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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Dominik Diamond

Playing video games with my 22-year-old son has brought me to tears

A scene from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 showing a soldier aiming a rifle as a helicopter flies overhead near mountains
‘We fail. We fail again. But we are having so much fun’ … Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Illustration: AP

I have spent the last three weeks living with my 22-year-old son in a two-bedroom flat he has dubbed the ”brotel”. We cook curries and watch Lanterns. We barbecue meat and analyse Tarantino movies. We get pizza and we play video games. Boy, do we play video games!

The first game I ever played in co-op with him was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in 2009, when he was five. He wasn’t the most accomplished sidekick, not so great at placing a mobile gun turret while under fire from what seems like a bazillion enemy soldiers, but we had a laugh. It started the video game bond between us before his sister introduced him to Banjo-Kazooie and Rayman, and he stopped being a preschool warmonger. Probably for the best. So how would it be tackling the same game nearly two decades later?

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