Remembering Your First Games

What was the first game, or games machine that had an impact on you?

For me it was probably the Atari 2600, which my brother had, and "Asteroids". I was young enough not to know about the arcade version of it (or that there would eventually be two versions of it because people got too good at it), but I did know about the Atari version, which seemed so real it was scary.

I also remember Phoenix, and the waves of aliens coming down the screen - punctuated with the mothership levels where you shot the base out while a hail of bullets fell on you.

All of this can of course be enjoyed through emulators these days, but it doesn't match playing them on an old television, sat cross legged on the living room floor with your friends, with Mum supplying glasses of milk and telling us to share...

(p.s. I have absolutely no idea why the box art for Asteroids is not showing up in the graphic on the right...)