My Parents the Gamers

My parents do not really fit the stereotypical description of a gamer. They are both very hard working, down-to-earth, traditional kinds of people. For the most part, they’ve never understood my passion for gaming and they didn't really have much interest in gaming. The exception to this would be Dr. Mario for the original NES. They’ve been playing this game pretty regularly for about twenty-five years. They even have notebooks where they keep track of their win-loss records every month.

 

Recently, my parents got a taste of what gaming today is like and their perspective has done a complete 180, which resulted in the purchase of a 360. It all started when several months ago I told my mom about the Wii. I figured she wouldn’t really care, but surprisingly she was intrigued. She started paying more attention to the Wii commercials and doing her own research. A few weeks ago, she began calling around and asking about shipment dates which resulted in her and dad getting up early on a Saturday, going to Target, and picking up a Wii. In true gamer fashion, they didn’t just stop with the console, but instead bought three extra Wii-motes, a few games, and a stand to hold everything. We made our Miis and began playing. It didn’t take long before my mom was hooked and my dad was mildly entertained. The next weekend, I took my 360 over to their house to show them Guitar Hero. Both of my parents loved the game and my dad was surprisingly good. He played three songs on easy with no problem and passed the first song he tried on medium. None of us could really understand it because my dad has really slow reflexes and his hand/eye coordination is nothing to brag about. The next day, my dad went out and bought a 360 and Guitar Hero. He also downloaded a lot of the songs on Guitar Hero from iTunes to his iPod. He ordered the CDs of the songs he couldn’t find on iTunes. Last night, my parents called my wife and me and asked if we wanted to come over and play Wii. At this point it’s worth mentioning that a couple of months ago my mom had a pool installed. It was 90 degrees yesterday, but instead of swimming she wanted to play video games. I think it’s safe to say her gaming addiction is almost complete. Now, if I can just get my parents to play Halo…