Games and Kids

[dsheinem]

I thought this might be a good catch-all thread for those of us who have kids and like to/want to game with them. At 1, my son is still a little young to start playing...but he loves to pull out my games and look at the art, push buttons on controllers and arcade sticks, and - to my dismay - is starting to find some of the more pricey games in the collection. Guess I should put them up higher on the shelf.




(don't stand on Radiant Silvergun!)

Anyway, the only "video games" he has some interest in already are those found on kneebouncers.com. He basically just pushes the keyboard and stuff happens. I don't want to get him into games too early - I'd rather he sort of discover them on his own when he is ready. But, since it is my hobby, he's getting plenty of early exposure.

So, especially for the other parents on the board - do your kids game? Did you let them pick and choose what to play, or did you try to introduce them to certain things? Do you have problems with them wanting to game too much (e.g. you can't get them to go outside and play or to do homework)? Concerns about playing certain games in front of them or letting them play certain games? Sound off!

[Krooner]

Great pics!

Mine Son is 4 and is gaming a bit, He likes Cars so I got him Burnout Paradise as there isn't a time limit so he can just do what he likes, I'm really impressed at how quickly his hand eye coordination has improved. He's decent even in the high powered cars. I can't wait 'til we can do something co-op but there's not many kid friendly co-op titles these days. I think he's a mite too young for Gears of War.

When he was around your boys age I used to let him gurrgle into the headset on Xbox live, some of the idiots on there did actually believe they were fighting a baby.

[aaron]

my 4-year-old son really loves games and gaming in general, but he also loves it just as much as going outside and playing with toy trains and such. which i think is awesome, because i don't want him to be obsessed at an early age. i put my snes and n64 in his room, and we play them together sometimes, but more often than not he wants to do something a little more active. he has his own game boy color at his mom's house, and i bought him a tom & jerry game which he loves, and we just made our first trip to the local retro shop. his first gaming purchases were an extra N64 controller (i only had one, he said he wanted to play together, BAWWW) and Thomas the Tank Engine for SNES.

he's also pretty good at Wii Sports Tennis and he likes Rock Band, but he's no good at it. he's also got one of those leapster things which he plays more often than any other system.

[sevin0seven]

i dont have kids (maybe someday) but my friends kids likes to touch, look, press, tap, drop (etc) my game collection at my own place . whenever they come i make sure i put all my high value game collections where they can't be reach . i can tell your son have your eyes and shape of your face (from the pics ive seen of you). very nice pic of him.

[tommyboy8689]

i dont have kids... but my 2 nephews (6 and 5) are staying at my house for a little while... i have to literally pull them off the nes... but it amazes me at how good they actually are... ninja gaiden seems to be there favorite at the moment and they can make it to 3-1

[c0wb0y]

I have 3 daughters. All 3 play games with me to some small extent. I'd have to say that the Wii Balance Board has been the easiest for the younger two to play, and has provided the most laughs. My youngest was really good a the mini-game where you head soccer balls and avoid shoes and such. I have a really cute video of her playing this when she was about 18 months old.
My 7 year old likes to look at game artwork when I've picked up a find at my local thrift store. She also usually asks me questions about the stories in games as I play them. She wants to know the motives for my running, jumping and other actions on screen.

I've picked up some old Sesame Street games on the NES for them which they liked. Same with the Genesis - it has some kid friendly games as well.

I usually play violent games after they are in bed for the evening. If I play one during the day, I won't let them in the room (if I play MW2 or similar FPS games.) When they are up, we play Williams Collection Pinball, or some XBOX Indie games. All 3 girls have learned how to use Netflix on the 360. It gets more use than most of my games.

[Crabmaster2000]

My son is 2 and half currently and I am just now slowly introducing him to gaming. I've read a few studies suggesting ADD may have some link to early TV usage so his movie/game time has been kept to a minimum over the first 2 years of his life, just to be safe.

Currently there isnt anything that really hold his interest for to long. He'll watch my brother and me play Smash Bros for a few minutes or stop by to check out the Mega Man action, but never for very long. Only two games have seemed to catch his eye.

Super Mario Bros he likes because he realized he can move him around and make him jump. He hasnt made it past the first Goomba yet, but just seems to like running back and forth. If I'm reorganizing games or doing something in my game room I usually put SMB on for him to keep him occupied.

The only other game that seems to catch his attention is Shining the Holy Ark. He sat with me for like 30 minutes watching me "bonk" ghosts and monsters and thought it was hilarious.

My family gives me a hard time because he knows exactly who Mario is, but I swear its not my fault. My wife bought him a Mario candy dispenser once and of course the cemented the character in his mind. When ever we go to a game store he usually makes it his mission to find and count all the games with Mario on them.

Here is a couple pic of him near the start of the year helping me put together my gameroom:

[CRTGAMER]

Great pics!

I feel like an evil parent forcing all the Reader Rabbits and Broderbund's Living Books on my kids.
Hey, at least it was a real computer and not one of those learning systems.

Now years later my son plays Modern Warfare, where has the innocence gone!

[DickWhitman]

I have four boys, three of which (7, 5 and 4 years) enjoy video games (no doubt the youngest, who is about 8-weeks old right now, will too, eventually). The oldest started playing various games on the computer when he was about 3 (various pieces of children's software plus the PBS Kids website, which has some pretty decent flash games). We also got him a Leapster handheld when he was around 4, and he enjoyed that as well.

Last Christmas, we decided to go ahead and get a game console for the first time (other than my old barely functional NES). While we considered several systems, we ultimately chose to get a used Nintendo Game Cube from GameStop. While the Wii looked like a lot of fun, we came to the conclusion that the cost of the games (and accessories for 4 people), not to mention the initial $200 investment for the console itself, was not really feasible on our budget. And, of course, when the kids end up breaking the console itself, a replacement can be had for only around $30 (incidentally, we are on our 3rd console).

They really loved it, of course, their favorite games over the past year being Mario Kart: Double Dash, LEGO Star Wars II, Super Monkey Ball 2, SpongeBob SquarePants: The Movie, Billy Hatcher & the Giant Egg, and (ugh!) Mario Party 5. Obviously, we have tried to avoid the more violent titles (fighting games and shooters), and it is a challenge to pick quality games that are fun to play and still child-friendly. There are plenty of games that I would love to be able to enjoy with them when they get older (Allied Assault, Half-Life 2, Left 4 Dead 2), but I personally don't think that 7-year-olds ought to be racking up headshots with a sniper rifle in Medal of Honor. Maybe that's just me.

More recently, as I experienced frustration trying to get my ancient NES to work reliably (i.e. "without spontaneously rebooting in the middle of a game") so that my kids could play Super Mario Bros. 3, I decided to investigate running console emulators on the kids' PC. After a bit of research, I ended up with a PC running Nestopia through the Maximus Arcade frontend, which is very child friendly, controlled by an original NES gamepad (with USB adapter). It works like a dream (after a bit of tweaking) and the kids play it even more than the Game Cube now (Kirby's Adventure for the NES is the current favorite of all three kids).

This Christmas, I plan on giving them each a backlit GameBoy Advance SP (used with a new shell/casing) with some appropriate games. The oldest has asked for a Wii, though when I asked what games he was wanting to play on it, he said "Mario Party 6" (which, God help us, is actually a Game Cube title). Perhaps after they've gone a year without breaking something expensive...

[Pichu]

Superpost

I must say, quite a story for your first post.