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Video Gamer Kids - For kids of 'all' ages...

Video Gamer Kids - October 2006

Micro Machines V4

October 30th 2006 16:02
Available on: PS2, PC, PSP, DS

Logo
Micro Machines V4
One of all games I have ever played in my life, Micro Machines has been one of the most difficult, yet rewarding games.


It is a racing game, with a twist, you are racing Micro Machines instead of regular cars. This makes it a whole different kind of racing game, you are essentially controlling a vehicle from outside like it were remote controlled.

Since the game is based on small toy cars being raced, the race tracks as such are real life locations, such a desk, a library, the beach, even a shopping center but huge, think ‘Toy Story’ with racing. The tracks are generally colorful and designed very well. The problem however is that there aren’t too many variations of some levels, there is nothing that will make you want to come back and play one level or another again. They are also too short to get the adrenalin rolling and let you enjoy them that much more, but really, they aren’t for us adult types, they are for kids, ages 6 and up, or in general however old you are when you first pick up a controller.

Screenshot 1
Physics is something you won’t see being mentioned too often for games targeted at children. Yet Micro Machines V4 has a very advanced physics engine built in, it’s the same kind that is used in high rating commercial games such as ‘Max Payne 2’ or ‘Half-Life 2’. Race for instance on top of a pool table and you can knock over cups which fall realistically, you can race in a barn where there are eggs that roll down a conveyor belt in a realistic manner. Unfortunately the physics isn’t perfect, and certainly not used to the degree I would have liked it to, that is to actually affect the way you race on a track, so it really is no more than a cosmetic addition.


Like any other good ‘kiddy’ type racer, here you are able to get weapons by way of ‘pick ups’. They are quite varied; from plasma rifles too heat seeking rockets. While the weapons don’t in fact destroy the other racer that is being targeted it does affect the other racers ability to drive efficiently, their Micro Machine slows down, loses traction, and in this way starts losing. Naturally the more any one player has been hit the more difficult it is to drive.

While most racing games revolve around the concept of coming first or last in a race Micro Machines adopts a different method. All the racers are onscreen at any one time in Micro Machines, players lose by falling behind so much that they are no longer on the screen, when there is only one player left on the screen that player wins a point. This continues until one player has made so many points and the other player has lost all his/her points.


Micro Machines V4 is targeted at kids, there is nothing else to really say about it, adults might find it fun, but only for a little while, kids will get the most out of it, its easy to pick up and play, and fun for just long enough for them to enjoy so it doesn’t get too boring for them.

Highly recommended for kids of ‘all’ ages.

Screenshots:

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Word and Math Rescue

October 25th 2006 10:34
Available on: PC

Word Rescue
Word Rescue
It has always been my firm belief that educational game will never be worth their salt if they focused first on education, then the game. So far from what I can see this theory holds true, any game that asks you to give the sum of three and three which will fail you if you don’t get it hasn’t met any success.

Math Rescue
Math Rescue
The more educational games focus on making the game fun and adding the education on top of that the better the end product is. I don’t understand why no one has come to that conclusion, and why this untapped reserve of money making potential hasn’t been, like violent games, been milked for all its worth?

Well that’s another topic all together I suppose, why gaming is so narrowly focused. There have been two games, related games, that have been created that simply defy the convention of ‘education first, game second’. They are called ‘Word Rescue’ and ‘Math Rescue’.

If you think this is another dull and drab ‘educational’ game for kids, well your thinking wrong. While the games are both very old they are still very fun. Easy to pick up and play and very entertaining. Think an early version of ‘Super Mario’ with education thrown in for good measure.

In Word Rescue you are tasked with finding pictures and then finding the correct word to match up. For instance if you get a picture of a cop you have find the word ‘cop’. If you make a mistake a bad guy pops up and you have to either dump pink gooey substance on them or avoid them. Other things you can do is hunt down the letters that make up the word for the level your on to get a bonus.

Screenshot of Room
In game screenshot of the room
Math Rescue came after word rescue so it has some extra gameplay elements involved. While I found Word Rescue to be a lot more fun because of its more colourful atmosphere (and the fact I enjoy English more than maths oddly enough) that doesn’t mean math rescue is any less of a game. You have to in Math Rescue find the numbers from 0 to in that order 10 and every time you touch one of them it takes you into a room where you are asked a math question, be it purely numerical or worded. I found the levels to be quite a bit harder than Word Rescue, it is unfortunate but I don’t see how its intended audience could play Math Rescue for its game elements alone, though tis mathematical questions are well tailored for age.

They were both released years ago, before your little tyke was even born, is it a problem? No, as far as I’m concerned either of these games are better than the best available educational games on the market.

Both games allow you to choose the age, and ask for names to personalize settings per player. Math Rescue is best for ages 6 and up, Word Rescue is best for ages 4 and up, even pre-readers will have a ball with it.

Screenshots:

Screenshot 1
Screenshot 2


Screenshot 3
Screenshot 4















Download or Purchase Math Rescue

Download or Purchase Word Rescue

One final note, if you download the games you will need to extract them from the zip file as they are compressed. To do so simply download and install WinRAR, after which you can simply right click on the Zip file for either Math or Word rescue and click on ‘extract here’, after which you can click on the install executable and install it normally. Be sure to read the instructions when installing too, you’ll find it’s quite retro.
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Crazy Machines

October 24th 2006 13:40
Available on: PC and Macintosh

Crazy Machine
'Crazy Machines' box cover
It is puzzle solving at its purest form, you are given a set of problems, and you solve them. ‘Crazy Machines’ is undoubtedly inspired by ‘The Incredible Machine’. I don’t know who it was, but someone had an incredible stroke of brilliance to think up of ‘The Incredible Machine’.

The first I saw of ‘The Incredible Machine’ when I was a young, years ago. I got my hand on the demo version and couldn’t believe it, WHERE WAS I ALL MY LIFE PLAYING SUPER MARIO!? This game, this one game was amazing. Everything a boy like me back in the day could dream of… All my desires as a hankering problem solver and inventor where fulfilled, albeit not fully, it was only the demo…

Now ‘Crazy Machines’ is basically a newer version of ‘The Incredible Machine’. It has far better visuals and a better system in which gadgets operate.

Screenshot 1
Crazy Machines in action
Basically it is a puzzle solving game, you are given a task to accomplish, for instance you are to put a ball in a box, the balls position is fixed and there are a bunch of fixed obstacles it has to pass through, you are given some gadgets to help you complete the objective and are let loose. Given everything revolves around calculated physics, you’ll find that there can be multiple ways of solving some of the problems.

The interface is elegant, utilizing no more than the mouse for little boy/girl to use to drag and drop the various gadgets to create the crazy machine and solve whatever task is at hand.

While some puzzles are inanely difficult they can still be solved with a little bit of patience and ingenuity, even a young boy or girl can work his or her way through all the puzzles, with a little help from Mr. Daddy, or Mrs. Mommy of course.

There are 200 puzzles to solve in total, and countless possibilities after that, or even before. There’s a sandbox mode in the game where you are given access to all the various gadgets and are allowed to do anything you want, always good for a little bit of fun… I remember when I used to own ‘The Incredible Machine’ I’d spend countless hours blowing stuff up in various ways…

This is a game that everyone should own and play, not just kids, its fun, easy to get into and will provide you with many an hour of fun.

Screenshots:

Screenshot 2
How will you solve this puzzle?
Screenshot 3
A puzzle in action














Download the Demo

Purchase at Amazon
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Just Cause

October 24th 2006 06:00
Available on: Playstation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360, PC

Just Cuase Box
Box Cover
Just Cause is the videogame worlds answer to such movies as ‘Once upon a time in Mexico’, all the way down to the crazy as stunts you can perform in game.

The story revolves around revolution on the troubled (fictional) country of San Espirito, a beautiful clump of island paradises whose citizens are oppressed under a government that sells drugs to make its money.

Just Cause Screenshot 1
The scenery sure is pretty
You play the role of ‘Rico Rodriguez’, a ‘special’ CIA operative. If Antonio Banderas was a videogame character he would be envious of Rico Rodriguez who is essentially a rip off of Antonio Banderas in the first place, albeit with lots and lots of steroids injected for good measure.

It reeks of Hollywood type stunts, special FX and outlandish physics (the latter probably due to poor programming). Mind you this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if you can turn off your brain you’ll find it really enjoyable to parachute off the deck of a fast moving speed boat and go flying up in the air, then using a grappling hook to grab onto a helicopter and parasail it over a prison and letting go and parachuting down right in the middle of it, kill all the guards with duel wielding Desert Eagles and escape with the eccentric and brave leader of the rebellion… Yeah, it’s about as clichéd as it gets on all fronts.

The game is sandbox style ala Grand Theft Auto, that is you can pretty much go anywhere you want in the game with no restrictions. It is set on a few large tropical islands, the graphics are actually quite good too, especially from a distance when you get a birds eye view of everything.

While the gameplay is fun, it is limited, you can only perform so many stunts and only a few types of missions, it does get boring and repetitive quite quickly, this isn’t something you, or your kids are going to enjoy for very long no matter how much you or they like violence, cool cars and crazy stunts.

Like any dumb fun movie, you’ll have fun, but not for long, you end up wishing there was something to think about while playing, not just mindlessly killing the bad guys.

Free Falling
Free Falling in Just cause, note lack of parachute, but will pop out of no where if so desired


Controls are a little bit awkward, they just don’t mesh in a way that you can feel comfortable with. I especially don’t see how kids will be able to adapt to it.

There is a lot of violence in the game, unlike real revolutions in this game what you do is go into any given town or city on one of the islands and with the aid of a bunch of hapless rebels kill as many government officials as possible, mainly police and soldiers, before reaching sandbox strong holds and lobbing grenades to destroy them. This is essentially what you’ll be doing by and large aside from a few other bits and pieces of jobs. It is very similar to Grand Theft Auto. You can kill anyone you see walking by you, however the difference is that there are no prostitutes or gangsters on the street. You don’t get money for killing people either, and the only people you'd have motivation to kill are government officials, such as soldiers and police.

Unfortunately I find it hard to recommend this, its benefit isn’t much, it doesn’t have what makes games worthwhile and satisfying to play, there literally is no real feeling of accomplishment from achieving anything in the game, sure its fun doing it, but it just doesn’t translate to ‘yes I done it!’ after you're done with it.
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Playing with matches

October 22nd 2006 10:28
Do you let your children play violent videogames? Do you let your children watch violent movies? Do you let them both the aforementioned or one of them or neither?

It is interesting to note that violent videogames are never nearly as violent as violent movies. A T rated game can sometimes pass off as a PG movie. I suppose what worries people is its interactive nature, instead of seeing someone kill someone you’re pretending to be doing it. But in that regard that would make you sadistic, to enjoy watching people kill each other.

There really is no argument that games will not turn people into violent killers, nor is there any that supports the fact movies will do the same. Not without its exceptions however, there are people who will be influenced by games or movies to carry out crimes, but they are few and far in-between, and to put it within context they usually aren’t mentally stable either.

To that end I bring the purpose of this blog, to deliver news on entertaining games that kids can play. The question is, what can kids play? I think the best, if not only way you can decide is by deciding what kind of movies or media you let them be exposed to.

Would you mind if they saw a violent movie like ‘Once upon a time in Mexico’? If you do well you’ll probably find most games won’t even reach that level. I suppose, its all in the parent’s direction at the end of the day.

I’m going to start talking about more violent games, there’s no need to beat around the bush, they exist and are the majority on the market. You think buying a videogame console like Nintendo’s ‘GameCube’ will mean your child will be safe from those violent games? I suppose you have never heard of ‘Killer 7’ or ‘BMXXX’. Truth is no platform is safe, you may as well know what you're in for when you have promised your child a game but can't find any that are, as we say, non-violent.
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All things Pokemon

October 10th 2006 13:59
Ash Ketchum and Pikachu
Ah Pokémon, how long has it been?
Pokemon is one of the, if not the, most popular children’s cartoon series in history. So I have decided to compile a few website links that will take you to free Pokemon related things to keep your little tyke happy and probably more importantly, preoccupied.

You can find heaps of stuff for kids at the official Pokemon website.

How about letting the little tyke battle it out with his or her own Pokemon at the ‘Pokemon Crater’. It features a battle system where you can battle other ‘trainers’ and a trading system. The first question you are asked upon signing up is your age, which probably helps the software tailor itself to the age group you select. The gameplay revolves around exploring a very crowded map with other real life people and either starting a battle with one of them or finding another Pokemon to capture. The battle screen isn’t all that it could have been, lacking in animations and pictures, but it gets the job done and is easy to get a hold of. While I have to say I am upset with the somewhat adult nature of their advertisements, I think children will be more obsessed over the Pokemon.

TPPC Online’ is also another online Pokemon RPG type game. It is more complicated than ‘Pokemon Crater’ and the little tyke will probably have to read a little bit of text to understand what he or she is doing, but it is still probably more than enough to keep him/her happy for a while. You might need to sit down with him/her and see if you can help them play. The battle system is very boring, the interface is dull and unintuitive. Depending on how much the little tyke likes Pokemon he/she may not enjoy TPPC very much as it is lacking in colourful pictures which ‘Pokemon Crater’ has lots of. It still is very Pokemon though.

Depending on the reading level of your child he/she might enjoy going through an interactive Pokemon story in Pokemon Journey. It simply is an interactive story, it does contain some light game elements, it really is just a nice interactive and colourful story for a six or seven year old boy or girl to go through.

Hopmon is a shareware Pokemon arcade/action game. It is shareware which means that it has a demo version you can play for free but is limited in functionality (in this case levels), however you can register it to gain access to all its functions for a fee. You can get it (and register it if you so desire) here.

There is actually a little free PC game someone made, you can get it here. It is a rather short game based on the all too popular 'Pokemon' series. Note you will also need something called Directx 9.0 installed on your computer to run ‘Pokemon PC’. You can download it here, make sure you install it afterwards too. Pokemon PC is fairly short and, dare I say, boring? The graphics are 3D and colourful enough to keep Mr/Ms Pokemon Fanatic busy enough for quite sometime based on how much they love the series despite it lacking in the gameplay department.

Point of mention about Pokemon PC, it is in a zip file, to unzip it so you can install/play it you should download winrar and install it. Afterwards you can right click on the zip file and click on 'extract here' to extract the files.
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Lego Star Wars, The Hexology

October 10th 2006 07:14
Lego Star Wars: The Videogame’, and its sequel ‘Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy’ are the epitome of fun to play games that smash down age barriers. They are available on all platforms, PC, Xbox, ps2, Xbox 360 (sequel only), and GameCube.

Lego Star Wars
True to Lego tradition, everything looks great
The advantage of these two games is that they are simple to play, they encourage exploration, they take place in a popular universe among adults and children alike, they are made of Lego (which is probably simply an advertising ploy) and they feature very good graphics for a children’s game.

The controls in the game are very simplistic, which is of course a good thing. One distinct advantage it has is that the camera isn’t controlled by the player, it is done automatically which will make the game a very enjoyable experience for kids who simply couldn’t control the camera themselves.

Gameplay involves basic puzzle solving which necessitates exploration, very good for growing minds. It also involves more conventional action such as light saber battles and gun fights. Also has lots of vehicle control, Star Wars vehicles in Lego form its great fun for everyone.

Lego Star Wars shot 2
Emotions run rampant in this game
You can play as every major character from the Star Wars saga in the respective trilogy with plenty of unlockable extras. Combined with the games designs to force the player explore the world around them it ensures that this kind of game is not only fun but also one that may very well give children an open mind in the nature of problem solving.

Violence wise this game features nothing other than Lego pieces. Sure you see characters being dismembered or fall apart, but at the end of the day, they are only Lego pieces. If anything the deaths are quite creative.

All over great game, fun to play, multiplayer for siblings/parents to play at the same time among a myriad of other good qualities makes these game some of the better ones for kids.
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