Old Dog, New Bits

January 29, 2013 7:15 PM

SLYT: an octogenarian plays Black Ops and Halo: 4 with his grandson. And really, really gets into it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos (43 comments total)

Awesome :D
posted by Our Ship Of The Imagination! at 7:21 PM on January 29, 2013

For some reason that is seriously reminding me of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrt7gAcNe8Q

I'll bet Grandpa would have his Sten out in no time flat.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:23 PM on January 29, 2013

Not a whole lot of aiming going on by the old timer.
posted by nathancaswell at 7:25 PM on January 29, 2013

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
posted by HeroZero at 7:31 PM on January 29, 2013 [5 favorites]

I'm now stuck picturing him as the helicopter door-gunner in Full Metal Jacket:

"Get some! Get some! Aieeeeeee!!!"
posted by ShutterBun at 7:34 PM on January 29, 2013

~30 years ago, my grandfather who was 70 at the time, would play Missile Command on the Atari 2600 with us kids. I think just because it's something the grandkids like and he wants to spend time with them.
posted by no relation at 7:40 PM on January 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

The Reddit thread where I first saw this had a poignant comment: "When a family member wants to play video games with you, it's not because they want to play video games. It's because they want to spend time with you, regardless of the activity. Cherish those times and hold them close to your heart. For a lot of people, we realize this too late."

Then again, grandpa seems really in to shooting the other guys. And why not?
posted by Nelson at 7:42 PM on January 29, 2013 [15 favorites]

I think just because it's something the grandkids like and he wants to spend time with them.

I have to say, the way this guy was acting reminded me so much of my grandfather playing cuthroat games of War with my brother and me when we were little. Grandpa would speak in this sort of weird Japanese gibberish the whole time we were playing for no other reason than it would make me and my brother giggle.

Thanks, Grandpa.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:43 PM on January 29, 2013 [7 favorites]

Reminds me of waking up one night to get a glass of water and catching my dad in the living room hunched over my gameboy play super mario land 2. "How do you make this damned thing swim!" "You press the A button dad. You press the A button."
posted by Think_Long at 7:45 PM on January 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

My girlfriend discovered that when she filmed her parents, family, and me playing Kinect, we seem like the worst dancers ever.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 7:53 PM on January 29, 2013 [13 favorites]

When I'm a grandpa, I'll do this because I enjoy activities with my grandkids.

Also, pwning n00bz.
posted by zippy at 7:55 PM on January 29, 2013 [8 favorites]

Hope you laugh as hard as we did, share with friends and family and tell us what video games we should make him play next!!

Hey, could you maybe not treat him like a puppet made to dance for your amusement, you creepy dick?
posted by Horace Rumpole at 8:07 PM on January 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

My dad looooves Halo. It's his stories. He will sit you down and sincerely tell you about the plot. And he finished Halo 4 within 48 hours. When I was a kid, I would wake up in the middle of the night to find him in my room playing Top Gun on my NES. Moral of the story: My dad's a gamer, and always has been. And he's a grandfather.
posted by Ruki at 8:17 PM on January 29, 2013 [5 favorites]

Did I get him? I got him!

This video made me remember my grandma pulling the NES controller into the air trying to jump in Super Mario Bros, and the fun we had as a whole family at the time. Thanks for posting.
posted by timfinnie at 8:23 PM on January 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

My maternal grandfather suffered a pretty debilitating stroke when I was a video game playing teenager.

I gave him my new SNES, and bought a turbografx-16. It didn't take long, but with his ample free time he soon learned how to school my punk ass in pretty much every game made.

Those were good times we spent playing games. He died shortly after my son was born and only got to see him 2-3 times before he passed. >.<

But yeah, those were some good memories and I'm sorry he's gone.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 8:27 PM on January 29, 2013 [7 favorites]

One of my fondest Christmas memories is getting my family to play Guitar Hero. And it was DEFINITELY the highlight of my cousins' Thai exchange student's Christmas break in rural Vermont, poor kid.
posted by maryr at 8:52 PM on January 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

When a family member wants to play video games with you, it's not because they want to play video games

That's not necessarily true, you know. Some older family members actually might, believe it or not, like video games. Some of them are just as hooked at 50 as they would have been at 10; being old doesn't automatically disable whatever part of the brain is interested in play.

And, yes, of course, they might just want to hang out with you, and don't care about the games at all. And that's really cool, and indeed something to be cherished. But thinking that they can't possibly be interested is extremely patronizing and dismissive of the pastime.

My father was really, really into Civilization, I think Civ 2. He put an ungodly amount of time into that game. I'm sure, if he'd been younger when home computers became a thing, he'd have been a Counterstrike ace, and would have beat up headcrabs with the best of them. But he didn't really have a computer he had constant access to until he was over 50, and never showed much interest in twitch games, probably as a direct consequence. But he came home from work and played that darn game almost every day for a very long time.

I remember thinking, when I first fired it up, that he'd have been wowed by the beauty of Civ 5. I wish he'd lived long enough to see it. It would have been neat to fire up a multiplayer game to beat up on the computer players.
posted by Malor at 8:54 PM on January 29, 2013 [6 favorites]

He's doing better than I did! I've been gaming my whole life, and grew up with Goldeneye 64 so I'm fine with console shooters. But whenever I play a CoD demo I get really confused and end up dying. Then I go back to something less stressful, like Gears of War on Hardcore.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 8:56 PM on January 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

This video made me remember my grandma pulling the NES controller into the air trying to jump in Super Mario Bros

Everybody in the world does this while playing SMB, right?



(...right?)
posted by neckro23 at 9:29 PM on January 29, 2013 [8 favorites]

I remember thinking, when I first fired it up, that he'd have been wowed by the beauty of Civ 5.

I don't know about your father, but my friend's father (early 70's) loved the look and about an hour later took to the Firaxis forums to tear them a new one about the new combat system.

I suppose it's living in the Silicon Valley but "Old Person Can Use Technology" just isn't surprising any more. Many of the older people I know started working at IBM around 1960 . . . 53 years ago for those who are counting. They thought new technology was cool then and they think new technology is cool now.

So I guess old people may look goofy when they grab the controller and go for it, but I can guarantee you that won't stop me or most of the people I know when we get to be that age. And if we get to spend some time with the grandkids while crushing them mercilessly that's good too.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:58 PM on January 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

timfinnie: "Did I get him? I got him!

This video made me remember my grandma pulling the NES controller into the air trying to jump in Super Mario Bros, and the fun we had as a whole family at the time. Thanks for posting"

Somehow, Nintendo found out about this and made the Wii controller.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:37 PM on January 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 10:37 PM on January 29, 2013 [5 favorites]

I know this one ~7 year old kid who's mom is a friend of the family. One time I tried playing some call of duty/modern warfare/whatever game with him on his PS3 at his mom's place. I was really good at the various quake/doom games on the PC but never really got used to playing FPSes on game controllers.

Now that was a somewhat humiliating experience. Getting completely destroyed by the computer and relying on a 7 year old to keep you alive and "heal" you.

Um... Anyway, the point is grampa here needs stop being such a n00b and play some PC games. :P
posted by delmoi at 11:07 PM on January 29, 2013

Oh, also kind of ironic that we just had a post joking about all those retro game ads showing families having fun playing games together.
posted by delmoi at 11:09 PM on January 29, 2013

"When a family member wants to play video games with you, it's not because they want to play video games. It's because they want to spend time with you, regardless of the activity. Cherish those times and hold them close to your heart. For a lot of people, we realize this too late."

Well, it can be a mix of both, right? I mean, obviously they can just play games by themselves, right? But playing games together can be a good way to spend time together - if you've known someone all your life there's only so much you can talk about. It's possible they might want to spend time with you and they want to play some video games.

It's also possible they just want to play co-op and you're just the most convenient person
posted by delmoi at 11:17 PM on January 29, 2013

This guy is adorable. I found myself making Wallace hands watching this video.

Some older family members actually might, believe it or not, like video games.

When I was a teen, I rented Dr. Mario, and played it with my older sister a few times before my mother asked to play. Mind you, Mom didn't play video games a whole bunch, and didn't really even make it through the first level of, say, Super Mario Bros. without giving up, so I didn't expect her to like Dr. Mario too much, either.

Well.

It wasn't too long before Dr. Mario got rented again, but this time not by me. Mom liked it, and pretty quickly got really good at it. I couldn't even try to compete after a few months. I couldn't even play on the same settings as my mother, let alone compete in the two-player game. She played the shit out of that game, and would smoke anyone who played against her. Dad got to the point where he could keep up, and he bought her a copy of Dr. Mario for Christmas that year. It was kinda awesome that after years of the folks having to endure video games being played on the tv by us kids (there was only the one tv in the house), they finally found one they could play, and play well.

So, yeah, some older family members might like video games. Even if it takes 'em a while to find their game.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 11:28 PM on January 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

I can just picture it. 20 years from now. I stick the jack into my newly drilled skull plug. And my grandson says, "Grandpa! Stop thinking about porn! You're ruining it for the clan!"
posted by Splunge at 12:15 AM on January 30, 2013 [3 favorites]

Then: Oh great grandpa! They all jacked off!
posted by Splunge at 12:18 AM on January 30, 2013 [2 favorites]

Bunny Ultramod: "My girlfriend discovered that when she filmed her parents, family, and me playing Kinect, we seem like the worst dancers ever. "

This is the BEST and has made my morning, thank you.
posted by iamkimiam at 1:07 AM on January 30, 2013

Alas, my father's more like "Nah, I don't want to play, but you go ahead grandkids, and I'll sit on the couch with my arms folded throwing in some sarcasm and a few cracks about what a completely fuckwitted activity this is."
posted by Segundus at 1:24 AM on January 30, 2013

It's never too late to have a happy childhood.

demonstrably untrue
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 2:04 AM on January 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

My daughter and I have played Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Dishonored together, and we are about to start playing Unreal Tournament (original) deathmatch against each other. This living in the future thing is interesting.

I grew up with arcades, and she has grown up where everyone's living room is an arcade. It's a fantastic bonding moment, even if it confuses Grandma.

My dad passed away just shy of three years ago, and this has me thinking back to the one time he joined me at the arcade and played a game or two with me. I remember thinking that he "got it", but just straight didn't give a damn -- he was a pool shark, and liked games, but he didn't see any point in competition where it was all pixels.

I think that he saw pool as a place where a young hustlin' punk could learn whether they were any good or not -- did you walk away with a few extra dollars? Hey! You just might have what it takes! -- but at the arcade there was the mediocrity of failure for all games, in that the last thing on the screen was at worst "GAME OVER" and at best, "Insert coin to continue."

No surprise that the old folk like a game or twelve; we will all be there soon enough, and when I am there I will STILL kick your ass at Unreal.
posted by drfu at 2:14 AM on January 30, 2013

On The Story of Film, Gus Van Zandt talked about having his assistant download Tomb Raid to understand the Columbine killers, since he didn't know there were different games or that Doom was on computers. But he used Tomb Raiders' long shots of Laura walking to inspire Elephant and Gerry.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 3:05 AM on January 30, 2013

No surprise that the old folk like a game or twelve; we will all be there soon enough, and when I am there I will STILL kick your ass at Unreal.

A propos UT, do people still play it on Mefight Club perhaps?
posted by ersatz at 6:29 AM on January 30, 2013

This kind of gives me a bit of "gee what a surprise, old people turn out to be people. Who sometimes enjoy things."

The elderly aren't a separate species bred to only enjoy canasta, the history channel, and buffet dinners.
posted by ook at 6:52 AM on January 30, 2013 [2 favorites]

Some older family members actually might, believe it or not, like video games. Some of them are just as hooked at 50 as they would have been at 10; being old doesn't automatically disable whatever part of the brain is interested in play.

This. Emphatically. I'm 52, and - happily - I know this from first-hand experience.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 6:53 AM on January 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm guessing, though, that this isn't the guy's first time playing a modern console shooter. That, or they cut-out the 4 hours of frustration and anger as he comes to terms with the stupid controls.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:27 AM on January 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

This video made me remember my grandma pulling the NES controller into the air trying to jump in Super Mario Bros

My dad's a gamer since tabletop days (comin' straight outta Lake Geneva, son), and some of my earliest memories of playing on the computer with him was working on our C64, going through the BASIC code of a AD&D character generator so I could implement my dream of including a shopping catalog for starting gear, along with stat generation and the rest. He's a big fan of PC games as well, altho generally sticking to strategy/wargames these days and not as much the action games. This transition occurred around 1993-94.. after he broke a joystick, an office chair, and very nearly his wrist, all while throwing himself to the side to try and dodge an imp's fireball in Doom.
posted by FatherDagon at 8:55 AM on January 30, 2013

A propos UT, do people still play it on Mefight Club perhaps?

It's not one of the regular games (TF2, L4D2, minecraft and LoL/DOTA2) but I'm sure several of us'd be ready and willing to jump into a game. :)
posted by Drexen at 11:20 AM on January 30, 2013

Old Grandma Hardcore has been a YouTube staple for some time now. There are plenty of older gamers who genuinely enjoy the hobby; in fact, some are quite ... enthusiastic about it. (Note: full of salty language.)
posted by Amanojaku at 11:48 AM on January 30, 2013

Tell Me No Lies: I don't know about your father, but my friend's father (early 70's) loved the look and about an hour later took to the Firaxis forums to tear them a new one about the new combat system.

Hah! My dad would have been somewhere around 80 when Civ5 shipped, and I can't really imagine him complaining on a forum, but I certainly could imagine him writing a letter to Firaxis to tell them they blew it.

I quite like that combat system, myself, and I think he would probably have come around. It's different, and maybe less realistic... but I'm not sure one combat unit per thousand square miles is inherently less realistic than infinite-size stacks. It makes terrain and movement a lot more important, and I think that's a definite improvement.
posted by Malor at 2:58 PM on January 30, 2013

A propos UT, do people still play it on Mefight Club perhaps?

We used to have a Rocket Arena 3 (Quake 3 mod) server we played regularly on (I miss our RA3 sessions and even packaged up a custom installation of it for MFC members, but I was the main instigator, and haven't had time in a long time to do it, and our server provider had to bow out), and there was some pickup UT3 DMing for a while.

But we're mostly old folks, and if someone wants to play something and try and get other people into it (and, even better, find a good server or run one for a while), then there are usually Mefighters more than willing to get in on some retro-action.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:02 PM on January 30, 2013

Um... Anyway, the point is grampa here needs stop being such a n00b and play some PC games.

From the keyboard in the foreground, I think they might have been playing the PC version of CoD.


EEEEEEEEEEEaaaaa! Reload. EEEEEEEEEEEEE.....
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:18 AM on January 31, 2013