A Question for Dads Whose Kids Play Video Games

I sometimes play Halo 3 with my son on Xbox LIVE. (On Xbox LIVE you can play in 8 or 16 man games with players from all over the world on your TV via an internet connection). It’s a nice thing to be able to do for an hour at night after the homework’s done. Sometimes my son and I will play against other friends or acquaintances of his who have their own Xboxes at home, or sometimes we’ll play with strangers. There are headsets and audio,
so the players can communicate with each other via the TV. Of course, whether we’re playing against my son’s friends or with strangers, the fact that he is playing with his dad is a great source of shame. So when we play, I’m always my son’s unidentified “friend” or “the neighbor kid.” If my son’s friends or acquaintances knew I was his dad, my abilities as a player would probably get some feigned respect. Instead, since they think I’m just a teen kid, they say what they really think of my play. So time after time I hear comments like these: “Dude, your friend sucks.” “He flew right into the enemy base–what an idiot.” “Do we have to have your friend on our team?” The game just moves too damn fast–sometimes watching these kids and how fast they move, I feel like I’ve entered another dimension where everything moves twice as fast. I always feel that if I could just push a button and enter that twice-as-fast dimension, I’d do fine. I was talking about this briefly the other day with Mike McCormick, who told me that he’s no match for his son in video games, either. So here’s my question–is there any dad out there who plays video games with his kids who doesn’t get his butt kicked? And no, don’t post a comment bragging because you are able to beat your four-year-old. Let’s make the minimum age eight or nine. Is there anybody who can win? And at what game? And can you send me the cheat codes?