First of Many (Many)
My first gaming experience was pretty inauspicious - although not to me at the time. I was about 7 years old and it was Christmas; my parents had been awesome and gotten me a state-of-the-art (sort of), brand new Nintendo Entertainment System. It was accessorised with a very shoddy and tiny colour television from a second hand shop - which seemed to freak out and go black and white at random intervals - and a copy of The Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout (Kemco - NES).
The game’s plot revolved around Bugs trying to get to his big birthday party, but everyone is completely jacked off with the rabbit getting all the attention and apparently decides to band together to murder him. So your journey is a casual 2D stroll through various levels avoiding inexplicably shaped enemies, collecting carrots, and fighting for your right to party. Each major stage ended with a boss battle against one of the Looney Toon elite involving smacking them with a hammer until they fall off the screen, presumably going to cartoon psychopath hell.
It wasn’t a bad game for the time, although it was annoyingly difficult (or I sucked). A 2D platformer with the usual jumping and hitting, weirdly sluggish controls and pretty-but-simplistic graphics. Fun midi muzak if I remember rightly. Terrible collision detection. Since it was my introduction into a world I now love, however, I will never, ever be able to look at it objectively and will love it forever as the perfect experience it obviously represents. Anyone who says otherwise is a communist.
Anyway, I think it aptly represents some of the things I look to get out of playing video games: interacting with fantastic worlds, experiencing impossible situations, and beating the fudge out of animals with hammers.