Love at first jump: Super Mario Bros.

Most everyone remembers the first time they fell in love. It's a really special feeling, falling in love for the first time. You get all tingly inside and feel all of these weird things that you've never felt before. When did I first fall in love? In 1999, when I played Super Mario Bros. for the first time.

I was six years old, and I had never played a video game before. My cousin had upgraded from the NES to the PlayStation and decided to give me his old NES. It's the Toploader. I still have it.

Being only six, I had no idea that this would be the beginning of something very special. It was the first time I would play a video game, and it would spark my lifelong passion for gaming. I put in the cartridge and played Super Mario Bros. for the very first time.

I have the cartridge with Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt, the one that was bundled with most Nintendo Entertainment Systems. I couldn't play Duck Hunt, because I didn't have the light gun. 'That's okay,' I thought. 'I can still play Super Mario Bros.'

I played that game over and over and over again. To this day, I can put that same game in the same NES Toploader, stomp on the same Goombas, collect the same coins, and still enjoy it just as much as I did way back then. I introduced the game to my childhood best friend, and we used to play it every time he came over, which was about every weekend. We always fought over the controller; I was a bossy kid, and I always wanted to use the "dogbone" controller. I gave him the crappy regular controller with the sticky D-pad. I let him be Luigi, though, who has always been my favorite.

Most people probably don't remember the first video game they played, but I do. If I wasn't given that NES, I'm not sure if I ever would have played video games. My friends who played video games were introduced to games by me. If not for that NES Toploader, I probably wouldn't have this blog.

What is the first game you remember falling in love with? Tell me in the comments below.