Confession, at 4 years old, I began my gaming career as a backseat gamer. Mostly it consisted for about of year of watching and making suggestions to a person I grew up with and consider my brother, but would never let me have the controller. I passed many days of being babysat with his younger brother doing this, and one day their mom told him to let me have a turn on Super Mario 64. It was the lava level, I had no idea what to do! Oftentimes I still don't know what to do when a world is too expansive (such as Skyrim). I enjoy the storyline, but lose track of way too many things, so I usually prefer to watch these games.
Recently, Ssalarn has been replaying through KotOR, KotOR II and playing through Ni No Kuni, all of which are incredibly immersive games with massive playability and far too many things to keep track of. I've been having an absolute blast watching him play and trying to solve the puzzles with him! I suppose the feeling is reminiscent of a relay race, it's good to feel helpful, but you also don't have to shoulder everything.
Of course there are disagreements on how different tasks should be accomplished, in this case it tends to be in the best interests of everyone involved to let the pilot make the final decision. That's why co-op games are awesome, then you can do what you want!
Regardless, I enjoy being a backseat gamer more than I probably should, it's just kind of fun that we have a relaxing activity to do together, where most people would probably be frustrated about the other person being immersed in the game. I don't think they fully understand how cool it is to be so involved in the story and to make the characters' destinies.
