I remember paying my parents then having them mail a check to Richard Garriott for Ultima IV for the Apple IIe. It arrived on 4 floppy disks. $40 was a helluva lot of money in the mid-80's, but that game was worth every penny. I still have the cloth map, the ankh, and the 2 books.

Zelda II was bitchin too, I loved playing through it over and over.

Ahh yes I do remember this, in fact it is probably the clearest memory I have of my grade school years...

The money came from the county fair. I was pretty heavily involved in 4H, and fair meant payday for a full summer's worth of work. That summer I had a feeder steer that required daily feeding, brushing, training and general pampering. Come fair time I had three days to show off the 1200 lb. beast (I think his name was Zeus) and have him judged. On the final day came the big money making affair- local businesses would bid in an open auction to sponsor a calf, which basically meant $400 in my pocket. Ka-ching!

So that fall I walked into my second grade classroom a little richer. In early September we were given the first set of book orders for the year. If you know what book orders are, then you know that they are about the most exciting thing in a second graders life. They are like Playboys before you are attracted to girls, containing all kinds of cool stuff that you just sit and lust after. These book orders offered books (Goosebumps was huge at the time), book tchochkes (I remember getting Monster Blood solely for the canister of slime that was included), and always one or two computer games. With a new computer at home (a P2-166 with 2GB hard drive and 32 MB RAM- thanks Mom and Dad!) and money in my pocket, I decided to spring for a $30 computer game that looked like fun.

Around a month later I came back from recess and there it was, sitting on my desk in plastic wrap: SimCity 2000. I remember ogling over it before tearing it open and reading through the instruction manual, impatiently waiting to get home and play it. Over the next year I played that game constantly. City building became a daily exercise for me, placing my residential squares and then my industrial and commerce ones, building up a city until it was large enough to make destroying it enjoyable. Letting loose earthquakes, UFOs, fires, floods on my city and watching the destruction.

I miss the days when I was so excited to get just one game. The days when one game would keep me satisfied and happy for a year or more...

edit: doh!

The first game I ever bought with my allowance was Secret of the Silver Blades, one of the SSI AD&D gold box RPGs. Oddly, even though I loved that game, I never played another game of the gold box series.

The first game I bought with money earned from a job was Wing Commander. I still remember that in the last mission, my ship was heavily damaged, I had only one laser left and somehow managed to destroy the Kilrathi base. It wasn't because I was good, I was sitting stationary in space and the A.I. chose that moment to go completely brain dead and ignore me. It probably took a half an hour to whittle down the target, all the while expecting to be obliterated in any second.

Man, my story sounds so sad and boring -- it was Golf on the Master System. You have to understand, though, that growing up in Australia in the 80s, the Master System was where it was at, and I have a lot of fond memories of Wonder Boy in Monster Land, Phantasy Star, and even the Master System port of Sonic. Golf was actually a pretty decent golf game, and it had (really terrible) sampled speech, which was just awesome at the time.

I like to think it was Monkey Island 1... but I think it was actually Lemmings.

Monkey Island was the first game that I played through and thoroughly enjoyed. I remember picking up the box and hearing the floppy disc moving about inside as I checked the, now laughably low, system requirements.

This brings back memories

The first game I bought with my allowance was Starship Command for the Electron (a sort of cut-down BBC Micro, specific to the UK). I remember expectantly carrying it in a brown paper bag to the bus after school, and running it for the first time - very very good times indeed

The first game I bought with my own hard-earned cash (specifically my Army release bonus) was System Shock I. Amazing stuff at the time.

The Adventures of Lolo for NES. I was 5 and I had this goal of saving up $100 in loonies, because they're gold coins, and Mario collects gold coins. Then, next time my parents went to a store, I would go with them and buy a game. I had no idea what game, and I chose Lolo based entirely on the box. It was sitting amidst dozens of games with soldiers and robots and aliens and explosions on the cover, all things I really like, but this game stood out because it looked so different. And it turned out to be one of my all-time favorite NES games. When it was finally re-released on Wii's Virtual Console, I bought it and played through the entire thing in one sitting. Tried to do the same with Lolo 2, but I got stuck at one point and had to stop and come back later. Now I'm just patiently waiting for Lolo 3, which I sadly never saw the end of.

HOLY CRAP YOU'RE CANADIAN IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW.

I've been wracking my mind trying to think of the first game I bought with my own money*, but I can't for the life of me figure it out. I've got a terrible memory, though. My best guess is either Evergrace or Eternal Ring.

*Assuming we're referring to money earned through jobbiness, as opposed to gifted money. In which case... I'm still not sure. Something on the NES, no doubt. Possibly Chip N' Dale's Rescure Rangers.

Asteroids for the Atari 2600.

Yes, I'm old.

Popeye & Burgertime for the Atari 2600.

My parents bought me everything I could possibly want for the Intellivision, so it wasn't until the discovery of computers at a friend's, a TRS-80, that I considered buying something for myself. I was allowed to forgo all other birthday presents to get a PC of my own, but from there I was on my own (as no one else even had a clue about computers at that point).

I'd have to guess that the first computer game I bought for myself was Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord. I remember loving that game. You had some basic character classes and could unlock some elite ones, if I recall correctly. I vaguely remember actually mapping the place out with graph paper (no automaps then!) as I explored through the little 3d wireframe "graphics".

As sad as that probably sounds now, it was a lot of fun at the time.

Well, up until I was in Junior High, all we had was a Commodore 64 and Atari 2600, and my dad had plenty of friends at work that would willingly pirate just about anything (the program Maverick was that day's equivalent of SlySoft) so we didn't really buy games for the Commodore 64... Not to mention, by that time, it was fading into the past, as IBM-compatibles started flooding the market, and it was getting harder and harder to find games on store shelves. Even when we did, and when we bought a game, I never paid for it, my parents did. You could get Atari 2600 games at Big Lots for $2 by then.

The first game I bought, I guess, would have to be the original Sonic the Hedgehog, and only because it came with the Sega Genesis. I spent a good, long time campaigning for money from relatives, doing chores around the house that I never usually did and asking for money for it, and collecting every spare coin I could get my hands on, and even making a little profit on the half-dollar coins that I had. I don't remember how long it took, but I remember my $116 goal, and the glorious day when I walked into Hills Department Store with the requisite amount, and purchased my first console. That Genesis provided entertainment for a long time, too.

I don't remember the first game I bought, but I certainly remember the first system. The Nintendo 64. I was in 6th grade at the time and the $250ish for the game was a TON of money.

My mom drove me over to the local Target and I bought it in cold, hard cash. On the way back home, we had to stop at the middle school and wait for my sister (who was getting back from the 8th grade trip to the state capitol (which is how I remember that I was in 6th grade at the time)). It was agonizing. I had to sit in the car with the box without being able to play it.

So worth it though.

My parents got me a used Genesis with about 6 games when I was in elementary school so I was set for a while. When it came time to save up my allowances and purchase a game of my own it was a used copy of Street Fighter II: Championship Edition. I remember my friend had SF2 on his SNES and we used to talk about it on the bus all the time, so I couldn't wait to own a version for my own system. Man how I loved that game, (which makes the prospect of the HD remix so very exciting to me).