The first one I remember being ridiculously excited for was Mega Man 3. I think the most excited I'd ever been about a game would be either A Link to the Past, Street Fighter II (I was on a family vacation when it came out and convinced my mother to drive us 1.5 hours each way to the closest Babbages to get it), or Final Fantasy VII.

I was pretty hyped for the Dragon Warrior games when I was younger IIRC.

I got the first one for free with a subscription to Nintendo Power... Loved that game and definitely made the subscription price worth it!

Yeah, I remember just sailing around discovering things and killing mobs.

Dragon Warrior (the first one) had no sailing or mobs, if I'm remembering correctly. You must be thinking of one of the sequels.

Galaxian for me. Space Invaders got really boring when it was the only game I played for about a year. I drooled over the prospect of the aliens flying toward me to give me a challenge instead of the predictable SI patterns. Of course, Galaxian got old really quick and Galaga was the true successor that a 10 year old was yearning for.

We got the Atari 2600 early on, and I think I remember really looking forward to Asteroids. Later in the PC world, I considered waiting at the door on release day for the HOMM sequels.

MK II on SNES or FFVII on PS1.

The first Mortal Kombat is the one that came to mind. I remember staring a pics in EGM, impatiently waiting for my birthday so I could finally play it.

my ex wife says I am still a kid...so I am going with Aliens: Colonial Marines

Ken Griffey Jr's Winning Run for the SNES was a much anticipated game for me. I still have it and play it once in a while.

As for games that snuck up on me, I rented Goldeneye at Blockbuster. This was before I had constant Internet access and the magazines with their reviews weren't out yet. I played it for about an hour, took back to Blockbuster, lied to the clerk saying that it kept freezing up to get my money back, went to Toys R Us and bought it. 15 years later, it's one of the best games I've ever played.

I remember seeing Ninja Gaiden (NES) in Nintendo Power for the first time and being blown away by the cutscene graphics. Plus I was into everything 'ninja' at the time so I had to have it. Too bad I was terrible at it when I finally got it.

I also HAD to have Friday the 13th the second I saw they were making such a thing. The idea of a Jason Voorhees game was just too good to pass up. Alas it was made by LJN, notorious for their horrible movie adaptations (Back to the Future, Karate Kid) so I should have known better.

Strangely enough I wasn't that excited by the initial hype for some of the games that ended up being all-time faves for the system. I was unimpressed by the screenshots of the first Legend of Zelda and didn't even really want the game. My mom bought it for me for Christmas anyway, and I soon found out how wrong I had been. Thanks mom!

RBI 2, one of the Mega Mans, Bionic Commando (all NES)

^ Yup.

I lost sleep waiting for Ultima Online.

Probably the original Double Dragon for the NES. I was so excited but living in the middle of nowhere I knew I wouldn't be able to get it for a while. Finally one of my classmates was going to the "city" a couple weeks after it came out so I gave him money and he picked it up. He came over that Saturday night with it and we played it till the sun came up. Chowing on Doritos and Mountain Dew to keep our energy up. Remember it like it was yesterday.

Legend of Zelda. Me and a friend played this game for hours non stop

I remember being on the server when a guild of players killed lord brittianna, all the guards and basically destroyed the game. That was awesome

If we're talking a bit later in life than Oblivion is the easy winner for me. Morrowind changed the way I looked at games (never had a PC to game on growing up) and the wait for the next in the series was excruciating.

As a kid: For me, the all-time winner in this category started the day in 6th grade when other kids came into class reporting that Aladdin's Castle at the mall had a new type of Pac-Man game, this one with a female Pac-Man. Having to wait until the weekend to go (and having to hear the other kids all talk about it non-stop) was the worse torture. The one funny thing I remember from then is that when the other kids were excitedly describing Ms. Pac, and it sounded like they were saying she had a "bowl" on her head (instead of a "bow") - that confused the hell out of me until I was finally able to see the her for myself


As a pre-teen/teen: SMB2 - this was back when Nintendo was purposely creating shortages, you couldn't find this game anywhere. Finally one Saturday we got a call from my mom from a pay phone at Kmart: "they have this Super Mario Brothers 2 game, is that the one you keep begging me to find?" YES!!!

As an adult: MKII for SNES

I remember reading Stratics or whatever the big MMORPG site was at the time, and it was like World War 3 had broken out, biggest news of the decade.

the first Ken Griffey Jr baseball game is still one of my favorite games of all time. never really got into the 2nd one. might have to find it cheap somewhere and play it

Super Marios Bros 3 and Double Dragon II, both for the NES. I'm pretty sure that I made my mother buy them both for me in the same shopping trip, haha.

I remember I was out of my mind excited for Mortal Kombat 2's release on the SNES.