To celebrate the special day set aside for dads every year we pay homage to the men that helped the GOA team get to where they are today.
Skittles401:
“From the moment I was born I was destined to be Dad’s little one. From my first memory I wanted to be just like him, to run as fast as he could, climb as high as he could and shoot mortars at the enemy base to protect the flag runner like he could. Every gamer remembers the first time they came into contact with their first real game, the one that hooked them in and propelled them into the gaming world. For me that was the glorious moment we as a family took hold of the best deal at the time, $2999 for the whole package, computer, screen, printer and all (PLUS pay $1 extra and get a limited edition colour pokemon Gameboy!!).
I was 9 years old when my dad bought his first every computer game, Heavy Gear 2. It was a rush to watch and I was quickly as hooked as he was. I suspect the defining moment for him handing over the controls was when I was so desperate to play I had my own chair positioned next to his, as close as humanly possible.
When dad finally had enough of trying to play with me basically sitting on his shoulders, with a large amount of rules, supervision and guidance {cW} Tom handed over the controls and Skittles401 was born. From then on it was a regular occurrence of tisking coming from the kitchen (sorry mum) whilst dad and I fought the most glorious battles and I became the main flag runner for the our team and was eventually picked up into the DoD clan, a group of friends around the world I am still in contact with today (Shout out – Liquid IcE – 😊 )
So this fathers day I say thanks to my dad Michael (Tom) for my first introduction to the online gaming community. It was the most wonderful, supportive and encouraging environment I could have hoped for. Fast forward 20 years later and moving from HG2 into Unreal Tournament and onto console for burnout racing championships, while we don’t game together as much as we used to I will forever be grateful for my introduction to the gaming life I have now. THANKS DAD.”
Bruce L33t:
A big shout-out to my Dad for being the guiding light of my game review writing. My Dad is an English Literature teacher. He has poured over countless pages of my writing and nudged me in the right direction. I have grown in leaps and bounds over the past eight months. Now I have found my voice and writing style, which I thought was an insurmountable task at the start. This is something I get to keep for the rest of my life. I bet you never thought I would be a writer, Dad. Thank you.
Procks_:
“I was lucky enough to have been born in to a family of gamers. Even before I was born my parents were playing the Commodore 64, with my Dad breaking a few joysticks while trying to make his soccer players run that little bit faster – because applying more pressure does that right?
Fast forward to the beginning of the 1990’s and you would have seen all of my Dad’s computer parts spread around the house as he ran his own computer business in Fremantle at the time. This meant we usually had a very high end PC in the house and it also meant we were able to play the latest games with relative ease. From the get go my old man was showing us Doom, Command & Conquer and, even though it scared the shit out of me, Hexen. When I was a kid I had a lot of dramas with my tonsils and eventually had them removed. I will never forget when on the way home in the family’s VK station wagon my Dad turned to me and said “check this out” & then one day in 1998, my Dad woke my brother and I up at 9:30 on a school night with this:
“Boys, you have got to come see how insane these graphics are”. We both rushed out of bed, full of excitement to see what was pushing Dad’s 3dfx Voodoo 2 to it’s limit. Shining from Dad’s 17 inch CRT monitor was the blissful view of Unreal. All Dad did was leave the title sequence running with the camera just floating through the world and the black Unreal logo surrounded by green flames. Completely wide-eyed, Ben, Mum and myself all let out a synchronised “Woooow!”. For the rest of the night all I could think about was how badly I wanted to tell my mates at school what I had just seen and how badly I wanted to play it. I didn’t get much sleep that night!
Another one of the perks of Dad owning his computer shop were the 6 monthly LAN parties we would have with his clients. Back then we called them “network games” and we would host them at Dad’s shop, our uncle Pete’s house or one of our clients houses. Over the years we were playing a wide arrange of multiplayer games like Medal of Honor Allied Assault, Mobile Forces, Total Annihilation, Counter-Strike and even Quake 3 back when it was still in beta!
Even to this day Ben and I are still playing games with the old man. Dad recently built a new PC so he can start coming to LAN parties at my place and so he can join in our squad games of PUBG & he’s a regular player in our GOA PUBG Casuals! So if you ever see a bloke named Blown66 running around in PUBG, give him a g’day and know that he truly is an OG gamer.
To my Dad, thank you so much for getting me in to games, for including me in your gaming parties and most of all thank you for being you. Love you mate.”
Frequency:
“I was 5 years old when dad brought home our first video game console. My brother was 2 and way too young to know what was going on so I got the lion’s share of gaming time. Given where I’ve ended up in life, most days sitting among a pile of video games, it makes sense that of the very little I remember of that age, this is something I can quite clearly picture in my mind.
It was a Saturday morning, dad had been out but I can’t quite remember where he’d said he was going. I remember hearing his car door close from having parked his car out the front, and the latch of the gate being open with the very familiar squeal of a gate that groaned on hinges needing some oil.
I was sitting in the family room at the time watching the Coyote blow himself up whilst on yet another futile quest to claim the Road Runner. Little did I know that the word quest would become such a central theme in my life from that day on, some part of a main story-line, some on the side, but always chasing my own version of the road runner in some way – although I would go on to become quite adept at actually catching mine.
As I saw dad appear from the drive-way and take the step up before crossing the back patio to the laundry door I noticed he was holding a large rectangular box under his arm like a football. The box looked familiar – it was something I’d seen that very morning on the tele during ad-breaks in between cartoons.
As he made his way up the stairs and opened the back door he turned and the broad side of the box caught the morning sunlight. It danced along the word “Nintendo”. I jumped up, almost spilling my coco-pops as I ran to greet dad at the door. A huge smile was beaming beneath his moustache as he looked down at me.
Surely this had to be some trick because it wasn’t Christmas and it wasn’t my birthday, it was just a plain old Saturday.
He knelt down and presented the box, I reached out and ran my hand over the top of the smooth cardboard, the edges pointy and sharp – the sort of condition that would send a collector into meltdown these days.
It was the version with the zapper. “Let’s go set it up?” dad said.
We spent countless hours jumping goomba’s in Mario, shooting ducks in Duck-Hunt, and going head to head at 11 paces in Wild Gunman, but it was Gradius that hooked us.
My dad worked a hell of a lot, and was your typical out-doors type. I was the opposite. I liked tech and loved gaming.
But with Gradius we connected. It became something really special that built a really strong bond between us, and it was something we ultimately conquered together. I still have the NES, and I still have Gradius, and it wasn’t until years later when my dad and I were speaking about days gone by that he mentioned the reason he bought that Nintendo was to spend time with me doing something I loved, and to nurture that tech side of me.
That console sits in a plastic sleeve in the middle of my gaming room, the corners still as sharp as the day it was bought, as a reminder to me on how to meet my own kids on their journey of discovering who they are.”
While I’m at it, Happy Father’s Day also to my legendary F-I-L, Tony Evans.
Stix2412:
“I don’t have a ton of gaming related stories about my dad but he definitely was one of the first people to introduce me to video games at a young age, with the likes of Test Drive and Jack Nicklaus Unlimited Golf in the very early 90’s on an even older PC. I’ve been extremely lucky to be gifted at Christmas the likes of the Vectrex Arcade System, a first gen Game Boy and the first Playstation.
We didn’t play a ton of games together, but the one memory that I will never forget was during my PS2 years. For those of you old enough to remember what it was like to go to Video Ezy or Blockbuster on a Friday afternoon to hire out a game for the weekend, would know the pain of seeing one particular game that you always wanted to rent but someone seemed to always get to it before you. Well for me, that game was MLB 06: The Show, as growing up I played a ton of tee-ball and then baseball and it was one of and still is to this day, favourite sports of my dad.
I still remember the excitement of walking into Video Ezy back at Southlands and seeing the MLB 06 was ready and available for hire. I think it was the single quickest visit we ever made and rushed home to smash down some dinner before fully immersing myself in the experience. I recall the game being spectacular for what it was at the time, amazing graphics, awesome commentary and fluid gameplay. I worked the pitching and fielding mechanics really quickly but for the life of me I just could pick up the depth perception of the batting and just couldn’t make the right contact to hit the ball. I was either way to early, or way to late and I was starting to rage really hard. Dad walks into the room and asks what all the commotion is about and after explaining that the game was broken and I couldn’t hit the ball he just casually replies “well let me have a go”. Dad picks up the controller, takes one swing and BAM……..Home Run. He then gives me back the controller and says something along the lines of “See, its simple”.
My dad aka Dutchy, was the first ever person to tell me to “get good scrub”.
Happy Father’s Day Dad. Love you mate.”
@DanTheInternut
“So… I’m a very old gamer, as most people know… from the age of around 5 I was always bugging Dad for whatever the hottest gaming thing was at the time.
And you know what… pretty much every time, he got me whatever I was chasing.
What a legend.
The best story I can remember around my Dad and gaming was WAAYYYYYYYYYYY back in 1985(ish). I love golf and golf games almost as much, and around the time there was a huge buzz around a brand new golf game coming out called Leaderboard.
So much buzz that The West Australian ran an article on it. An actual print article on the buzz in Perth about this game and where you could get it on launch day… in this case, it was at a store called Bruining Headlam Computers, in West Leederville.
I knew I had an in here with Dad. Dad wasn’t much of a gamer but does love his golf… so I showed him said article, he got a little excited, and suggested he might go look at it the next day.
Now, I had a Commodore 64 with a tape deck… KEY POINT… TAPE DECK… so I asked Dad very politely to consider that if he was going to do what I thought he was going to do, and buy me that epic game.
That next day, the school hours seemed longer than ever possible… if that’s even possible? Another problem is that my Dad is an extremely busy man… he’d leave 7.30am and not get home to 8ish, pretty much every day…
So that waiting, at home, for the old man, was torture.
Eventually, Dad’s car pulled up the driveway and in came Dad, with said game on top of his files and what not. You bloody ripper!!!! I was absolutely stoked!
Imagine my dismay when I saw that the game was 51/4 inch floppy (remember those?) – NOT THE CASSETTE EDITION OF THE GAME.
I was gutted!
I sat there… forlorn… for what was probably 10 minutes… when Dad came into my room and asked me to get something off his front passenger seat.
I trudged out there – to find a BRAND NEW COMMODORE 64 DISK DRIVE!!!
WHAT THE ACTUAL?
All I remember is the pure adrenalin rush that had me jumping up and down the passageway – funnily enough with this prize possession in my hand.
That disk drive brought me so much bloody joy… I can’t even begin to tell you.
And it all came from the game I wanted NOT actually available on cassette… so Dad went the next level and bought me the hardware so I could play it… unreal!”
Garbz
I remember my first introduction to gaming was back in ’86 when my Dad bought my brother and I the Atari 2600. We played that thing like there was no tomorrow. We binged on games like River Raid, Dig Dug and Pitfall over and over until Dad would finally step in and say, “I think it’s time for you boys to get some fresh air”
… little did he know back then the impact a simple little console would have on my life.
Fast forward to 1992 and my cousin introduced me to ‘Wolfenstein 3D’ on his brand-new computer. It blew me away and it was at that point I had been turned from consoles to a PC junkie.
It was the beginning of ’93 and I was in my second last year of school. Dad finally succumbed to my constant harassment and he bought an updated computer for the family that quickly turned into my real first gaming PC. I played as many games as I could on it back then. Classics such as Wing Commander, Strike Commander, XCOM, Quest for Glory, Sim City 2000, Syndicate, Police Quest, Privateer, Doom, Duke Nukem 2 and Master of Orion.
But the one game that became my all-time favourite and first to play on a Saturday was X-Wing by Lucasarts. For a kid that lived and breathed Star Wars since I can remember this was pure gaming bliss. I remember Dad taking me down to the local computer shop to pick up a game as a present for months of working my arse off at school and in my weekend job at his pharmacy.
I saw it there on the shelf with X-Wings on the cover. My jaw dropped down to my knees in one of those “That’s friggin awesome!” moments. Dad didn’t have to ask if that’s the one I wanted. He knew and quickly grabbed a copy off the shelf and purchased it. As soon as I got home I installed the game and switched it on. It was awesome. Star Wars music in the background and I finally got into my first mission flying an X-Wing.
I slowly worked my way through the missions but there was this one mission that I kept failing and failing, over and over.
I think that was the start of my gamer rage. The beast was born.
Dad walked into the computer room and asked me what was wrong. I told him with tears welling in my eyes that I was having trouble managing my shields and power while I flew the X-Wing around trying to shoot down TIE Fighters. He could see how much I loved the game but also didn’t want me getting upset over a game. I remember him saying calmly, “Well can I help?”
How could he help? He isn’t a gamer. But he knew Star Wars.
“How about I be your co-pilot. Teach me how to manage the ship using the keyboard and you use the joystick to fly the X-Wing to take out the TIE’s? Sound good?”
I looked at him and smiled. Like a veteran flight school instructor, I gave him the 101 on how to fly an X-Wing. Dad was a smart bloke and he quickly figured out what to do.
Training was over. I turned and looked at him, “Are you ready?”
“Yes Captain I’m ready,” he replied.
I launched the X-Wing and into the mission we went. I began to engage the TIE Fighters. I turned one TIE into space dust and then another and another. Dad was managing my shields and power levels like he was possessed by Chewbacca on the Falcon. We fast approached the hardest part that I kept getting vaped on but with Dad as my co-pilot we demolished the Imperial Navy and won the mission like Han and Luke against the Death Star.
I shouted with joy! I did it… No, we did it. It was the happiest time I had in gaming at that point because I was playing a game with someone as a team. Even better that it was with my Dad.
That I think was the moment that made me an advocate for co-operative gaming over any other type of gaming. Playing together with my Dad, sister, brother or my mates I always found so much more enjoyable that playing against them.
It was my Dad that made me that type of gamer. Even now at 41 years old I still remember that moment when it was just me and my Dad taking on the whole Empire together.
