A Vertical Division

This month’s Round Table invites us to talk about our families today and the role that playing games has in our relationships with them. Whether you play video games with your children before bed, card games with your parents on the holidays, continue to meet up with your siblings for regular death matches, play couch co-op with your spouse, or argue with them all about your World of Warcraft addiction–this month’s topic is on the importance, or impact, that gaming has on your family relationships.

Growing up I was the most obsessed with games in the family. Much of my early childhood memories are of spending hours playing DOS classics on the office computer. As strong as my love of games has grown over the years, no one in the family seems to share the same passion. It is interesting, then, that they are largely responsible for introducing me to key gaming experiences and fostering my obsession.

My grandfather has always been a technology enthusiast. At first glance he could be mistaken for a stereotypical elderly luddite, but that is far from the truth. As early as my first birthday he’d be filming the event with his bazooka-sized videocamera, then spend hours editing and dubbing the footage straight to a Betamax tape. Some of my earliest gaming experiences were on his Amiga, and later, a PC whose tower case all but matched my height. On this PC he introduced me to first-person shooters with Wolfenstein 3D.

Of course, the game was far too violent for a child of my age to be playing, so I was relegated to sitting beside him and watching. This suited me just fine; even with this extra level of detachment the game was so scary that I remember screaming every time an enemy popped out from behind a steel blue door. When not cowering from the bad guys I’d point out wall hangings and portraits that might be secret walls, as well as treasure and ammo my grandfather may have missed. I don’t believe I received any historical context concerning the game’s enemies – after all, how does one explain to child what a Nazi is – so to me the soldiers were simply brown-suited prison guards, and the tapestries of Hitler and the Swastika their interior decorations.

Growing older I eventually overcame my fear and managed to play the game myself, though I still preferred having some emotional support present to share the really scary parts. My sister, one year my elder, would often watch me play, and assumed a similar role to me when watching my grandfather years ago. Ever the activist, she would cry out in protest whenever I shot an attack dog, claiming animal cruelty. Her love of animals obviously carried over to computer games, and in particular to a whimsical multiplayer racer called Wacky Wheels. I cannot fathom the amount of hours we lost to the shareware version of this game, playing split-screen races and battle modes tirelessly.

Though she enjoyed the lighter, colourful and less violent variants, my sister would immediately lose interest upon loading up a gritty, menacing shooter or platformer. It was my father I shared these games with. He took over for my grandfather when Doom was released, stalwartly taking down demons as I watched onward with the same terror I’d felt from its predecessor. I remember debating the usefulness of the shotgun over the chaingun (”It’s one number up; it must be more powerful!” “But the shotgun does greater damage with one hit!”); as well as reminding him where to go upon getting lost in Descent; or heroically devising strategies to take down bosses in Terminal Velocity.

Even my uncle, whom I rarely spoke to outside of family gatherings, introduced me to Star Control with a copy of the game for a birthday present. He either randomly selected a game off the shelf or did his research; either way it kick-started my love of space sims. This was never more evident than when my grandfather, having discovered the joy of Microsoft Flight Simulator, upgraded his PC with an expensive sound system, massive screen and Thrustmaster joystick. He enthusiastically tried to get me in to flight sims, but I was infinitely more intriguied by another game that came packaged with his PC: Descent: FreeSpace. I was unable to comprehend how cruising around in a Cessna was anywhere near as exciting as protecting spaceship convoys by blowing up oncoming asteroids with lasers.

At the same time my second sister and brother, both a few years younger, would crowd around the home computer with my older sister and I, playing epic four-team games of Worms. For years we would delight in such split-screen and multiplayer games. Our first console was the Nintendo 64, and was the perfect system for us to gather round as a family with the likes of Goldeneye, Lylat Wars, Mario Party and the plumber’s various sports offshoots. Our multiplayer gaming together culminated in the completion of Serious Sam in split-screen mode – with all four of us on the one PC.

How sad it is to think that this no longer happens. PC games no longer carry split-screen support, and even consoles are favouring online interactions over multiple players on the one system. The days of huddling around a monitor or television with friends and family are becoming a thing of the past. My father and grandfather have long since outgrown games, and my siblings and I no longer play them together. Perhaps this was inevitable and they all just grew up a little, pursuing individual interests. I am the only one whose interest in games has not wained, and it has become such a lonely affair.

Please visit the Round Table’s Main Hall for more entries on this month’s topic.