A Question for Dads Whose Kids Play Video Games
I sometimes play Halo 3 with my son on Xbox LIVE. (On Xbox LIVE you can play in 8 or 16 man games with players from all over the world on your TV via an internet connection).
It’s a nice thing to be able to do for an hour at night after the homework’s done. Sometimes my son and I will play against other friends or acquaintances of his who have their own Xboxes at home, or sometimes we’ll play with strangers.
There are headsets and audio, so the players can communicate with each other via the TV. Of course, whether we’re playing against my son’s friends or with strangers, the fact that he is playing with his dad is a great source of shame. So when we play, I’m always my son’s unidentified “friend” or “the neighbor kid.”
If my son’s friends or acquaintances knew I was his dad, my abilities as a player would probably get some feigned respect. Instead, since they think I’m just a teen kid, they say what they really think of my play. So time after time I hear comments like these:
“Dude, your friend sucks.”
“He flew right into the enemy base–what an idiot.”
“Do we have to have your friend on our team?”
The game just moves too damn fast–sometimes watching these kids and how fast they move, I feel like I’ve entered another dimension where everything moves twice as fast. I always feel that if I could just push a button and enter that twice-as-fast dimension, I’d do fine.
I was talking about this briefly the other day with Mike McCormick, who told me that he’s no match for his son in video games, either. So here’s my question–is there any dad out there who plays video games with his kids who doesn’t get his butt kicked? And no, don’t post a comment bragging because you are able to beat your four-year-old. Let’s make the minimum age eight or nine. Is there anybody who can win? And at what game? And can you send me the cheat codes?
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Stumble It!
I fly my 747-400 (virtual) with my lad. I have my work cut out as co-pilot and he is frankly a crap Captain. His reaction times are crap. His planning is crap. He forgets all about the seat-belt signs and things like slowing down for the decscent; flaps are always lowered when he is still going too fast; he has no idea about the engine management system issues when the spoilers are deployed; landing lights he forgets until taxi-ing in; wind is rarely ever accounted for. He’s thirty seven. You’d think he’d have got it right by now.
My son loves the games… but I have only gotten to play with him a few times…
I grew up on the games, and have played pretty much most major releases since the first pong…
the games take a lot of time to get good at… i can play them fine, and once i get the theme and such, then i roll pretty good… but for any game universe you have to remember the kids will spend more time on them in a day than you would at a regular job. then break for dinner, and go all night.
i generally up the difficulty on games when i buy them… which is something that i suggest you do… sit by yourself, turn the game up, and then get irked till you can do that. yes they are fast, and such, but you wont get used to the data flow unless you get drowned in it, then let your brain figure out how to handle it and what is or isnt important.
there are lots of places that there are similar effects of mind.
acquiring the taste for somehing that taste horrid… (scotch, durian, scotch and durian)
heavy metal music and harder rock… if you dont get it, listen for a while.. after a while… suddenly it wont be noise any more..
as an adult that doesnt play them, you havent spent much time pressing all your buttons… which is kind of what many kids today do. turn up the music, turn up the action, turn up… they are flooding themselves with stimulation… sometimes it might not look like it since this can be quiet, but when thats the case, note the intensity.
its a form of sensory addiction… crass vs refined.. three stooges vs jeeves and wooster
the games are designed to push the sensory limit… they have good things and bad things about them. but if you want to get better you have to get used to taking big bites.
I think it is a real plus if dads can game with the kids. I am a gamer and have met several dads along the way that play with the kids from console games to PC games, and generally when the dad is into it even if he isnt the best the respoct is won.
I think in this modern time it is hard to find that connector that can keep the dad plugged in to the kids. Some ppl go hunting, fishing, sports, but I think gaming is a real possibility that is much more accessible and can be bonding and fun.
Do not give up. I think console gaming is difficult, it requires alot of fast yet gently hand movements to do things right. Keyboard and mouse on a PC seems much more learnable especially if dad is computer literate. Try WOW, TF2, or BF2.
My son and I play Spider-Man: Friend and Foe. We also play Uno. He’s talented at both games.
Homework is done during break. Though he is in the middle of the government’s 2nd grade program, we are almost finished with a 2nd grade math workbook (3-digit subtraction and addition). He’s great at math and interested in science.
Well my 17 year old can beat me at Guitar Hero… BARELY. My 13 year old does beat me occasionally at RTS games (which impresses me to no end). Other than that I hand out a lot more butt-kickin than I get. I played twitch hardcore for years when I was in my 20’s… from Wolf through Quake 2 before I lost interest. I’m not nearly as good as I used to be – but you don’t lose everything. At Racing Sims they don’t have a prayer… Forza 2, R-Factor, GTR2… if they can’t bash me off the road early they don’t have a prayer.
I have played a number of games with my kids through the years – and quickly learned that they’d kick me to the curb on any of the ‘twitch’ games.
Anything that required fast reaction times and such, I just could NOT match.
However – if it took strategy and planning as some MMORPG’s? That’s where I’d shine.
I guess it’s a matter of getting a little older – slower but smarter?
But truthfully, it really seemed often to be a real bonding time on a rainy saturday afternoon.
I used to play Wolfenstein, Quake, and a few others with my son years ago…
I could keep up with him for a while, then whammo…. I was toast…. He would accuse me of not trying… I really was! His hand-eye coordination was/is unreal. “Just do this Dad…. Press up, then A, then down and to the right, while pushing Z , up and to the left! See?! Simple! Come on Dad!”
Miss those days…
TMOTS
I neglected to mention, I let people know that I am a dad, and MANY players comment: “Thats’s cool, I wish my dad played XXXX with me”. “Are you REALLY so-and-so’s dad? That’s awesome!”
There are a few of us dads, and we joke with each other about being the old guys.
I play an online game with my kids, one of the MMORPG’s, and it keeps me connected with them. My characters can keep up. The first-person shooter games I never really got in to, and if I were to play them I would suck. I am an accomplished shooter in real life, and the hand controllers are unnatural.
Yupper, I’ve been playing SOCOM (1, 2 and 3) with me son since the games came out. Of course, I always got them for him for Christmas or his birthday.. which gave me about six months of “study time” to learn the way the game is played, setup my controller just perfectly, and download every hint, glitch, and cheat I could get my hands on – because two months after he’d have the game, I’d be dead meat!
Now, I never went through the “Oh, God, it’s your father you play with??” Because the people I’ve played have said (including, especially, my son’s friends) that it was “cool” to have Dad playing and quite a few of the kids even complained about the fact that their fathers didn’t join them!
It didn’t matter if I sucked on certain maps, there where some where I shone and they sucked so it all worked out in the end because it was all good fun. And it certainly didn’t hurt that I knew where all the good hiding spots where either.
It did help cement the Father-Son bond and that Dad is “cool” and made it much easier for my son to feel very at ease and call me anytime, about anything (especially when his mother was in a sint about me (which is about everyday..)) and chat for hours about nothing and everything.
We still play together and always have a wonderful time.
The day my lad beat me to the finishing line in a foot race, was one of those ‘highlight’ days I will never forget. What a star. My lad, the winner! My lad who went past me. He showed me something I had never seen before in quite that way: his heels!
Fine pair of heels on that lad!