Happy Father's Day: Remembering the Awesome Times I Spent Gaming with my Dad

In honor of Father's Day, it seems fitting to publish an article about my dad and me.  The two of us share a pretty special bond, and I like to think gaming together has helped bring us closer.  Most of my friends' dads don't play video games.  I understand this, as I don't expect my favorite medium to work for everyone.  Still, video games have forced my dad and me to bond in a unique and awesome way.  (Note: I'm not advocating video games as the best method of connecting with your father, I'm just sayin'.)

Super Smash Bros Melee:

Because I never owned a Gamecube, I first bought Super Smash Bros Melee—one of my all-time favorite games—for the Wii.  All of my friends were sick of Melee by the time I picked it up, so none of them were interested in playing for longer than a nostalgic ten or fifteen minutes.

Oh Jigglypuff, how I missed you.  

My dad, seeing how much I loved the game, took pity on his lonely son and played a round with me.  After suggesting he choose Pichu, I used all of my skills developed by fighting level nine CPUs to crush his onscreen character into complete submission.  Unsurprisingly, my father decided to stop playing after that match.  Here's a pro tip: if you want someone to game with you, don't humiliate them.

Fortunately, he asked for a rematch the next day.  Although we eventually loaded up another one-on-one fight, we first played team battle for an hour.  The team battle provided an interesting opportunity: besides lawn work, the two of us rarely worked together...and it should go without saying I much prefer gaming to pulling weeds.

We played Super Smash Bros Melee quite a lot, with my dad playing as Ganondorf and myself generally sticking to Link or Roy.  Then Brawl ruined everything.  Ganondorf, due to Nintendo's efforts to distinguish him from Captain Falcon, had his side b attack changed from an uppercut to a choke.  My dad, no longer able to spam his favorite move, changed his character to Kirby.

As all Super Smash Bros players know, Kirby is the character chosen by unskilled button mashers.  The shame of playing as Kirby proved too great for my ol' pop, and so he quietly retired into the sunset.

Rainbow Vegas Six 2:

The sunset, of course, being Tom Clancy's Rainbow Vegas Six 2!

Rainbow Vegas Six 2 belongs in the discussion of the best two person local multiplayer experiences ever created.  At lower difficulties, it's possible to survive on pure skill; turn up the settings, however, and suddenly you are forced to plan complex strategies, conserve your ammo, and pray your soul away to Satan.  (Pro tip: God frowns upon killing, so praying to him won't be nearly as effective as praying to the Devil.)

My dad and I only hunt terrorists on realistic difficulty.  On 'realistic,' the enemies deal much more damage and your character only respawns once—just like in real life!  To make our lives even harder (because, apparently, we like pain), we add ten or fifteen terrorists to the enemy squads by selecting 'high density.'  Combining these two settings together turns a fun, enjoyable experience into an intense, thrilling mission.  It also makes the game basically unbeatable.

So unbeatable, in fact, that we had to call in Iron Man.

We unlocked the Terrorist Hunter achievement by beating all of the maps on realistic.  As we continued to invest significant amounts of time in the game, one things became crystal clear: the two of us needed to communicate constantly.  Asking for cover fire, declaring our positions, calling out enemy flash bangs—these were the easy things.  More importantly, we would plan out our routes, carefully attempt hit-and-runs, and discuss strategies prior to engaging the terrorists.

We played this game for a long time.  It remains, to this day, my dad's favorite video game.

Monday Night Combat:

The original Monday Night Combat—as opposed to the newer free-to-play PC version—was the game that convinced me to buy Xbox Live.  Contrary to many of the reviews running at that time, I found Monday Night Combat both engaging and hilarious.  I even reviewed it myself, proclaiming the $15 downloadable title to be "A Limited But Extremely Fun Game".

After playing for an unhealthy amount of time, I achieved mediocrity.  Then, after proceeding to sink an unholy number of bleary-eyed, root beer driven hours into Monday Night Combat, I finally turned good.  Like real good.  During my peak, I was named MVP every three or four games.  Unfortunately, I still lost half the time because of my godawful teammates.

I realize I sound like every other arrogant prick on the Internet.  But seriously—some of them were so bad I wondered if there was an elaborate conspiracy against me.  There was only one solution: bring in the DAD.

My dad played as the Gunner, a defensive character able to defend our base effectively while occasionally providing some support to the rest of the team.  Although our combo never reached the same heights as it did in Rainbow Vegas Six 2, my dad held his own.  The two of us scraped wins together, proving ourselves to be an effective but not overpowered one-two punch.

Unfortunately, Monday Night Combat and I had a bit of a falling out.

"Honey, I wish I could be with you.  It's just...I've seen you without the mask."

Slowly but surely, the casual gamers started to quit.  Eventually, only the toughest and most dedicated players populated the servers.  For someone who only played as the Assassin, defensively the weakest character in the game, this was bad.  All of my prey had left.  I still continued to play for a while, but the dynamic had changed—I was average again.  So I too quit, pulling my dad along with me.


I'm passionate about gaming, but I didn't expect my dad to feel the same way.  Although gaming with him has taught me some lessons, mostly it's just been fun.

Happy Father's Day!

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