sid Meyer's Pirates!

Then, being a dumb ass 16-yr-old in 1993, I sold it all for a used Sega Genesis with a bunch of sports games.