My seven year old mind in 1985 saw Super Mario Bros. for the first time..

And what I recall was seeing a real person on the screen. Like how we see characters now but having been only exposed to Atari 2600 games previously my little mind was BLOWN when I saw the colors and graphics of the NES specifically SMB.

I often think about that moment I saw it when at my parents friends house and when we got home I had to run to my neighbors and tell him enthusiastically how I was controlling a real person on TV and there were pipes, fireballs (we called spits, was that a normal name for them?) and these bricks and just so many cool things.

Anyone recall a game from your childhood and how your mind perceived it then and when you look at it now you're just like, "what was I thinking?!"

I saw Formula 1 on display at a PCWorld and thought graphics could never get any better. I crashed within seconds.

The common refrain at the schoolyard when Mortal Kombat came out was "This is it, it can't get any better than real people!", haha. (must have been a common sentiment given all the FMV at the time)

The next big one I remember was Unreal, the Crysis of its day. That was just jawdropping. Obviously quaint nowadays, but I will say that the first big fight sequence holds up atmospherically and still looks great.

Speaking of Crysis, that was another "This is the pinnacle" moment. And yeah, it's still gorgeous, but I can't deny that it's showing its age these days. What looked photorealistic in 2007 doesn't quite hit that point anymore. Wild how that works.

I also remember big "holy shit" moments seeing the first screenshots of Half Life 2 and Far Cry 1. Not to the same extent as the others, but still massively impressive.

I just picked up FC1 and 2 on Ubi store for like $8.

I don't think I ever finished FC1 I was so into just wandering around environment and finding new ways to take out bad guys. Wasn't a huge game but it was gorgeous and I hadn't seen anything like it before. Probably why I loved FC3 so much, an even more gorgeous FC1 jungle map.

I remember walking into a FuncoLand and seeing NFL 2K running on a Dreamcast sometime in 1999. I was fully convinced we had finally reached real-life graphics. A game had never wowed me like that before or since.

I'm trying to think if I ever had an experience like that, since I was never that enamored with graphical technology. Partly because I was a poor console game that knew I was never seeing the cutting edge graphics out there.

I guess the closest would be seeing something like the CG cutscenes in FF8 or the like and thinking that if games ever looked like that all time it would basically be the pinnacle of video game graphics.

My journey of “HOLY SHIT! Games can look like this???” is probably:

Super Mario Bros.

Tomb Raider / Mario 64

Gears of War

Ryse

It’s fantastic the way that Gears 1 looks drab and grainy just a few years later. The norm is really amazing these days. Progress is amazing stuff, even is something as fleeting as video games.

I can’t wait to see the next jump.

@zeik: If we’re taking CG, Diablo 2 blew my damned mind when it came out.

I lost my shit at the Gran Turismo 3 intro.

I remember the exact moment I saw video games for the first time. It's etched into my brain. Maybe my earliest memory. Going clothes shopping at sears with my mom, they installed a NES kiosk with Super Mario and Hogan's Alley. (And put it right in the boys department. Smart.) I spent not long enough playing Mario before she dragged me to the changing rooms.

It was a wrap after that.

I wish I could remember my first time seeing Super Mario Bros.

When the N64 was new, I was a part of a group project in grade 7. We were going to make our own issue of a video game magazine and gathered all of our games together. It was proposed that N64 games should automatically get 10s for graphics over SNES games. I don't think I personally agreed with it at the time, but it was an idea floated out there.

The graphics of N64 blew me away but I preferred the look of the SNES games more. N64 was just so polygonal and rough around the edges (literally no AA it seemed) that didn't stop us from playing countless hours of Goldeneye, Ocarina, Mario 64 or Mario Kart though. I can't recall if I even owned more than those four games for the 64. Shortly after I became a PC gamer for a decade and only got back into consoles with the PS3. /personalhistorylesson

:)

At a kiosk for Crash Bandicoot, I ran up to the screen and you could see a bunch of jagged polygons on his character model. And I told my mom "look, look, the Playstation has polygons so we NEED it!"

My persuasive attempts didn't work, but at least I had an older brother who would buy the Playstation and Twisted Metal 2. Granted, I was a young teen and spent most of my time with Tomb Raider and those jagged polygons.

1996, seeing Super Mario 64 in Toys R Us. Back when they had the TV stationed SUPER high up, angled down at you. Here I am, 7ish, looking up at it, and just astounded at what I'm looking at.

@doombot13: I had a couple of those Pong Odyssey machines as well as an Atari 2600 and 7800. My cousins had a Colecovision.

The first time I saw Super Mario Bros was at my cousins’ house. They lived in New Jersey and had a test market NES from 1985. I would have been about six. I don’t recall is this was late ‘85 or early ‘86, but I remember the scene crystal clear, all the details of this room I haven’t seen in over 30 years. And I remember seeing and playing Super Mario Bros. and just thinking that it was fucking amazing. I got my NES the very next Christmas.

I’m not a huge Nintendo guy, but I very vividly remember seeing Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros 3, and Mario 64 for the first time. All three were in person and I played the game for myself.

Before the Internet, everything was more magical.

I remember being super hyped for the Halo 2 reveal, but watching a video on the Internet just isn’t the same...

Anyone remember when Microsoft started making downloadable E3 demos a thing? Lost Planet blew some minds.

Even demo discs...I think OXM had Ninja Gaiden, Splinter Cell, and Panzer Dragoon Orta demos. Getting those in the mail was pretty cool.

I wish I could remember what the first game I saw was, especially the one that impressed me. Or even the second one. What I remember the best, or at all, are probably some Playstation games over at my friend's house. Admittedly some of those mind-blowing moments were CG cutscenes in games like Resident Evil 2 but eh, that still probably counts.

i had this childhood experience with the original Doom. before that i had been playing games on an old Intellivion and Colecovision, then a Sega Master System, and old Dos games on 5" floppies. the jump to Doom blew my 8 year old mind.

Actually, add Picture Perfect Golf and Railfan to the list. It's just video or still image but kid me was easily impressed.

I love all these stories.

I knew I wasn't the only one but it's awesome to see the "first time I saw" experience from other people.

Another one later on was when I was in college and in '99 playing Tony Hawk for the first time, we were so into that game. We played countless hours and it was great times.