Mine was on the NES. I was born in 1989 but only had a NES till I was 8, and I had two games on it. Well, it's actually 72, from a Japanese hack which had games like Adventure island, Millipede, Donkey Kong, Mario Bros. and 5 or 6 tetris games.


Anyway, the first one I played was Super Mario Bros. (the cartridge didn't include the second or third). My dad got the Nintendo for free from my uncle when I was 2, so I have no reason to complain. It took me one year to clear level 1-1, cause I didn't press the A button, so I would die all the time on the first goomba. Then, when I started using it, I didn't know what the B button would do, so I'd fall in the hole in the middle of the level (the second one). I played this game about 30 minutes everyday, dieing every 5 seconds (or 5 minutes if I tried going to the left until the timer reaches 0).


Now I'm tired of showing you how I sucked at it. When I was 4, I was able to reach level 8-2 about 50% of the time by using the infinite lives glitch in level 3-1. Actually you can't have infinite lives cause the game gave me a game over for having too many lives once (on level 3-3 thankfully). It was funny to have have Z lives, "blue square" lives or just anything else that replaced a number. I was better than anyone my age I knew of, which was about 10 people (I lived in a 1000 people village).


So then they tried to be as good as me (when you're 4, the hammer bros. in 3-1 are really hard to beat). They tried copying me and my weird technique of holding the controller upside-down. I still play nintendo and sometimes even super nintendo that way, because the A and B button are easier to reach, for me anyway. You should try it just for fun. I passed all 32 levels when I was 8 and my favorite is 4-3, but I don't know why (maybe the colors).


Unfortunately, I don't have a NES anymore. The one before got incredibly buggy (it was older than me) and the fact it was linked on a shitty TV didn't help. To end this rather long post full of disgression, here are ways to make your NES work without it resetting every 2 seconds or showing strange squares everywhere.


1- Blow in the cartridge (it damages it, but mine survived at least 7 years of morning breath)

2- For a crappy TV : Turn On and Off the TV until it shows the screen correctly. Could take about 20 tries (I think the TV bugged more than the NES).

3- Same as number 2, but with the NES

4- Try to NOT push down the cartridge into the NES. At the end, it was the only way I could make it work. I found that after trying to get my NES to work for 30 minutes. I wonder how the cartridge was read though...

5- Play with the wires behind the TV until it somehow gets to function.

6- Kick your TV while screaming at it. It won't make your NES work, but at least you'll get your revenge on what pissed you off for the last two hours. Your mom might then buy a half-decent TV 20 times better than the old one.



Final note: I think I managed to make the topic go off the subject on the first post. I should try being more coherent.
Then I read RegalSin's posts and feel better. Thank you RegalSin.

Did someone try playing with the controller upside-down?
I tried it on some consoles. I don't think I'll try it on a Game Boy though. It's hard enough on a N64.