What game turned you into a gamer?
Yesterday was Father’s Day and today I saw this story on Digg which made me remember my dad.
The question is what game turned you into a gamer. I thought a little bit and it was hard for me to pinpoint one single game. Maybe it’s because I’ve been a gamer most of my life and so it’s always just been part of who I am. I continued thinking and I tried to remember the first game I remembered playing. The first one that came to mind was Galaga.
The mall in town had a small arcade with about a dozen cabinets, one of which was “the spaceship game.” I was probably 6 years old at the time and as you can guess, the games were a little beyond me. I don’t think I could see the screen if I stood in front of the machine. So either my dad would play while I watched or he’d hold me up and it was my job to hit the shoot button as fast as possible. As you can imagine, we didn’t ever get too far, but I enjoyed every second of it.
While I wouldn’t consider my dad a gamer, there were a few games that I think he played more than I did. One time I remember waking up at 1AM to find my him playing a level farther into Blaster Master than I’d ever been. Another is SimCity 2000. I think that one got him in trouble with Mom a few times.
Looking back, many of my good gaming memories included my dad in some way. Maybe he’s responsible for my love of gaming.
