With both my wife and I both working full time jobs that often require a decent amount of homework, mine is a multiple PC household. So in the time it took to order a pizza, I had installed the game on both machines and set up a LAN game with just the two of us on a small map.

It took him a little while to get used to the controls, but playing one on one, with just me in a small environment, allowed him to get the hang of it fairly quickly and once he had the basic concept of what he was doing, he began to really enjoy himself. In fact he adapted so quickly that before long I wasn’t taking it easy on him anymore. He was holding his own quite nicely.

Add a case of beer to that pizza, and before we knew it was 4 in the morning, and we’d had one of the most enjoyable evenings that we had had together in a long time.

As it happened Father’s Day was only a couple of weeks off and so when it rolled around, I got him a copy of Battlefield 1942 Deluxe, with all the add-ons, whistles, and bells. It turned out to be one of the best Father’s Day gifts I have ever given my dad.

After playing some of the solo missions and customizing some of the controls to suit his own preferences, he was ready for online play. At first he was a little intimidated. Anyone who is a fan of FPS games or any other multiplayer online game for that matter will tell you that there is a world of difference between playing against the game’s AI vs. playing against a real human being.

He immediately commented on how much faster the game played, and how much more fierce the combat action was, and again expressed some frustration about having his ass handed to him over and over again by 12 year olds.

By then though, he’d had enough of positive experience to make him want to keep playing. He stuck to it and it wasn’t long at all before he began to discover the ins and outs as well as some of the tricks people use, and was soon thoroughly enjoying himself.

Live voice chat has added another level to our ability to enjoy the game.

I was of course aware of voice chat programs like Gamespeak, but until my dad stated playing, I either preferred a lonewolf style of gameplay or found that I quickly became annoyed with the conversation of 12 years olds who took the opportunity to practice their open-mic routines.

When Battlefield 2 came out we conveniently bought each other our own Christmas presents, and this time upped the ante with a pair of voice capable headphones to support the voice chat feature in BF2.