What Was the First Game that Took Over Your Life?

Civ 2 is definitely on my short list. Dragon Quest III (at the time, Dragon Warrior III), too. That was a very early one that spurred my love of JRPGs. When I upgraded to a Super Nintendo, Final Fantasy IV, and later, Chrono Trigger -- I played through that one multiple times, and got every single ending possible. I'd also probably include the Quest for Glory series.

Forbes wrote:
Veloxi wrote:

Starflight

This was mine too.

My man. (Assuming you are, indeed, a man. Correct me if I'm mistaken.)

Veloxi wrote:
Forbes wrote:
Veloxi wrote:

Starflight

This was mine too.

My man. (Assuming you are, indeed, a man. Correct me if I'm mistaken.)

You are correct.

Starflight 2 was pretty good too.

Not as good as the first. Still great though.

There were plenty of other games from before I turned 13, but my bar mitzvah saw me receiving a PS2 Slim, a few years into the console lifecycle. With that summer came a trip to the EB Games in my local mall, where, having been a studious middle schooler who chipped away at their Final Fantasies here and there, asked the EB Games clerk if they had any PS2 games like Final Fantasy.

And that man bestowed upon me the most glorious curse that still haunts me to this day, for better & for worse:

A pre-owned copy of Kingdom Hearts.

For all of its imperfections, it was perfect. Big shonen anime energy, lore that could be splashed around in with a deep end to dive into should one be so ready to swim, Yoko Shimomura's compositions in top form. My first playthrough, I never used the Dodge Roll ability, thinking that jumping out of the way would suit all of my needs. I bashed my head against the 2nd Riku-Ansem fight in Hollow Bastion at least 8 times, enduring the lengthy cutscene before it every time, refusing to let that be where my story ended. Beating KH1 was a tremendous triumph for small me, and I wanted more. More of that Keyblade-swinging combat, more tales of Hearts & Worlds falling to darkness and the heroes of the light who would set it right.

And so I continued onto the GBA game, Chain of Memories. I spend that Fall semester of school farming Moogle Points & trading theories with classmates about the mysterious "Organization" and that cool Axel guy.

Then Spring comes around, and that March, Kingdom Hearts II sees its NA release. My preorder has been placed for months, and my mom does me the kindness of having picked up the game while I was at school.

I have the distinct memory of thinking to myself that, if I only had 24 hours left to live, I'd be happy throwing all of it into KH2.

KH2 continues to hold up as one of my favorite games of all time. The action-RPG gameplay is perfectly tuned, the story gets continuously absurd & wild, performances between the voice cast and the Tokyo Philharmonic are firing on all cylinders. The lore gets deeper and opens up into the big ol' mess we know KH for these days - Nobodies, Organization XIII, Xehanort, and the Secret Movie showing off Keyblade Armor and hushed whispers of The Keyblade War.

My obsession is cemented. With the exception of the Switch, every console purchase I make from here on out is motivated by one underlying question: "Will a Kingdom Hearts game be on this system?" It's why I hustle money hocking cookies & energy drinks in high school to save up for a PSP for when Birth by Sleep comes out. It's why I ride a connecting series of trains to meet up with a Craigslist seller for a 3DS XL, because Dream Drop Distance was waiting for me. It's why, when my college graduation money would've maybe been better spent on a new computer, I instead pick up a PS4, because Kingdom Hearts III was on the way. It will probably be Kingdom Hearts IV on the horizon that finally gets me to shell out for a PS5.

Even after the frustrations of KH3's ending, I'm still in it for the long haul. I will see this franchise off into the sunset, should Disney & Nomura ever allow such a thing to happen. Until then, I'll be following Sora into the realms of unreality & beyond.

Elite.

For me, it was Hack. I spent way too much time playing this all through college, to the detriment of my studies.

The first was probably Elite back in 1984, playing the "family" computer with my brother. We would play for hours.

Second would be Civ 2 on my first proper pentium computer. Bought that for University Coursework, spent a lot more time playing Civ 2 and X-COM: enemy unknown.

I'll throw this out as the last true game I lost my life too, and it was a quirky TBS strategy game called Silent Storm When I first moved from where I grew up to the other end of the country for my first "proper" job, I played that endlessly in my little house-share as I didn't get on that well with my then housemates. Still got very fond memories of it. I'm not sure it would stand up to a lot of replay though.

Sigh. I'm too old to remember.

mrwynd wrote:
Coolbeans wrote:

Everquest. It quickly became a second job!

Yeah same for me. There's plenty of games I spent a lot of time playing before Everquest but it's the only game in my life that took over to an unhealthy degree. Once I gave it up I never got into another MMO.

EverQuest was a heck of a ride. Glad I played it, and very thankful I stopped when I eventually did.

Committing to an MMO since then has been impossible.

IMAGE(https://media4.giphy.com/media/U1gFL01gZFy0CUsYtU/giphy.gif?cid=2154d3d7c8l7y0146h1ddh6nddrf5o2dawjwn05o357gbm3h&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g)

Ultima III on the Commodore 64 was the first game I remember playing 12+ hours in a row, followed probably by a bunch of C64 games I don't remember.

The first game I played all night til 8am without really realizing I had done that...Civilization 2 sometime around 1990 or 1991 at university. Told myself, "If you finish writing these two papers, you can play Civ for a bit as a reward..." and I do remember starting to pass out around 8am...

The earliest I can really remember obsessing about, at school and at home, was Wing Commander: Privateer. I had played and liked some space trading games before it, but Privateer was a whole new level. At school I would draw my own sector maps, ship designs, quest ideas, etc. And then play for hours at home. I never was able to beat it, due to being bad at video games, but I got close.

Mixolyde wrote:

The earliest I can really remember obsessing about, at school and at home, was Wing Commander: Privateer. I had played and liked some space trading games before it, but Privateer was a whole new level. At school I would draw my own sector maps, ship designs, quest ideas, etc. And then play for hours at home. I never was able to beat it, due to being bad at video games, but I got close.

Don't be too hard on yourself, that final fight against the alien was f*cking brutal.

strangederby wrote:

Elite.

128k? Bloody luxury.

I flew around the galaxy for that entire summer on a rubber keyboard and I were thankful for it!

It's either Dynamix's Red Baron or Silent Service II. Those were the first 2 PC games my dad got, and I went all-in on them.

Veloxi wrote:
Mixolyde wrote:

The earliest I can really remember obsessing about, at school and at home, was Wing Commander: Privateer. I had played and liked some space trading games before it, but Privateer was a whole new level. At school I would draw my own sector maps, ship designs, quest ideas, etc. And then play for hours at home. I never was able to beat it, due to being bad at video games, but I got close.

Don't be too hard on yourself, that final fight against the alien was f*cking brutal.

So I have heard. A few years ago I hex edited a save to give myself a ton of cash and made a few failed missions successful. Need to get back to that and finish it up some time.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms II for the NES is the earliest I remember.

I still don't know how my father decided, when he came home with a Nintendo as a gift for me, that Rampage, Play Action Football and were appropriate for an 8-year-old, and while I loved Play Action Football, RTKII is the game that started a lifelong hobby that had a seriously negative effect on my grades for the next decade.

If I'm being really strict about "taking over your life" though, it's Final Fantasy VII. I stayed home "sick" from school for an extra day to play that game, which was of course the talk of literally everyone at school.

Jonman wrote:
strangederby wrote:

Elite.

128k? Bloody luxury.

I flew around the galaxy for that entire summer on a rubber keyboard and I were thankful for it!

Eh. I don't judge you for it.

I'd have to go with the first game I ever finished, which was Enchanter from Infocom. Played a lot of Bolo on the Apple II before digging into this one and it was easily an obsession to finish filled with great discovery moments. Something about finding and casting new spells combined with actively participating in the story really had me hooked.

cybardian wrote:

I'd have to go with the first game I ever finished, which was Enchanter from Infocom. Played a lot of Bolo on the Apple II before digging into this one and it was easily an obsession to finish filled with great discovery moments. Something about finding and casting new spells combined with actively participating in the story really had me hooked.

Oh man! That reminds me that I also was obsessed with a couple of Infocom games, probably even earlier than Privateer. The ones I mainly remember are Leather Goddesses of Phobos, Bureaucracy, and Wishbringer. I didn't play the Hitchhiker's Guide one until college. I gotta replay those some day.

Castle Wolfenstein and Zork were the games that got me into gaming. Doom, Autoduel, Ultima series and the Civ series were also the ones that carried me for years. StarCraft, Warcraft, Dune 2 are also big ones in my earlier years.

Honorable mention goes to Lode Runner and Curse of the Azure Bonds.
But the real answer is Diablo in 1996. Starting with the beta that you could only play a fighter and only levels 1-4 in the catacombs/cathedral.

Twin Kingdom Valley - A text based adventure game with RAY TRACING GRAPHICS...well, there was some rays tracing the graphics at least. It was awesome!

I also remember playing Pitfall (II I think?) before going to school a few mornings.

Oh, and lastly, when I was a bit older, Invasion Normandy - A SSI wargame about the entire invasion on D-Day.

ZORK

Warcraft 2, Wing Commander III, or maybe Crusader No Remorse. I was a bit late on Fallout, but it took me as well.

Veloxi wrote:
Forbes wrote:
Veloxi wrote:

Starflight

This was mine too.

My man. (Assuming you are, indeed, a man. Correct me if I'm mistaken.)

Starflight was also my first gaming obsession. We had a family Tandy 1000SX and my Mom would go to the mall and buy games off of a little kiosk. I'm sure those games were pirated. They came in sandwich bags with black and white manuals and floppy disk(s) but Starflight was different. I don't know how she heard about it but she went into an actual store and came out with Starflight. I went through that manual hundreds of times, even taking it to school.

It ran incredibly slow on that Tandy computer but that just served to make the playable space feel enormous. As far as I know it was the first open world style game - go anywhere in this region of space and solve the mystery.

I thought Starflight 2 was every bit as good and I enjoyed the added trading mechanics. During the pandemic I made a blog of my playthrough of SF2 - https://starflight2021.wordpress.com/ saving the galaxy in 16 entries.

Maybe Gunship on the C64 back when I was in middle school.

I burn out on games pretty quickly, so I don't really have that 'took over you life' type experience. I played the hell out of some early RPGs, but once I was done I put them away and never replayed them.

Damn, that's like a Starflight 2 speed run.

mrwynd wrote:

I thought Starflight 2 was every bit as good and I enjoyed the added trading mechanics. During the pandemic I made a blog of my playthrough of SF2 - https://starflight2021.wordpress.com/ saving the galaxy in 16 entries.

Thanks for making this, it was super fun to read through. I had a pirated copy of SF2 that I played a bunch, but couldn't get past the in-game pirate protection. Later I obsessed over SF1 on the Sega Genesis and its awesome manual. Wish I hadn't lost that. Might play that again.

Arcade or home? If you’re talking arcade, I was utterly fascinated by Dragonslayer and would beg my parents to let me watch. I was also obsessed with Gauntlet and would play it for hours on rainy winter Sundays.

At home, I’d say Pitfall on the Atari.