As you may know, May is video game month here at Bookmans, so we decided to ask our employees: "What was your first video game?" Since we have a wide range of ages and interests among our employees, we got lots of different answers. Check them out below:

Kate: Mortal Kombat arcade game (1989-90). My mother didn't approve because the bloody head and spine flew off when you beat someone to death. Yuck. I had to leave my middle school at lunchtime and walk to the greasy local pizza parlor to play it. Later on (while babysitting) I played Sonic the Hedgehog and always lost to a cocky seven year old.

Eleni: Pokémon for Gameboy. It was like the first game system that I ever had and Pokémon was the game that came with the system. It was the only game I played and needed for two years and beat it with every character that you could possibly play with. It kept me busy every Friday night... That’s why I like video games now, was all thanks to Pokémon yellow and my Gameboy.

Jesus: Mario for Nintendo. It was just an adventure game I had never played a game before so when I did play it was   interesting and a lot of fun. It’s what opened me up to video gaming.

Kelly: California Games for Nintendo. I loved it! It was because there was the roller-skate one and I couldn’t roller skate in real life but I could roller skate in the game. There was surfing, skateboarding and hacky sack all of which I couldn’t do in real life- but could in the game. Living in upstate New York, we really never had the chance to do most of those activities.

Bill: Pong on the Atari. The technology stunned me and the game was challenging and amusing.

Cheryl: Ping Pong on some sort of hand held device. My brother gave it to my family as a gift and we played it for quite some time. I played often with my children and now they are all grown up in their 40s. They really liked it back then.

Roland: Ms. Pac Man Arcade...I used to take quarters from the patrons of my moms bar and play Ms. Pac Man til she got off work for 6 months,  she wandered why she never got any tips. When she found out, she showed me how to rig thr machine. I love my mom.

Jay: Pong - One night outside the entrance to Sears was a large TV with two knobs on either side. Except it wasnt a TV, each knob controlled one of the vertically moving rectangles, which knocked a small round dot back and forth. When you hit it at the right angle, you could send it into the opponets goal really fast.

C'loni: Secret Of Mana For Super Ninetendo. I figured out before my brother that you had to keep Mana Magic last on your weapons at all times in order to damamge the final boss. I rocked as a 12 year old!

Denise: Ms. Pac Man on Atari 2600. I was going to bed and saw the screen as I closed my eyes. I got up to the Banana level, but at that point the ghosts were just too fast!

Ricky: Donkey Kong on Nintendo. I played it constantly and then moved on to Tetris. I loved it’s ridiculously repetitive nature.

Marshall: Centipede and Joust. I played them at Showbiz pizza. Showbiz pizza was the shit! I liked Joust although I couldn’t play it.

Lynn: Never played one.

Chuck: It's yet to occur. We didn’t have ‘em, we had slate and coal. We got my son a Nintendo one year, though it was pretty late in the game.

Scott: Pong. There was a guy down the street who had it. He had everything. His mom bought him a room full of cool stuff. He was the first kid in the neighborhood to have everything, including pot.

Warren: Original Super Mario Bros. for Nintendo. I played it at a friend’s house. I thought it was awesome! I convinced my sister to buy one with me as I had no money.

Mike O.: Wizards & Warriors for NES. We played in my friend’s basement. It was one of the games that got me into D&D. It changed my life!

Eddie: Pong. I played Pong in a pizza shop in El Con Mall. It was so high tech. I couldn’t understand how far the technology had advanced. I could envision the Hovercraft.

Adam: Castlevania. I played it at an arcade inside of a water park. While the whole class was playing in the water, swimming, doing water stuff… I was playing Castlevania. I didn’t even go swimming.

Sta: Atari, Vic Command, Pong. I thought video games were the neatest thing. My special skill was to randomly spin the Pong wheel.

Courtney: Duck Hunt, Tyson’s Punch Out. I wasn’t allowed to have video games. I played Duck Hunt and Punch Out at my friend’s house. My parents did allow me to have a handheld Michael Jordan versus Larry Bird game. A terrible match up.

Travis: Galaxian. The first time I ditched school was in Flagstaff in 6th grade. We trucked it down to Tastee Freeze, got a big bag o’ fries and a soda and played Galaxian for a few hours. I had played Pong and some other crappy games before that but this was the best!