Not another gamer!

My husband is a gamer. He could literally spend all day playing XBox online with his friends. He plays mostly first and third person shooters, like Halo, Gears, Dead Island, etc. He has gotten our kids playing with him as "quality time," which the kids love; they beg to play XBox with Daddy.

My daughter likes to play a little on her own, but only because she is completely obsessed with James Cameron's Avatar. She wants to be an "avatar" herself, so she lives vicariously through her video game version. Outside of that, the XBox doesn't hold too much interest for her.

But then there's my seven year old son. He is a gamer in the making. The "in the making" can probably be dropped, though. He is pretty much as big of a gamer as a seven year old can be. He has his own DSi that is practically never powered off. And once he is off one electronic (be it the computer, DSi, Xbox, whatever), he is already trying to figure out which device he is getting on next. It has become quite the issue in our house.

However, it's not just his play time that makes me call him a little gamer. He can keep up, for the most part, with my husband at games such as Halo and Gears. As my husband calls it, my son "sprays and prays," meaning he has no fear and just goes after any enemy target he finds without much strategy. Oddly enough, he really doesn't die as often as you'd think. My son even asks us every so often how old he has to be to have his own XBox Live membership; I get the feeling it's going to be sooner than I'd like (but seriously, he has quite few years before we give into that one!)

Oh, but there's more. My husband gets "Game Informer" in the mail every month; it's a gamer magazine that covers everything a gamer needs to know (well, maybe not everything...). My seven year old will wait patiently for his turn to read "Game Informer." Last month there was an article about a new headset for the XBox. My son was super stoked; he made a point of showing them to his father and telling him "Daddy, you need these instead. Will you buy some?" Now, my husband alreay has an expensive Turtle Beach headset. But to my son, this was the newest and best version out there, so obviously Daddy needed to upgrade his gaming experience by buying these new headphones.

That same issue had an article for the new Lego Batman 2 game in it. My son read the article who knows how many times. After he got tired of looking at it, he carefully tucked the issue into his backpack and carried it with him to school everyday for over a month, until the new "Game Informer" came in the mail. I'm pretty sure he still has that issue in his room somewhere.

And on more thing... my son decided he wanted to get a head start on his Christmas wishlist yesterday (which is what prompted this blog post). Everything on it was game related. EVERYTHING. He has his heart set on getting the new Lego Batman 2 game for his DS from Santa. (Oh, and don't forget the new 3DS to play it on.) All I can say is that if Santa is bringing them for him, Gamestop had better lower the prices on them before Christmas. But it's my husband that has taught him that a gamer must have the new games; my husband has made it clear he is to get his Christmas gift on November 4, the day Halo 4 is released. (That's not the first game my husband will have on release day. We even went to the midnight release of Halo: Reach with all my husband's gamer friends. None of them slept that night.)

And I wonder where my son gets it from. (That's sarcasm.) At this rate, my son is going to be one of those guys that can play (and win) any video game he tries. You know, the ones that get a game the day it is released and is a pro at it by the following day.

Great, just what I need, another gamer in the house.