Memories Of Your Parents Playing Games

[Headsprouter]

I used to watch my dad playing Doom, Quake and Chasm: The Rift back in the day.

My older brother saw more of him playing those games than I did though. I have foggy memories of open areas with lost souls (my brother was always afraid of those), rainy places with scorpions and green men and moaning zombies in dark corridors.

Not much other than that I'm afraid. My mother was never a gamer, and never gave the concept the time of day as far as I know.

Nowadays Dad enjoys open-world RPGs. Fallout, TES. The idea of enlisting the help of my two brothers to scrape together the money for an Xbox One and Fallout 4 (he still hasn't been able to play it) has crossed my mind a few times, but I feel like he'd never forgive me. Oh, for a day when I have that much money to throw around.

 

[FPLOON]

Does seeing your mom playing HuniePop Bejeweled not too long ago count video game-wise? Because honestly, almost every memory I have with my parent either involves her buying me a video game/GameBoy Advance, helping me buy the Nintendo DS Lite, playing co-op based games ranging from LEGO Star Wars to Rayman Legends, seeing her play games on the 3DS I gave to her on her birthday, and the most recent experience of seeing her play HuniePop Bejeweled and crushing my best girl's affections high score like it was nothing... The rest consist of board game playing/collecting and the few times of playing board games that I created...

Other than that, I saw my mom's long-time fiance nerd the fuck out while playing with his Pac-Man Plug & Play four years after they moved in together for the first time in forever and watched my aunt play Grand Theft Auto III for the PS2 once every male in her house were fast asleep...

 

[Ygrez]

My dad bought me a Gameboy and then he proceeded to play Tetris on it at every available opportunity.

Same here!

Mine also loved to play Rogue Squadron, he has since stopped playing video games because he finds them too stressful now.

 

[Sonmi]

Our father pretty much bought us our first console so that HE could play Super Mario Brothers. Then he bought a N64 for SM64 and MK64.

My mother was more of a fan of computer games, played Doom, Quake, Unreal Tournament, that kind of shit.

 

[The Jovian]

I remember my parents being hardcore PC gamers in their youth, my mom kept kicking ass (mine included) as the Zerg in StarCraft (a real-life Queen of Blades), and as the Ordos in Dune 2000. My dad in the meantime loved his Age of Empires and Command and Conquer, I remember one time my dad was playing a multiplayer game of Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 where he lost his Construction Yard but still had everything else (somehow) and tried to capture another one only for his Prism tanks to accidentally destroy it, that was an embarrassing moment for him.

My parents loved strategy games and I owe my love of RTSes to them. Nowadays they mostly stick to playing non-stressful games (Minecraft mostly) but they were great commanders for most of my early childhood.

 

[MeatMachine]

Watching my dad play the Barrels o' Fun level from Doom 2 when I was 4 years old. I was snacking on those old McDonald's sugar cookies they used to sell in the shape of the Hamburgler.

I almost crapped my pants in fear like 3 times that level, from the gauntlet of exploding barrels, the Arch-Vile's unprecedented fast and erratic movement, and of course, the freakin' gigantic Spider Mastermind outta nowhere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4FsWThMcLk

 

[geefux]

Believe it or not, my dad used to play Rome: Total War, and he was so determined to conquer the whole world that he actually took over almost every single settlement and castle in the game! I've been playing Total War games since what, 12 years? And I've never been so patient and successful in a single playthrough ^_^

 

[chrissx2]

My father still plays games. Not as much as before, but still. As a kids, we've played StarCraft with him and we still do it from time to time. I wanted to buy AoE2HD for him two days ago, but he couldn't get bothered with installing steam >.<.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

My father was never really into video games, despite his family being the ones that introduced me to home consoles and arcades.

My mother was in the same boat, with the notable exception to Pac-Man. She really enjoyed playing that game, especially the table arcade. She was actually very good, being able to reach to level 6 - 9 in a single credit. It was also one of the few games that we enjoyed together. When I rented Pac-Man for the Sega Genesis, which include co-op, we blasted through so many levels. I think the highest level we got to was 25, and it was insane.

Nowadays, she doesn't really have time to play Pac-Man, but it's my dream to one day buy a Pac-Man table arcade and give it to her.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

Who has em? Recently I read about a guy who's father had passed. His dad had played some racing game or another back in the day and when the guy pulled out this old console and fired the game up there was a ghost run by his dad. He played and was getting smoked until one day he got ahead of the ghost. He stopped before the finish line to preserve the ghost and the memory. Very sad, very heart wrenching, maybe true, maybe not. Who knows. Anyway, any memories of your parents playing anything?

My dad was beast at Duck Hunt. Seriously, us kids would be sitting on the floor 5 feet from the TV having trouble but my dad would sit way back on the couch without even leaning forward or anything just plugging ducks. It was seriously impressive.

What a brilliant stry. Quality.

My dad played with hoops, sticks and lumps of coal though lol.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

None, I'm afraid. Neither of my parents have ever shown any interest in gaming. In fact, it was quite the opposite for a part of my childhood, although that went away as I grew older and they realized I wasn't going to give up on the hobby.

 

[Mcgeezaks]

My parents actually liked Mario and Crash Bandicoot when I was little, not so much since. My mom got really in to LIPS back in 2009, she even bought every expansion that came out for it...

 

[DeliveryGodNoah_v1legacy]

My father allowed me to have to video game obsession I have today.

He played systems and PC's since he was a child, and when I was born we had the NES, Sega Genesis, and later the N64.

I'd just lay on the floor watching my dad play all kinds of games. I distinctly remember watching him play Quest 64, Cruisin' USA, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask.

He also bought two of the games that would entirely shape what kind of games I'd be interested in later in life: Turok and Turok 2. (Third time I've mentioned these games in the last 8 hours...)

I wouldn't fully inherit the N64 until the PS2 came out, where I would watch him play that with all it's advanced graphics and gameplay.

He shown me PC gaming, he always took me to the arcade, and eventually he would get the PS3.

My dad has only recently stopped playing video games. Claims he just doesn't feel like he can keep up anymore. He debated on getting a PS4, but I think ultimately he decided against it.

It's a little depressing the more I think about it. It's like one of the last pieces of my childhood has fallen away. We'd always used to talk about the new games coming out, or how we wanted to play older ones. I think the last game he was eager to show off to me was Dante's Inferno, and that was 3 years ago.

I guess he's just getting older. I could tell he really started to feel like he was losing the curve when he saw how much I knew about building PC's and all their technical information.

Now he's focused on finishing building specific sets of Magic: The Gathering cards, of which he has been collecting since it started, and riding his motorcycle as much as he can before he gets too old for that (or so he claims).

He still loves and appreciates all the little gaming related trinkets I buy him though. Just this past Father's Day I got him a Resistance 2 Action Figure. Last year it was a fully posable Solid Snake complete with all kinds of accessories.

He hasn't fully abandoned ship that last I heard. He just gave up trying to keep up, and apparently he sold a lot of his old gaming stuff to a new store at the nearby mall. Said he didn't use it.

God, this is really sad for me. My dad also lives alone. Where's my phone?

 

[Gorrath]

My nerdiness was inherited directly from my parents and we came to enjoy video games as a family starting in their earliest days. Our first console was an Atari 2600, which was chalk full of multiplayer goodness like Warlords. When my grandparents bought us an NES, our fate was sealed. My mother was obsessed with Dragon Warrior, creating maps of every square in every region on graph paper (in those halcyon days before internet.)

We'd all get together for duck hunt or mario or some similar game or else sit around watching stories unfold as we played RPGs like Final Fantasy. When we got a Genesis for one Christmas my mother became absolutely dominant at RTS games, practicing endlessly on Herzog Zwei (look it up, kids!) We used to hold short tournaments to determine who in the family had to do the dishes that night.

Bunch of systems later and we got into PC gaming, where my mother flexed her RTS muscles once again by becoming a dominant Age of Empires player before coming into Starcraft.

My mother and I are the only ones who still play video games regularly but it was more of a family thing than watching TV was for us.

 

[Fox12]

My parents didn't play games, unless they played them with me. I have some pleasant memories of crash bandicoot. Generally, my dad dislikes games because he thinks they make us violent killers.

Except sim city. He loves sim city.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Our father pretty much bought us our first console so that HE could play Super Mario Brothers. Then he bought a N64 for SM64 and MK64.

My mother was more of a fan of computer games, played Doom, Quake, Unreal Tournament, that kind of shit.

Can I just say I'm a bit jealous? My parents briefly touched the NES, my mother turned into an absolute wizard at Dr. Mario and Tetris, while my father never manifested interest in more than a few tabletop games. I tried to initiate him to the basics of FPS, all he had to say was "Argh, there's too many buttons to handle!"

Now, Mom's a Candy Crush Saga junkie and neither of them have any interest in anything that approaches the core scene, retro or otherwise.

 

[2HF]

My parents split when I was a freshman and I stayed with my mom.

I got my first job and the manager and I became fast friends. He was quite a bit older, in his 40s at that point but we shared tastes in music, movies, and books. He became a father figure in my life, even bought me my first drink when I turned 21. He'd played games in his youth, Atari and Colecovision, and he still played things like bejeweled and that pinball game on Windows XP. Whenever I tried to introduce him to newer games he'd complain about all the buttons and give up. Until one day I pulled out a college basketball game. He's from Kentucky. In Kentucky you play basketball, it's like a law or something. He is a huge Kentucky Wildcats fan. So I had him try and play that and he picked it up lightning quick. He'd beat me regularly.

One day I showed him the create a player feature and we devised a scheme. The game let you add your player to any team you wanted, including legendary teams. One of those legendary teams was the 1977-78 UK Wildcats team. So we created a player of his height and weight and of course added his name. We maxed his stats to 99 in every category. We added him to the 77-78 team which was when he'd have been in college.

I brought the game into work and hooked it up to the TV in the break room. We called in the girls who worked with us and exclaimed loudly "OMG you will not believe what I found in this video game! It's Bruce!". We proceeded to start up a game and have the created player draining three point shots from mid court and dunking over the competition. They completely bought it. It was hysterical.

I also showed him Tiger Woods golf. I was pretty good but not long after he started playing he was blowing me away. Sinking shots from anywhere and everywhere within 100 yards of the pin. It was ridiculous.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Neither have hardly ever touched a computer game. I have got the old dear to try some games before but damn its painful she struggles to interact with it at all seriously watched her die to the first goomba about 7 times in succession before she gave up in super mario bros.

Havent seen the old man play in ages but I do remember we use to play outrun together well I say together I would mostly watch and get in the way while he drove it back in the arcades in the day but this wasnt really a regular thing it was just if we were passing an arcade on holiday and I wanted to go in. I have never ever in my entire life ever seen him voluntarily play a computer, board or card game. Only times I have seen it happen is when he is somehow almost obliged to join in which is very very rare (prob about 5 time in my life). Cant remember what he was like at Outrun but hes usually pretty good at board and card games once he grasps them.

Strangely though the old man was probably the one who got me into games by buying me a C64 when I was a kid. My brother also never touches games so I am basically the odd one out in my family....thinking about it I cant think of anyone who plays computer games in my family anymore as the one cousin who did stopped after the 16 bit era.

 

[LegoDudeGuy]

My family never showed interest in games, my parents bought me my first system (GBA SP) on a whim before a road trip one day, and they probably feel that they regret it.

My ill fated attempts to have them play a game with me have been plenty, but usually boil down to playing for 5 mins and quitting due to a BS excuse.

Play Guitar Hero on Easy? Motion Sickness.
Play the tutorial to Hearthstone? Can't grasp how to play, in the fricken tutorial

It's like they aren't even trying.

My mom only plays crappy Bejeweled knockoffs on her phone and used to play Tetris on my sisters GBA, and my dad played the original Mario for 10 mins when he was in his 30's.

At least I have my chosen family, my friends, to play games with.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

My Dad always loved Resident Evil, Alone in the Dark, Crash Bandicoot and Wipeout. I've got fond memories of watching my dad struggle agains the T-101 Tyrant at the end of Resident Evil. But before that my nan used to have me on weekends and she loved Super Mario Bros. 3 on the NES. I always struggled at the levels where the screen moves, so she'd have to do them for me.

I probably wouldn't be such a big gamer if they hadn't eased me into it.