Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Games & Gameplay >

Game suggestions for kids

20:31 / 21.11.08

I have a five year old who is intent on playing with toys which are blatantly mine, I've explained this but resistance seems futile.

So, with a birthday and Christmas approaching I would like to get her some games. I have a Wii, an Xbox 360 and a DS. She liked Viva Pinata, but the disk has been fucked, Warioware and the minigames on New Super Mario Bros.

Obviously she wants games which look to me to be rather shitty when browsing in stores but I was wondering if anyone had any good suggestion for games that will keep small people enthralled for extended periods of time.

If anyone knows of a decent Spongebob game suitable for young children then I've won a watch.

I was thinking about Nintendogs or Beautiful Katamari but I thought I'd check here before flushing cash down the toilet, at least it won't take up as much room as unused toys.

12:06 / 22.11.08

I think Katamari's controls might be a bit much for a five year-old - the dual stick thing isn't the kind of control that comes naturally. Nintendogs might be worth picking up, but it's got a seriously limited lifespan. Thanks to the puppies existing in a state of permanent youth, there's little (to no) sense of progression or consequence.

Animal Crossing on the DS is a good bet, especially if you get a copy for yourself (if you've got two DSes in the house) so that you can link them up. I introduced a friend's daughter to the Cube game a few years ago and she was absolutely entranced by it.

Viva Pinata came out on the DS a couple of months ago and received positive reviews. Not tried it myself, mainly because I've not got the energy to put more time into something that I've effectively already played a lot of.

The Touch Detective games on the DS are both excellent fun - they're point and click adventures, similar to the old Monkey Islands, only starring a female orphan who wanders her town solving bizarre mysteries. They're relatively simple, witty and entertainingly daft, but how much enjoyment she'd get from them would depend on her reading ability, given their nature.

Kororinpa on the Wii is a great little marble maze game that's been terribly overlooked. You tilt the controller to tilt the maze and get the marble to the exit. It's colourful, cute (you can unlock special marbles with different appeaarances and physical properties) and errs on the easy side of things.

Elebits/Eledees on the Wii has you walking around the rooms of a house, shaking the furniture to reveal hidden creatures. It might be a bit fiddly, but I could see the premise and the style appealing.

Other than that, I'm a bit stuck as far as games of genuine quality go.

12:11 / 22.11.08

Oh, the Gamecube version of Animal Crossing should work on the Wii, too, and might be a better game to go for than the DS one, as the nature of it - playing on the TV screen, rather than a handheld screen - would allow you to play it with her, in a way, by watching and remarking as she's playing. You can also both exist within the world, although not at the same time, leaving presents for each other and effecting small changes within it. I'm not sure if that's possible on a single copy of the DS game. AC's at its best and most rewarding when it's being played collaboratively, even if only one of those players has a controller in their hands at the time.

00:24 / 23.11.08

Cheers Randy.

iamus just told me a few days ago that he has a whole room full of stuff he no longer really needs, I'm pretty sure he's got GC Animal Crossing hiding in there. I'm also pretty sure he'll be reading this.
Think of her little face.

I remember wanting Elebits & Kororinpa after reading someone, probably you, praising them so I think they might be a good gamble, my Wii is feeling very neglected atm and needs some ammunition anyway.

She seemed to be fine using the dual sticks in the demo of Katamari. Will she need to access the bumper/trigger buttons whilst using both sticks? as that might be a problem for tiny hands.

She's just about to turn five and her reading isn't up too much yet so I think I'll score off the Touch Detective games.

I probably bite the bullet and buy her something from a cartoon or movie license on the cheap just for the novelty factor.
As she's pretty nifty on WarioWare Smooth Moves these days the old DS version looks like a safe choice.

Any suggestions from the XBox live marketplace or Wii store?

00:35 / 23.11.08

When I bought the DS Animal Crossing my wife, with a gaming backround of solitaire and ermm....., took to it WOW style. Could be a win-win situation if she forgets about the phD proposal for a few months.

11:47 / 23.11.08

I'm not sure about the Xbox Marketplace. Marble Blast Ultra's kind of fun, but it's lacking in character. The benefit of XBLA is that most - if not all - of the games have free trial versions that you can try out before you lay down the cash for the full things.

On the Wii Store, Lost Winds is both charming and excellent. That's about it, though - there are other games that are worth getting (Star Soldier and Final Fantasy: My Life as a King), but I doubt that they'd hold much appeal for your daughter - Final Fantasy might, but there's a good chance that it'd be too involved. There's also the thing of downloadable titles having no physical component, which could be important for a kid if it's a present.

People get sniffy about things like the Spongebob games without actually trying them out. Chances are that if you get her a game featuring characters that she likes, she'll get a lot of enjoyment out of it simply because of the franchise, and there's nothing particularly wrong with that. Hell, if I think about some of the games I played to completion when I was younger, I now realise that they were often terrible, but that doesn't detract from the entertainment I had with them at the time.

18:46 / 23.11.08

Sorry, I forgot to answer this:

She seemed to be fine using the dual sticks in the demo of Katamari. Will she need to access the bumper/trigger buttons whilst using both sticks? as that might be a problem for tiny hands.

I don't think so. It's a while since I last fired a Katamari up, but I'm fairly sure that the entire thing is controlled through combinations of moves on the analogue sticks.

I keep meaning to pick up De Blob on the Wii. It's had some great reviews and I love the look of it. That might be worth thinking about, too - if I get hold of it before Christmas (doubtful), I'll report back.

23:05 / 23.11.08

iamus just told me a few days ago that he has a whole room full of stuff he no longer really needs, I'm pretty sure he's got GC Animal Crossing hiding in there. I'm also pretty sure he'll be reading this.

That could well be done. If I want it I can always download play it on the DS or get the Wii version when it's out. Although after hearing the word on the new Wii Animal Crossing, it's unlikely that I'll want to play them again until Nintendo decide to actually make a new version of a game that's been going since the N64.

However, I think she would love you to get her Mirror's Edge, eh? Or perhaps Banjo-Kazooie.

If you wanted, I could come over and get all the cool stuff for you. That way, the two of you could build cars and planes and stuff to your heart's content.

Really, it's no problem. I would do that. Just get me a bottle of whisky or something.

14:43 / 24.11.08

Don't fret, Mirror's edge is on the Christmas list. There will also be whisky available over the festive season.

19:04 / 26.12.08

Just a small bump to confirm that, yes, de Blob is a superb game, and something that I can see having a great deal of appeal where children are concerned. Hugely colourful, very easy to control, looks like an interactive cartoon, simply loads of fun.

Bit late for Christmas now, but hey. Get it for her in the sales instead, if you didn't already.

19:26 / 27.12.08

Xbox live free demo's have been doing the job nicely.

I got the Spore creature creator for the DS as she loves the Mii feature on the Wii. It's worked a treat, did you know you can make a pink and lilac monster with a mouth on it's bum and call it dad!!!.

We've been getting to grips with Viva Pinata which is good fun but anything more than 10 minute bursts is ending in a little frustration, slowly but surely.

At this rate it'll probably be a few months before I need more ammo but I might manage to come up with an excuse to buy de Blob anyway.