Fatherhood and gaming

Honestly, before you have a child, can anyone really say they know what's coming to them?

The best present I received on my most recent birthday was a badge that said "World's best Dad". Corny, cheesy, stupid, but it gave me a warm rosy glow and a tear in my eye. Being a Dad is truly great.

But sometimes I miss the old days. The days where I could do 48 hour gaming sessions in my pants, surviving on frozen pizza, coffee and beer. The days when all my time was my own and I didn't have this little bundle of chaos demanding attention 24/7.

Only sometimes though.

I've spent a lot of time staring at this screen recently, wondering what to do with my PC. It seems incredibly selfish now to even think of spending £30 on a new game when that gets three weeks worth of powdered milk, but I'm desperate for a new gaming experience. After four years of EVE my once wide and varied gaming lifestyle has wittered away to nothing - and now even EVE has taken a back seat. I know the missus wont be pleased when I tell her I want to resubscribe :)

My son will have a lot more exposure to gaming at a younger age than I did, even though I was playing an Atari VCS 2600 at the age of 5. I often wonder, though, how his gaming education will differ from mine. I grew up with the industry, learning the rules and conventions of gaming at the same rate that developers were discovering them. Now with genres firmly delineated and perceptions of what each particular type of game should let you do almost set in stone I wonder how easy it will be for my son to learn. I had Mario Bros - right now he has Mario Galaxy. Although the basic concept of the platformer may be little changed, the execution is worlds apart.