I grew up on video games. My older brother and I bonded over them when we were kids. He would play and I would watch, occasionally consulting together on the solutions to various puzzles ("Maybe...if you light those torches?") and I could wander off when things got boring or level-grindy.
As time went on and more kids came along, all of my siblings and I sort of settled into this routine on games. Some of us remain more watchers then players and a brand-new nifty game will still get us back into familiar patterns of gathering around the TV, offering unsolicited advice during moments of crisis, staying up half the night during Christmas break, and fighting over who's going to play and when.
My parents, particularly my mother, are still a bit baffled by this whole phenomenon. My father has officially been sucked into being a casual gamer through "Rock Band", but both of them still scratched their heads this past Christmas as the five kids congregated in the basement to watch a combination of us beat "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess."
See, the five of us have grown apart in many ways over the years. We hold different (sometimes stridently different) religious views and political views. We live scattered across the country and aren't always the best in keeping in touch with each other. So, it kinda warms my heart to see us finding a way to relate to each other and bond like we did as children, despite the years.
And besides if you can't bond over watching a blond elf lay the righteous smackdown on a centuries-old evil pig-man, what can you bond over?
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