When I was six years old, I would have been extremely lucky to have a parent play video games with me. My parents had very little interest in making their eyes square… though on rare occasions my mother would sometimes play Sonic the Hedgehog with me.
I have always had a competitive nature, and felt driven to play with others. However, this was difficult to achieve when I was younger, mostly because I was an only child. My parents both worked, and the world wasn’t huge on the internet in 1991.
So I had to settle with whatever multiplayer action I could get my hands on! This started with Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Mega Drive (Genesis for my North American friends), and continued until the releases of Phantasy Star Online for the Sega Dreamcast and Ultima Online on PC. That is when it all changed… but I feel that will be an article for another time.
Christmas day came, then Boxing day, and then… I get word down the grapevine that JJ finished the main story of Lego Marvel Super Heroes.
A Demo a Week
My son, Jacob-John, doesn’t have quite the same childhood problems to deal with. Case in point, our story of Lego Marvel Super Heroes.
When Santa dropped off the game for Christmas, JJ was super excited! We had both played the demo when it released back in October ’13, and thoroughly enjoyed it – to the point that we started imitating Bruce Banner changing into the Hulk.
The Big Day
Christmas day came, then Boxing day and then… I get word down the grapevine that JJ finished the main story of Lego Marvel Super Heroes. My first thought was, “That’s my boy! He can plow through a game as good as his Dad.” My second? “I wonder if he’ll let me borrow it?”
I bided my time. A few weeks went by. JJ collected nearly 125 Gold Bricks and had only a dozen or so characters left to unlock. I felt the time to strike was good!
I asked him to borrow the game. His reply?
“Of course you can Daddy, then we can save all the Stan Lee Lego men together!”
At that moment, that very second, I was not ashamed to borrow a game off of my boy. He had just become a gaming man.
I have only played through the first level so far, but I will do a write-up on Lego Marvel Super Heroes once I have given it a fair shake down. For now, you can check out the demo here.
But what do you guys think? Is it uncool to borrow games, or other forms of media, from your children – no matter what age they are?
