My father likes FPSes and strategy games. He picked up gaming from me, after we got a PC at home. I'm actually amazed at how fast he did it. Some stories:
- he just watched me play some Half-Life and I saw he liked it, so I offered to teach him. His response "Nah, just continue playing, I want to see how you do it". So I did. He later sat down and just started playing. That was his first video game (well, aside from Minesweeper and Solitaire). Yes, he needed to adjust to using the mouse to look around but it only took him about half an hour to do so. And a bit more time to train his aim, but whatever - it took me far more time to get to that level.
- similarly, he watched me play an RTS. I think it was StarCraft. He understood the principle behind it easy - top down, place buildings, get troops to move around. Yet, he was actually surprised it was in real-time, though. He was even more surprised about it being in real-time on the entire map. I think he assumed it was a turn-based, for who would be managing everything at once, right? Moreover, he did see me changing views by moving around the map, but who would be managing all of it at once and the action could be in various places, right? I mean, potentially it wouldn't even be on the same screen. So he was really taken aback when I told him that I was both controlling everything at the same time as my opponents and that action was all over the map. I don't think he believed me then. However, later on he got really into Red Alert 2 and later still Generals.
- I also remember playing MechWarrior 4. For the people who haven't - the game is complex. You buy and sell mechs, you also control one and you have a squad following you. In addition, each mech has individual loadout and you can put a variety of guns and equipment on them - from making them not very damaging but very tough, to glass cannons (or glass nuclear cannons) and anywhere in between. Different models of mechs also have different slots and available equipment. On top of that, the control scheme requires a lot of buttons, so it's a bit like an MMO where you have to use your keyboard like a piano. Only, it's not to unleash various skills but just to move around.
Point being, it's not a game you just look at and "get" immediately. You may have guessed, but that's exactly what my father did. OK, he didn't play the game but he saw me struggling in a mission. I got wiped twice. So, from observing me for, like 5-10 minutes, he then just asked me some general questions about how equipping mechs works and then led me to a winning strategy. I was really aghast. My father went "Oh, so can you get more of those guns?" - I couldn't because I didn't have money, so he asked "Well, can you sell the robots?" - when I answered a tentative yes, he followed up with "OK, then - sell everything you can, get cheaper models, if needed, load them with those guns and those guns." And no, he didn't even know about heat management and stuff. However, I completely wiped the mission after that. I must remind you that this was the first time he ever saw MechWarror.
- and a short story last - I caught him playing Medieval: Total War once. Well, or rather I came home once and my father had launched it and was playing it. I hadn't really introduced him to the game, yet he had seen me play. Mind you, that's also not a game you just "start playing", similar to MechWarrior, however, he was only playing a quick battle, not going into the strategic play. Battles still require some knowledge of how things work - after all, things like weather, terrain and unit composition all have a rather big impact on the battle.
My father was in his forties when he got into gaming. While he's not "good", as in "pro-gamer" good, I'd certainly call him one of the most amazing video game players I know. His ability to just grasp how games work, at least to a level to just pick them up and play them, and with no or very little explanation has been quite impressive.
