How old were you when you first played Shenmue?

[Oppy]

I was 14, the local video library was shutting down to be replaced by a liquer store, and was having a sale to get rid of all their stock. Me and my neighbor (at the time) were shuffeling through the dreamcast games and he picked out shenmue, we were both pretty puzzled thinking it was a fighter and wondering why it had four discs. He purchased it and we returned to my house to try our new games, after spending 15 minutes playing through Worms Armageddon and RE:Code Veronica, we popped in Shenmue and were amazed by the graphics and detail of the objects and enviroments. After he left I was pretty jealous that he got shenmue instead of me, but a week later he ended up giving it to me after growing bored of talking to people and looking for sailors. it then ended up becoming one of my favorite games on the Dreamcast.

[shengoro86]

11.

Oh man was it amazing. To play at such a formative age.

[Neo Matrix]

I'm pretty sure I played it for the first time soon after its release. It might have been a birthday/Christmas present which would make me 17/18.

[marcbret87]

I was around 12-13 when I played the first Shenmue and, to this day, I haven't played a game which absorbs me more than Shenmue (apart from Shenmue II). It seems that most of us here were teenagers, although the fact that there is older people shows that its not only impressionable kids who have great memories of the game.

[Sonikku]

I remember it was 2000 sometime. I was born in 1984, so I suppose about 15 or 16. It's hard to believe that I'm twice as old now as I was back then. It feels like it was a lifetime ago. I remember hearing about it in gaming magazines, but otherwise being uninterested. But when I saw the opening of it in hd on what had to have been some of the earliest plasma/flat panel televisions ever made at the time, I was so blown away by the graphics that I quickly waltzed my way to the opposite side of the mall, to an Electronic Boutique (my favorite store at the time) and immediately snagged a new copy for $50.

One of the few impulse decisions I ever made based on advertising and graphics. I remember they had a like new limited edition copy that was used for the same price, but I always bought new back then. I had just gotten my Xblasted vga adapter for the Dreamcast a few weeks earlier, so the first time I played Shenmue was in (then) glorious 480p! It was a feast for the eyes. I convinced many a friend to pick up a Dreamcast by taking them to my place to show it to them. And at the time it all felt so amazing to be able to explore and see Japan, a gamers mecca at the time when the internet was still young and game design still primitive. Ah, the innocent days of my youth...

[NekoFever]

I got it on import as soon as the local shop got Japanese copies in, which I guess must have been early 2000, when I would have been 14. I played What's Shenmue before that in the same shop, but I have no idea when that was.

It was probably my first game of the 21st century, thinking about it. Still the most memorable!