FIRST!

@Bicro:

Banzored.

Owen, thanks very much for reminding me it was mothers day. Maybe I'll finally get my Mom that copy of Grand Theft Auto shes neve... ALWAYS wanted.

Your mom sounds really giving and sweet, and your father as well.

My mom hadn't bought me any consoles, I don't think, ever. Bought my dad did, up until this gen, when he'd make sure I had every one because he didn't want me to feel like I was missing out on anything.

So, that's pretty awesome. But my mom is awesome, too. Doing all that mom stuff that we don't realize, like cooking, etc.

Happy Mothers Day. I wonder if any moms are reading Kotaku. Make yourselves known!

I remember picking up Tetris when I was 11-12. At first she had no interest in it, but eventually she started playing it. Sometimes I'd wake up in the middle of the night and she would be in my room huddled next to my tv with the sound off playing.

This eventually died off until Dr. Mario came out. Last week she picked up a Wii for Wii Sports...I'm hoping to gift her a copy of Wii Ware Dr. Mario when it comes out.

@Bicro: Hey, I wonder if Owen can wield the banhammer. If not, I propose that his form of banning being called "Owen'd"

Like, for example, some idiot says "FIRST", the response would be, "You're gonna get OWEN'D.

But only if he's the author of the post. Dont want to mess with the banhammer's legacy :(

On topic: I had to wake up extra early today to make breakfast for my mom. I wanted to play GTA that entire time. I feel so guilty about it.

I should slap you for that...
I love the "Get your mom Wii Fit" ads all over the place.

I made my mom a mixtape. The first song is Dance With The Devil. I told her, this is what I want for you, mother. She smiled and said thank you. She hugged me. It was a good moment.

After the Wii came out, I got my mother and my wife to play a game of Wii Sports Tenis & Bowling. From that point on they took over the Wii for a couple hours.

You have to understand, my mother is unfortunately one of those people who listens to the opinions of pieces of shit like HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED when they manage to squirm onto NPR, and until I set her straight, she believes the bullshit she hears. So getting this woman to play a videogame is nothing short of a monumental achievement for mankind. I should win a Nobel Peace Prize in...I dunno, Chemistry I guess. Nintendo, for enabling this achievement to occur, should also win a lesser, smaller prize too.

@Ichidou: Of course GTA is more fun than making breakfast. It's more fun than most things. The fact that you did it, though, means you shouldn't feel guilty.

Now go play GTA!

My mum used to play an old game called Ladybug on our TRS-80, then she moved on to Tetris on the NES. At 10 years old I thought it was lame, lol.

Eventually she stopped gaming, except for casual PopCap games and Freecell / Spider Solitaire.

...until I brought a DS into the house! Now at 61 y/o my mum's a gamer. Granted, it's still casual gaming, but at least you see she has a passion for it and checks the new titles coming out. ^_^

Happy Mother's day all! With that, I must drive up to LA to go see mama... I have a day plane so I hope you all tell your mothers you love her if you're blessed enough to have them around still :) bu bye!

O-
Mom played Pac-Man, Space Invaders and Asteroids, but not all that much. You forgot that we also had Pong before that. Mom and I competed fiercely with the paddles. And there was some sort of adventure game, Maybe it was called Adventure. Doh! Oh, and Breakout, that I played for hours.
Dad

The only game my mom ever played was Yoshi for Nintendo. It was that "Tetris-like" game with falling things you had to match up. She loved that game. I would come home from school and have to wait my turn to play my nintendo. It's funny because she claims to hate video games, yet she'll mention Yoshi every now and then in hopes that I'll set it up again for her.
My mom really enjoys watching video games though. Which works for me!

I'm right here, alive and kicking, on Kotaku. Thanks for the memory, O. @karasu is my homeboy:

I got my mom a card.

What a basta...loving son!

@Atheist Jew: This is a small point, but there are Nobel Prizes, and not all of them are called Peace prizes. The peace prize is for political acheivment in Peace, Chemistry is for... etc. :)

As for mother's day, I'll copy and paste what I'd written when Brian wrote about his father picking up GTAIV, since it's relevant, and in case it amuses anyone:

"I've always wanted to play video games with my parents. I've got friends whose parents would at least play like Tetris and stuff with each other (!) or other people whose parents were pretty good at games like Counter Strike.

My brother and I and another pair of brothers we were friends with tried to get our moms to play Thunderstrike on the Sega CD. They were extremely hesitant to take the controls... they felt scared they would crash and stuff. We kept telling them, "it's only a video game! It's not like if you die you REALLY die... just try it!"

So, finally, my mom worked up enough courage to try it. She was playing through the canyon level, banging into the walls and stuff, and then she finally started to get the hang of the directional controls, but altitude was another story. I think she wound up being shot down... can't really remember.

All I do remember is that it was the only time I remember my mother playing a video game. My dad, as far as I know, has never played any.

Oh, well. At least they were good enough to buy my brother that first NES when we were kids. Despite their reluctance to play video games themselves, they started us on what has been a life-long love story with little plastic boxes."

my mom is pretty indifferent to gaming although she used to spend obscene amounts of time playing an old tetris game that we have on a floppy disk for the computer. she even proposed when she heard about drunk driving in gta4 that it could be used as a way to show drunk people how bad they drive although its a pretty big exaggeration

Happy Mother's Day folks, have a good one... gotta play some legendary co-op with the woman of the day.

@Atheist Jew:

Achievement Unlocked: Get your mother to try this game

My mother and father both don't play very many games. Although, if there is a Galaga machine, my parents will have a competition for score. It's fun to watch them because they may not play much but damn, they're good at Galaga. I can't even beat them.

The only other time I got my mother to try a game was multiplayer in Jet Force Gemini. I think I let her kill me. I love my mother that much, I let her beat me. Nobody else ever gets that pleasure in JFG multiplayer.

My mom gave me a GBA when I was about 13, and I lost it soon after. ^_^;;

I wouldn't exactly call my mom a gamer, but she LOOOVES arcades and always draws huge crowds when she plays FPS's like Timesplitters there. Not only is she good, but she looks young despite being 42, is a beautiful woman, and gets REALLY into it. Sometimes people follow her around the arcade just to watch her play. XD

She introduced me to gaming, she was a street fighter addict, and that's where I got my love of fighters from.

I luv my mommy.
[img.photobucket.com]
^_^

"Happy Mother's Day to your mothers, too." Sweet, now I don't have to call up mom and tell her. Thanks man, that's a load off.

Seriously though, my mom surprised me loads of times with gifts. Usually she'd pull the trick of not putting that ONE gift under the tree. The one she knew I wanted to most. I would always fall for it too. The NES. Super Mario Bros 3. That ridiculously huge GI Joe vehicle.

Even today she still manages to trick me. Absolute Watchmen. Who could have see that coming from a mom? Absolutely great.

My sister and I bought our mom an $80 bouquet. I totally forgot about Wii Fit! Damn.

@Phazonmasher:

[clicks follow button for Jet Force Gemini reference.]

Nice story!

my Mom used to game a little back in the day. Circus Atari was the peeps fave, though Space Invaders and Kaboom were up there, too. Once we bought the Intellivision, she kinda lost interest. I think the controller put her off. Maybe she was one of the first "casual" gamers? She has played the Wii and likes it.

I remember when I had a NES and found the first warp zone in SMB. I was still living at home at the time. I was all excited and I had her come into my room to show her. I appreciated her feigning interest.

Yea Moms, and happy your day.

@Malvolio the Magician: like Breaking Benjamin Dance with the devil???
I'm cleaning up my room alot, going as far as to get a brand new entertainment center and tv to spruce things up.
HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!!!!
~Peace~

First post for me on Kotaku - who better to do it for than Mom.

I can only remember my Mom playing an old school NES game called Trojan. She tried it with me and my bro. She actually beat me - at the time, I was pissed (and a little brat), but I'm happy she won and hope she remembers it.

I can probably get her to play Wii. I'll try to make it happen.

Wat? Is it mothers day today?!

@RageW: Yep. Happy mother's day to everyone's moms!!

@Zwei Voltage:

:s

Oh, wait. Checked the calendar. Mothers day is on the 25 of May in Sweden =D
Phew!

My mom plays solitaire.

My dad plays spider or something like that.

I remember my dad won a Atari 2600 and like 5 games as a door prize at a supermarket grand opening. Since we already had an Atari, the new one went in the top of the closet and we only got to keep one of the games (Yar's Revenge). I don't remember my mom or dad ever playing a console game past a home Pong-clone we had when I was like four years old or something.

Mothers day? Bah! What did mothers ever do for anyone!?

You sods scared the bejeesus out of me, Mothers day in the UK was a while ago and I was all "ahhh not again?" and was instantly calling my mother to apologise.

My mother played the Arati 2600 while I was in utero. That's right, I started my gaming career early.

Other than that, she mostly stuck with Tetris. She never really got back into games.

Go moms!

@demaar: what? apart from the whole carrying you inside her body for 9 months, giving you life, ruining her body and squeeze you out.. guess mothers are good for nothing huh?

I'm a mother, reading kotaku and playing video & computer games. And I'm sure that I'm not the only one.. Mind you, I'm not old enough to be any of yours mother- but the fact is that I am one indeed. My son is 3 years old and already a full time gamer. My mother never bought me any games/consol's or showed any interest in my passion for gaming when I grew up, but that's just life. I'm so happy that my son is already so into gaming. I buy him every game he wants and spoils him rotten when it comes to this. We play with him as often as he wishes and he's a pro on his Mario kart DS :D It makes me so proud! Ofc he watches us play our games as well, but that hasn't worked out so good with GTA4... He starts crying every time we steal a car because "that's someone else's and stealing is bad mommy!"

Nice one, Owen. I dig your stories, man.

Now I gotta go call Mum

My mother's awesome, too. She's never been much of a gamer herself, though fortunately is open minded, so gaming's never been an issue, and she's able to see through the sensationalist filth.

Back in the day, my sister and I would get her to play Bomberman 64 multiplayer with us, and I can remember more than one instance of her accidentally throwing a bomb toward a wall, so it'd bounced repeatedly on her head, knocking her out again and again, until eventually exploding, taking her with it - was always good for a hardy laugh. That remains among my fondest memories.

Happy Mother's Day to all.

My mother got addicted to Lock n'Chase, she was horrible at it, but loved it.

It was later replaced by Super Mario Brothers on the NES, equally terrible, but so addicted.

Sent the youtube link to Mom just now. She'll be 70 next year.

+ Watch video

I'm a couple of years older than you, Owen, but I got the 2600 from my mother for Christmas that year as well! Unlike you, however, I'd been begging her for it since around Hallowe'en. A department store downtown had one set up in the toy department, and there'd be lines 10 deep to have a 5-minute try at Air-Sea Battle, which shockingly seemed like an incredibly cool game at the time.

Sadly, although she went to medical school for umpteen years, she still seems to have the electronics IQ of a member of an uncontacted Amazonian tribe. I recently tried to show her what World of Warcraft was all about, and she asked me, "So, is this a Nintendo?"

Off to brunch with the old dear!

I had posted to this article, but do not see it. Forgive me for this test.

My mom is still the only person in the world who can beat me at duck hunt. Any other video game and its foriegn to her, but Duck Hunt thats all her.

My Mum was an absolute gun at Dig Dug. I must've been 3 or 4, but I can still remember the music to it, not really having ever played it.

She also convinced my Dad to buy a 386mhz IBM (!!!) so that she could play Prince of Persia. That's the original, 2D one, kids.

She's not so much into newer games - she did watch me play the ENTIRETY of Windwaker. She was so involved that when I died fighting Ganon the first time she had to have a little break, she was so upset.

I know you're definately not reading this, Mum, but happy mother's day. You rock.

My mom was born in 1942, I remember trying to get her to play the shooter game "1942" ...lol, no success.

My mom bought me my Atari 2600, as well as my NES with light gun and R.O.B., as well as my SNES. But she NEVER played a single game, ...ever.

Now, after about 24 years since she had bought me my first video game console, she finally picks up her very first controller to play: none other than Wii Bowling! I was totally flabergasted...! Of all the games that have come and gone through the last 24 years, ...Wii Bowling? wow...

So its Fake Mothers Day today? Oh thank God you haven't told the cardmakers of the UK, they'd have a field day cos they'd end up making the normal Mothers Day in March as well as the American one today. Damn.

@Bicro: Buhbye.

The only game my mom played was Ms. Pac Man. Unfortunately for mom, she has to work today(I guess a nurse's job is never done). We ate out yesterday, to make up for it.

I got my mom a copy of her favorite movie on DVD (Pretty Woman) and let her watch it on my Home Cinema.

It's nice to make mom's happy, they complain less about 'expensive game equipment'.

Happy Mother's Day to moms everywhere.

My fondest moments in gaming with mom is watching how amused she was with Guile and his sonic booms, and then proceeding to rip into my brother with E. Honda. She liked the fighters with easy left right moves.

There's the Rampage sessions, balloon fights, even that mario game with the POW button that I momentarily forget the name of. My mom can also beat B mode of Tetris on the 9th level just to see the little people dance and the rocket fly.

Ah mom.. when I get the money, you're totally getting a Wii or at least a DS...

*sigh* my mother never bought me anything videogame related whatsoever, in fact she has been telling since the beginning how much hates them and that i will grow out of that "phase". It usually breaks down into a rant about how murder simulators are ruining America. But then again she does cook darn good brownies, W00T

Word to your Mothers: Happy Mothers Day (belated).
She had a hand in getting my brother and I our NES along with "Castlevania", "Goonies" and "1942". That was one rocking Christmas.

@