Your post is making me smile -- I don't play much but we have a switch and I'm always last at Mario Kart! It will be fun to hear what people enjoy playing. I used to like playing the Pikmin because we could all play at once together.

I have a NES and about 20 games,including Mario bros 1,2 and 3. I haven't hooked it up in a looooong time and it probably doesn't work anymore but I loved it. I also liked sonic the hedgehog and we had a playstation with some game with a dragon...I cant remember the name. You collected jewels. The dragon was purple....anyway, fun. I find no enjoyment in violent games.

I could never beat the boss. Luckily I had 5 older siblings that I could hand the controller off to and then let me take the glory for it......

I liked the one....I think it was Mario bros 2,where you could pick your character. I was always the princess in the pink dress. She looked RIDICULOUS climbing those beanstalks in that outfit,but I would not be persuaded to try any other character. Maybe if I can get it up and running I'll give another character a go.

(Spoiler alert: I probably wont. She was made for me)

@H B I LOVE Pikmin too! I've played all 3 of the games and they were all AWESOME (actually there's a 4th one for 3ds now but never played that one). Aside from Pikmin, I love pretty much every series developed by Nintendo (or developers they own). This includes Super Mario, Donkey Kong, Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Kirby, etc. The most recent Mario game I've played is Super Mario Odyssey. If you or someone you know has a Switch, I HIGHLY recommend this game. It's a lot of fun.

Oh man, this brings back memories. We had to wait and wait until my parents finally got us an NES for Christmas when I was about 4 or 5 years old.

So many hours were spent playing the original Mario. I remember it took me forever to figure out how to get over that first gap.

The coordination of pushing multiple buttons at the same time was difficult for my young self to figure out. I was a "controller jumper," if you know what I mean.

I was trying so hard to get Mario over that jump that I would reflexively move the controller in a large jump motion to the right!

The music speeding up when you were low on time always made me and my mom get flustered, so we started listening to a beach boys tape when we were playing.

My favorite cassette to put in was Beach Boys Still Cruisin.

To this day when I here Kokomo or I Get Around or, my brother and I's favorite, Wipeout with the Fat Boys, I'm taken back to my childhood, sitting in the living room playing Mario with my mom and brother.

In high school, when I got my first job I saved up and bought an N64. Still have it, still love it and still play on it.

When the Wii came out I got one for one single reason. You could buy classic NES games through the virtual store.

I got Mario Bros, Mario Bros 3, Legend of Zelda, but the ONE game I REALLY wanted was never released.

The original Tetris.

The original Tetris got me through my tumultuous teenage years, got me through moving out on my own and all the stress surrounding it, etc.

I could sit down, put in Tetris and just go for hours. It was a stress reliever for me. I got to the point that I would START on level 19.

I've tried several other versions of Tetris since then but none compare to that 8bit version with the boxy controller.

I've had my NES repaired so I could keep playing Tetris, dang thing broke again.

If I could just play that again, I would be happy.

I bought the NES mini a few years ago. I still play the first 3 Super Mario Brothers

I was first introduced to Super Mario at a family Christmas gathering at my brother's house. He brought out Super Mario and we all laughed ourselves silly trying to play. Then when I broke my knee and wasn't allowed to put any weight on my leg my other brother bought me a Super Nintendo console. I even had a book of Super Mario Nintendo cheats. I completed all the levels. Super Mario Kart made me dizzy so I rarely played that. The corner store on my street turned into a video and game store so for years I rented games. My young nephew would come over to play Monopoly on the Super Nintendo, I loved Sim City where you had to build a city and then you had to rebuild it when a disaster hit. I had a cheat code where I could get lots of coins to rebuild. Yes, my brother would get me cheat codes. There was one game my brother and I loved called Busby. I still have my system and would buy that game in a heartbeat if I found it somewhere. I still have all my games and the original box the Super Nintendo system came in. I also had Mario Paint where you could draw and make little songs and play a funny slap the spider game. My nephews thought I was the coolest Aunt. I need to get a small table top tv and bring the games out again.

I paid little attention to video games until DD discovered them. She started with Mario, then Animal Crossing, then a couple others whose names I don't recall. Most recently she's into the Legend of Zelda.

As an old-fashioned parent, I wasn't too fond of kids plopping down in front of screens, but then I saw my DD's reading speed and comprehension really take off as she got up to pace on more intricate games. So I felt better about gaming being part of her life.

We play all kinds of games through Nintendo Switch, PS2, Steam (an online service), Wii... You name it, it gets played here. Son takes it even farther, he is learning to play an occarina. Which he can do since he played recorder and flute.

If you want family friendly, try Steam, Life is Strange. You have the chance to choose a good choice or a bad choice, altering the game's outcomes.

My two DD played, but they were not too involved with Mario.

I was introduced to QBert from one of my kids. I remember getting slightly addicted to it. If you fail, you have to start from the beginning. I quit before finding out what the end was.

I have a niece who changed her name legally to the name of a river from one of her games. I personally think this is extreme. She is my sister’s DIL and I’m not close to her. I don’t know how this all plays out in raising her children and her day to day life and relationships.

I agree that fun family friendly games are a plus. Like anything, moderation is key.

We worried that our kids playing the video games would be too sedentary, but OMG it got them jumping around! And then acting out the games.

One of our kids wanted a Zelda game, I think it was Windwalker? Anyway, he played it a couple of times but found it “scary”, so he exchanged it for another game. A year or two later, he was a bit more mature and bought the game again, and was hooked.

But they both love Mario, and Animal Crossing. I’m no good at Mario, but I enjoy Animal Crossing, too.

My older DS used to enjoy going to the flea market with us, and hunting down games and systems. He found some treasures!

Sorry games like those never interested me, but the kids had them.

Sue

My boys like Nintendo very much. I have no idea of the games they play aside from Mario, Zelda, Animal Crossing, some game with ink squirting fights, and Untitled Goose, which has adorable graphics and is kinda fun even for me.

My girls were never interested in the games and I figure they saved us a lotta money over the years. However, we did buy a WII and my husband used it to recover from abdominal surgery. He really enjoyed it though it's been collecting dust ever since--he refuses to give it away.

I've never been coordinated enough to play video games successfully, but I did have a GameBoy for a while and was able to master Tetris.

I think SuperNintendo was the best system. I couldn't manipulate Mario but my son was a natural. I played Dr. Mario, where you had to keep the pills from filling the jar.

Cherryfizz, we had Bubsy and it was a great game "What could possibly go wrong?" Also Zombies Ate My Neighbors. But the best was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and the ability to go back and forth through the light world and the dark world and replay levels. It had a great assortment of weaponry too.

You can find clips from the old games on YouTube. It will bring back memories.

The theme song is still an earworm for me. Our kids seemed to be too busy through the prime game playing years to spend much time with them and we were okay with that. I was never real enthusiastic about buying new games. I do remember having a few of the PC variety, like the various versions of Myst. Those were mentally challenging, I thought those were better.

I have been using a sound from mario for my text message notification for a while. I think it's one of those that plays when he turns into something, a fox or the fire ball thing. I really need to play again and familiarize myself with it. I was using the sound it played for when he lost a life but I felt it was too long for a text notification.

Has anyone ever played any of the Mario Party games? I have the first 3 Mario party games on the Nintendo 64, and I have great memories playing those games with friends. Mario Party games are great for casual gamers since you don't have to do anything fancy in them (like jumping a large gap for instance) and lots of fun to play with a big group.