"Want You Gone"

My Dad and I finished Portal 2 co-op last night. It was fun, it was challenging, it was a long time coming. About 3 or 4 months after the Orange Box came out, I discovered Portal. Kevin and Russell introduced me. I loved it. But I didn't have it, so it was almost a year until I played again, finishing it as fast as I could solve the puzzles. I decided right then and there that my Dad would love the game. So 2 years later I finally made sure he had some way of playing it, and that I would be around enough to coach him through some things. It's a first person shooter style puzzle game, and the last game my dad played was probably Sierra computer game from the 90s.

He did love it, and we loved to talk about it. Soon after Dad was really into it, news was out that a sequel was planned. After a long wait, we got the Portal 2 when it came out back in April. We both worked on single player, and also worked on the co-op campaign together. Eventually I told him that he had to finish the single player before we could go any farther on the co-op so he could enjoy certain game mechanics the first time at his pace. He finished single player around a month ago, and I was there to watch. Then I got really busy with trying to write. Finally, a couple of days ago we got back into it. We had some rust to shake off, but we really enjoyed the game and ultimately we saved science together.

Playing the game with my Father was awesome. Most of the time, I would run on ahead, and he would work his way through the room slowly, I'd figure out most of the puzzles and then we'd work together to get them done. He's solve stuff as he found it, and everything was great. Occasionally we would get frustrated with each other or the system, but that was few and far between. But the best times... The best times were when I would search and scratch and claw and finally figure out something that might work if I used every bit of twitchy hand eye coordination I had and if he timed everything right, but most likely not, but it was all I could think of,; and my Dad would just look around the room again for the millionth time and say "no, we need to do it this way" and as soon as he said it, the light-bulb went off and I saw the beauty and simplicity in the solution he found.

My Dad is in no way a gamer as the term is now used. He's played some Rock Band, and now finished Portal and Portal 2 and I hope more developers make games for us to play together. Great challenging games are still what some of us are looking for, even if it does take us a while to finish them.