First Game You Mastered?

Mr E

I was listening to John Teti's Gameological podcasts in work today, and the first one threw up an interesting question.

What is the first game you mastered? Not the first one you played (or even the first one you finished) -- the first one that you absolutely played to death and knew every nuance that the game had?

I had to think hard about this, and I think it was probably Wardner in the arcade. Absolutely played it to death over a summer around 1988 I think (bowling alley in Carlow, of all places!) ... Looking back now, it wasn't a great game by any means, but I loved it at the time, I knew it backwards and I knew all the secrets. There was a great gauntlet at the end where you had to traverse downwards through a series of rooms, beating a mini-boss or hazard in each room until you got to the main boss at the very bottom. Took me a long time to master that section (and learn the fireball patterns for the boss on the last screen).

I think a MAME session is on the cards over the next few days, now that I think about it. Haven't played it for years.

Slightly nerdy fact: When I got Creatures for the C64 a few years later, I could definitely see strong Wardner influences in it.

Anyone else got any tales of mastery? Stories please - don't just name the game!

super_furry

Pac-man on the 2600. I was godly at that game, could make one life last for hours and racked up massive scores all when I was five or six. It wasn't until many years later that I realised just how different it was to arcade Pac-man and even if pushed now, I think I prefer the 2600 version, despite it being awful.

Of multiplayer games, I unbeatable on IK+ on the C64, no one would play me even at two on one.

Fanny Cradock

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. It wouldn't have been unusual for me to go 50 kills to 1 death in a game. Can't shoot to save my life in games like BF3 though.

Grimebox

I somehow beat F-Zero X on the N64 on master difficulty once upon a time. It involved killing at least your top 5 rivals every race and trying to not come last.

I'm racking my brain for a different one though as I grew up on the snes.

ntlbell

Probably can't say I mastered but compared to any other game it's as close as I got was SF II the amount of hours was sickening.

richymcdermott

Sonic the hedgehog on the mega drive, oddly enough it was my first game aswell , i knew every breakable wall , bosses pattern , were hidden lives were and best way to obtain the chaos emerald, i still play it to this day , hell even my dad knows about all the secrets aswell and hes not even a gamer.

Magill

Probably A Link To The Past, was old enough at that stage to actually know what the hell i was doing

Multiplayer wise... i think theres only a few players that have ever truely "Mastered" counterstrike, but its probably the one game that I was decent at and without a doubt the game i spent most time player. World of warcraft i'd say is the only MP game I've actually mastered (Was one of the best shamans/warlocks on my server anyway !).

HigginsJ

R-Type (think it was on cassette for the Atari)

Played it to death and think had it fairly well licked

penev10

Street Fighter 2 on the SNES. It was the only game I had for the SNES for a long time and I could beat it on the top difficulty (7 stars?) with every character. Could even get all perfects if I put my mind to it (trying to "unlock" Sheng Long!)

Stercus Accidit

Grimebox wrote: »

I somehow beat F-Zero X on the N64 on master difficulty once upon a time. It involved killing at least your top 5 rivals every race and trying to not come last.

I'm racking my brain for a different one though as I grew up on the snes.

If you had truly mastered the game you would realize that by repeatedly tapping R or Z to turn you wouldn't lose any speed, and could beat any race any time on any difficulty

Dave_The_Sheep

I don't suppose Chuck Yeager's Air Combat, or Aces of the Pacific count?

I nailed those. Other than that, probably Civ 2. Though I wouldn't say I really mastered that as I only played the highest difficulty once... and lost.

Gunmonkey

Mr E wrote: »

I had to think hard about this, and I think it was probably Wardner in the arcade. Absolutely played it to death over a summer around 1988 I think (bowling alley in Carlow, of all places!) ... Looking back now, it wasn't a great game by any means, but I loved it at the time, I knew it backwards and I knew all the secrets. There was a great gauntlet at the end where you had to traverse downwards through a series of rooms, beating a mini-boss or hazard in each room until you got to the main boss at the very bottom. Took me a long time to master that section (and learn the fireball patterns for the boss on the last screen).

Oh man....dat game remember the arcade beside where I went on holidays as a kid in Wexford had a cabinet setup with a Japanese copy of it (so never knew the name). Could never even get to the first shop, but watched enthralled as the "bigger kids" played through and got to the last boss and such.

Dunno about first, but earliest game I had learned backwards was Story of Thor on the Megadrive, played that to bits finding and earning all the infinite weapons (that 100 floor endurance dungeon still gives em nightmares )

Temptamperu

Super Mario World on the snes, You had to get the second exit in every level to get to star road and finish all those fiendish levels that took true skill, There was no gamefaqs then as I remember it so you had to do it all your self. but I got through that and the whole world turns weird and you start again.

ShadowHearth

i knew it as power rangers on NES. i fecking finished that game about 1000 times. i could kill each boss without even looking at screen. i knew all paterns lol! *so sad...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0OeSNg2SiM

Grimebox

Stercus Accidit wrote: »

If you had truly mastered the game you would realize that by repeatedly tapping R or Z to turn you wouldn't lose any speed, and could beat any race any time on any difficulty

What's this now? I can't find anything online about this

Temptamperu wrote:

Super Mario World on the snes, You had to get the second exit in every level to get to star road and finish all those fiendish levels that took true skill, There was no gamefaqs then as I remember it so you had to do it all your self. but I got through that and the whole world turns weird and you start again.

I thought of this too. I wasn't all that difficult though to be honest, just took a lot of time. You could tell which levels had the second exit, they were a red dot on the map so you didn't need gamefaqs. I hated the "reward" for that. The whole game was ugly afterwards and you couldn't change it back.

FullRetard

new zealand story(japanese version)in the arcade and black tiger were 2 arcade games I mastered.Still play them to this day

Icaras

Bubble bobble on the C64. Spent hours playing it, knew all the levels, all the routines. By the end we would just play in silence as we both knew exactly what the other would do.

Stercus Accidit

Grimebox wrote: »

What's this now? I can't find anything online about this

Sure what has on-line got to do with it, you've read it here and this is on-line!

Basically the sideways attack if done repeatedly allows you to go round turns at full speed and mashes opponents to dust.

Chavways

I'm ashamed to admit it was Modern Warfare 2.It came out when I was in TY in school so I had nothing better to do than play it.I knew all the gun stats and every hiding spot and possible class setup.I f I heard a gun sound I could tell immediately what gun it was. I played that game way too much.I can't even play it for 10 minutes anymore.Its so frustrating.

Josey Wales

Grimebox wrote: »

I hated the "reward" for that. The whole game was ugly afterwards and you couldn't change it back.

I had totally forgotten that that happened in Mario World after beating Star Road. Had to go look it up on YouTube.

Back on topic:

I'd say the first game I mastered might have been NBA Jam on the Mega Drive. I was practically unbeatable at the game. I think I had a 100+ winning streak on it at one point. I would say though if there had been online multiplayer back then I'd have been found out big time.

Grimebox

Stercus Accidit wrote: »

Sure what has on-line got to do with it, you've read it here and this is on-line!

Basically the sideways attack if done repeatedly allows you to go round turns at full speed and mashes opponents to dust.

I somehow completely missed the part where you said using double Z/R allows you to turn without losing speed. I thought you were referring to some kind of glitch that I didn't know about. Of course I knew about that! How else are you supposed to beat unfair computer AI!

Ostrom

Wipeout 2097.

Also all guitar hero games up to gh3, all songs on expert.

CrazyRabbit

Pong

Pretty easy to master though.

Overheal

Megaman VI, know all the secrets, the alternate boss fights order for the special BEAT weapon, the location of the Protoman powerup, all that good jazz.

Second Runner up is definitely Megaman X, to which they added a lot of replay in finding powerups and the interesting ways in which defeating one boss affected the landscape of another boss's level, like killing Chill Penguin freezes over all of the magma in Flame Mammoth's stage. Oh, and of course, the hidden and hard to find Hadouken attack.

Nody

Eye of the Beholder 2; I could play it perfectly fine on my 486 and save but for some reason I could not load. So every time I wanted to play it I had to start from scratch again; I knew were everything was including farming levels to gain experience (hard cap on experience in EoB2 but you could move your characters to EoB3 with exp beyond the cap).

RedXIV

Am thinking I spent a huge amount of time on SF2, I remember when the only move I couldn't do was Dhalsim's teleportation and the day I cracked it I felt like a genius.

But to be honest for a game to be "mastered" it was probably FF7, I wrote a walkthrough for the game including all secrets from memory when I was about 16, and I spent a ridiculous amount of time learning all the secrets of the game. I know a stupid amount of info about that game

tiny timy

Quake 2 for me.loved that game to death

norrie rugger

Tetris on the Gameboy followed by Sonic on the Mega Drive

I still have the Gameboy and tried to play Tetris a few months back at the highest level again.... Not happening

Tubbs4

Italian 90 on the mega drive.
Knew how to win 9 nil through out the game even with Japan. The worst was could not play with Ireland.

2smiggy

wonderboy in monsterland

loved this game, no continue when you die on last level, can (well used to be able to ) pass it on one coin. i must have a go of it on mame once again, its been a few years since i played it

Funglegunk

Although I've been gaming for over 20 years, took until college and Tekken 5 before I mastered a game. I'm using the criteria for mastering the game as bringing a character up to the highest rank possible on the hardest difficulty setting. I don't compete in Japan or anything like that (true Tekken mastery).

Sephiroth_dude

c and c tiberian sun I think

CSU

Mega Man 6 - NES

or
Army Men - Operation Meltdown (World War)
..have yet to find a game that is as fun to play split-screen (mortars where so much fun)

Penn

It's probably either Tekken 3 or Metal Gear Solid. I never did any speedruns of MGS or went for the highest end rank or anything like that, but I finished it more times than I can remember, knew where everything was, what keycards you needed to open what doors, how to defeat all the baddies, when someone was going to call me on the Codec etc. Never did any speedruns or rank runs simply because I enjoyed playing the actual game for the love of the game rather than for any achievement of beating a time or anything

pablomakaveli

Spyro was probably the first game i mastered as a kid. I spent hours on that game and managed to get 100% completion on it.

Worst part was chasing those blue ***** with the eggs.

sarumite

Califronia games on the Atari lynx. Especially the BMX game, didn't matter whether it was speed runs or high scores. I remember I could run the track with my eyes closed.

Maximilian

Probably the Return of the Jedi arcade game. Got so good at it the only thing that could stop me was time and my own willingness to continue.

Also, China Miner on the C64. Probably to this day the most difficult game ever made, for me at least.

ibFoxer

Symphony of The Night for me, a brilliant game, although i only truely mastered it when it came out on xbl. Also i know its not as impressive as some of the runs out there but my best richter speed run is 7.23, i'm kinda proud of that :D

VinLieger

Either Donkey Kong Country on the SNES or Looney Toons on the Gameboy, cant remember which i got first its so long ago

kellso81

Tony Hawk's 2. Between me and a mate we knew every corner of that game and could post some serious scores. Loved it!

Mr. K

Wario Land on the Gameboy was the first game I saw everything in. I managed to see all the different endings in the game, which meant finding all of the treasures in the game and stupid amounts of coins.

Console-wise, I saw everything in Goldeneye. I'm sure many of us remember unlocking Invincibility...

chopperbyrne

I was insanely good at Centipede and Joust on the Atari 2600 considering I was about six or seven when we got one.

Could clock both so they restarted back to the slow stages again.

I drew my own maps for Zelda II back in the day too.

Nowadays I know far too much about Pokemon Red/Blue.

Mr. K

chopperbyrne wrote: »

Nowadays I know far too much about Pokemon Red/Blue.

Oh yes, I'm guilty of that one too. Did you max out the clock?! 255 hours...I shudder to think how far beyond that I went.

Duggy747

Mario Bros 3.

The quickest speedrun I've had on that was 13 minutes, the fastest anyone has done is 11 minutes I think.

You have to be lucky here passing by these levels without getting caught and having to go through them, otherwise the whole speedrun is ruined:


I completed Time Crisis 2 on 1 credit on a boat over to England. Nobody was around to see my victory

Also Blood on PC, played that game relentlessly and knew every single quote and easter egg there was. Great game.

Newaglish

Mine would actually be the first game I ever got - back when you had few enough games that you would play them long after completion for sheer lack of alternatives. It was Nintendo World Cup on the NES - I was able to beat the first few matches (against Cameroon et al) by about 40 to nil, scoring a goal every 5 to 10 seconds or so if I remember correctly. Could finish the entire game without conceding a goal with very little difficulty.

Excellent game though!

Grimebox

Mr. K wrote: »

Console-wise, I saw everything in Goldeneye. I'm sure many of us remember unlocking Invincibility...

Dr. Doak is a c*nt

Mr. K

Grimebox wrote: »

Dr. Doak is a c*nt

Oh yeah, his location was randomised! I'd forgotten about that!

NTMK

C&C Red Alert 2
Got it release day and pretty much became the only game i played for almost 3 years until generals came out and my pc couldnt run it

nobody i knew IRL could beat me at it

Was really high ranked online as well

wish i could see my ladder results but there gone forever:(

Monty Burnz

Elite.

evillive

bubble bobble, 2 player on the playstation after years of hitting level 70/80/90, myself and a pal finally crack it and it has never seen the light of day since - the only time yellow stripey bubblegum and black umbrellas meant anything important to me

Blazer

Galaga, Choplifter, Golden Axe and Mr Do
Still classic games which I used to play in our local pub hangout (all the kids hung out in the gaming lounge).
The highest score of each game would get their name up on the leadboard and we'd be all trying to achieve it even though our name might barely be up for a few hours or a day before someone would come in and take the crown again.
Many a time kids would walk in, see the new name and think "that bastard has the high score" and they'd spend the next 2-3 hours trying to beat it
Good old days