What was your first video game addiction?

My first addiction threatened to derail my schooling. It was 1993-1994 I was heading into my second last year of high school and I'd mucked around with this strange world building game, but over those school holidays it just clicked...Sid Meyer's Civilisation.

I say it is my first proper video game addiction because it is the first time I remember (and being old enough) to look at the clock and say to myself - "hey, it is only 1 am...I'll just start a new game and get to 500AD and then go to bed" - only to find myself still playing at 4am.

There were other Commodore 64 games in the 80s when I was in primary school that we'd play all afternoon...but we'd so often still head outside and play...it wash;t the same "I must play" vibe.

I loved the 2D, pixelated graphics. I loved the fact I could name cities and the main goal of launching a rocket to Alpha Centuri! This game appealed to the RPG part of me that had been alive and well for a few years already. I'm struck how much that title screen above is similar to SPORE...I'd never noticed that before.

So - what was your first video game addiction?

Tags: addiction, civilisation, games, video

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Barry on March 19, 2012 at 6:29am

I just to play a C64 game called Styx incessantly back in the day. It was such a simple game - 'fly' you dot (spaceship) in straight line from one edge of the screen to the other and make a force field to contain the Styx (an alien entity consisting of randomly moving jagged lines), whilst avoiding two bad guy dots. If the Styx touch your forcefield before you touchdown at the other end, you die. 'Own' 75% of the screen and you move on to the next level, which is exactly the same, just with different colours!

My personal mission was always to get as close to 100% as possible on each level. Scores never mattered, neither did getting to level XX, just as big as a percentage as I could get. To do it, you had to first get close to 75%, without going bust, and then do one final run to grab the rest of the screen. I'd spend ages moving around the edges to avoid the baddies and biding my time waiting for the Styx to suddenly get very small, and then dash out, run around it and bam! Gotcha! The best I ever managed was 98%.

I wonder if the game is still out there somewhere?

Permalink Reply by John Booth on March 20, 2012 at 4:16pm

"Styx" was apparently a clone of Qix, which I remember only as an arcade game.

As far as first addictions go, it would have been whatever games I got the Christmas we received our Atari Video Computer System. (That's right, kids! It wasn't even marketed as the 2600 yet.) I'm thinking Missile Command, Asteroids, Combat and Space Invaders.

Permalink Reply by Nathan Barry on March 20, 2012 at 6:15pm

Wow, cheers John, I had no idea! And I can't believe it's still going now with an Xbox live version!

Permalink Reply by Kevin Clem on March 20, 2012 at 8:22pm

I had Qix for my C64! 

Permalink Reply by Alex Llama on March 19, 2012 at 6:41am

Adventure on the Atari 2600, then Karateka on the C64

Permalink Reply by Kevin Clem on March 20, 2012 at 2:37pm

Karateka! I broke many-a joystick to that one! 

Permalink Reply by Daniel Donahoo on March 20, 2012 at 3:47pm
Was that one of the wobble the joystick side to side games?
Permalink Reply by Alex Llama on March 20, 2012 at 4:21pm

No, it basically had six moves, kick high, kick middle, and kick low, then the same for punches. That was it. So to beat the game all you really needed to have was patience.

Permalink Reply by Kevin Clem on March 20, 2012 at 6:08pm

No they were almost modern. You could direct attacks by which direction you would push the stick. But being a kid I was prone to JAMMING the stick far to hard. 

Permalink Reply by Nathan Barry on March 20, 2012 at 6:16pm

Daley Thompson's Decathlon was the best joystick wobbler I reckon. Really gave those arm muscles a work out!

Permalink Reply by Bob Sandlan on March 20, 2012 at 7:20pm

Ooo I'd forgotten about that one. I could never get the pole vault though.

Permalink Reply by Daniel Donahoo on March 26, 2012 at 7:23pm

Yeah. Loved those games where in reality the skill level required was low...just a willingness to bust up joysticks was all that was required. Oh, when I got my first joystick that was like an airplane control stick...what a day that was

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