Blogs Games to play with your children

Crash Bandicoot on the PSOne is another one I could have added, thinking about it.

 

any recomendations for the under 5 group?? I'm building a little computer for my son now and would like to show him some 'fun' stuff besides just banging the mouse against the desk

 

Plants vs Zombies, great for teaching them about Zombies although if your 5 yr old is anything like the one living in my house it will be on almost constantly...

 

I'd say that World of Goo would be pretty good once he'd got the dexterity for mouse movement. Bright, colourful, funny etc. Peggle would probably be good too.

 

do you think that's too complicated for a 3 yr old? otherwise I'll have to stick with the 'educational' ones until he's a little older

 

Not sure to be honest. At three years old most games with an actual level system may be too much and you might want something a little more sandboxy.

TBH, at that age I'd be an advocate of either actually playing it with him (possibly even playing little adventure games and reading them to him) or waiting on a PC and investing in a selection of board games and physical activities instead. A game of Mousetrap will be endlessly more appealing to a toddler than a game of Lemmings. Peggle would be a safe bet though - but a lot of it depends on the kid and how patient they are and what relationship they've built with you and so on. Some kids will just love sitting with someone and watching them play Sam and Max and listening to the funny voices. Others will get bored and cover the kitchen with whipped cream.

 

for a 3 year old, I'd say stick with the mini games on the cbeebies website: numberjack match (pairs) and so on - it'll help them get used to the mouse and also help with eye/hand co-ordination and maybe even help to learn the numbers & letters.

 

Has anyone mentioned sitting down and watching them play "spyro"... its a good little game.

Andy

 

my sister completed sonic the hedgehog when she was 7

also when she was 3/4 she loved interactive story books, you know the ones where the character would say where is my carrot then you can click around the screen trying to find it,

 

My 2-year-old daughter has taken to picking up the Mario Kart box and running around the house yelling "BEEP BEEP GO DADDY!!" Although she's not very interested in actually playing, she does like to hold the second controller and laugh while I race around.

She also enjoys the interactivity of Wii Music. I was able to get her to do the Hand Bells game with me (the simple Wii Music version of Guitar Hero), and she has a blast doing the improv stuff. I think the enjoyment for her is the audio/visual feedback she gets when she shakes the Wii-remote.

-monkey

 

Stick him on Hexic HD and see if he can get you that 1,000,000 total score achievement, it's one evil game that. I MUST HAVE ALL ACHIEVEMENTS!!!!!!

Anyway is it just me or has crash bandicoot turned into a steaming pile of donkey turd lately? Played the crash of the titans demo and it was good awful, it's turned into some fighter adventure with horrible audio instead of a straight forward platformer T_T

 

Oh yeah, new Crash Bandicoot is awful. The old ones are fantastic though.

Lego Racers 2 was quite good for kids by the way.

 

so no gears of war?

 

i've been playing this with my son who's nearly 4. he absolutely loves it and my daughter(2) loves it too (she just watches)

however i think it's important to restrict how much they play so currently it's about once every 2 or 3 weeks.

now, to find a ps1 memory card so i can actually save the damn game!

 

I'd be wary of Crash Bandicoot. The fact I never 100%ed number two, despite trying twice, still burns somewhat. We put hours into that thing. Careful you don't turn your kids into OCD sufferes because they just can't get that last blasted crate.

 

Little Big Adventure..

 

I meant to make this comment ages ago but I still think it is worthwhile to say that I couldn't really recommend Psychonauts unreservedly for children. I thought the last level was mildly disturbing and I don't believe I'm overly sensitive. As others have said, though, it really comes down to the individual. And Psychonauts is still a great game...