My Gaming Dad

I think it is safe to say that sometimes I don’t appreciate my dad as much as I should. After all, he is the one that bought me my first console back in 1989 (the Nintendo Entertainment System).

When I look back through the years, I find that I never had to ask him a lot of things like how to shave, how to start a lawn mower, or how to play a video game because he was always wanted to show me rather than tell. I am very grateful for that because it has let me become the gamer I am today.  So I decided to sit down with my dad and discuss what his favorite video games are.

He loved the arcade and many of his favorite games are from that time when quarters were the best type of currency and change machines were all the rage.

“I like Galaga”, he says. Galaga is a game where you fly a space ship much like in Galaxian or Space invaders. The difference is that the action is fast paced and it takes a certain amount of skill to be able to get a perfect score for clearing a level.

He then mentions DigDug, the game about digging holes.  In this game, it is your job to explode the monsters chasing you by inserting your pump into their.. mouth. Then you pump them up like a balloon until they pop. You chase down the monsters by digging through different layers of dirt, which is a blast!

“Ms. PacMan is my all-time favorite,” he says. “I won a tournament playing that. I knew the quickest routes and all of the patterns by heart.” PacMan seems to always get the attention, but Ms. PacMan took it to the extreme by being faster which made it harder and require more skill. The bow headed circle was and still is an endearing piece of gaming history and, according to my dad, the best game ever made.

My dad didn’t discourage games when I was a kid like some of my friends’ parents. I was always allowed to play the latest games when they could afford to get them for me. Both he and my mom would sit down and play games with me when they had free time on their hands. One time, I wondered why I became a gamer. What made me love video games? For me, it is hereditary.