Games for Kids, or Games My Seven-Year-Old Son Likes
Games for Kids, or Games My Seven-Year-Old Son Likes
In response to a couple of requests for reviews of kids’ games on the Just Adventure message board, I am writing this article about what my son likes. First, a little about him: Nick is seven years old. He is mentally advanced but physically immature compared to other kids his age. He lacks the ability to focus on something he’s not interested in, and he has been playing on the computer since he was about four. His favorite subject in school is math; he also likes science. He has been reading to himself since he was three. He likes to watch me play adventure games and offers plenty of advice (and sometimes even a good idea or two), but he would not be capable of completing one himself.
Let me start by saying that I don’t think there are many pure adventure games out there for kids–at least, we haven’t run across any. We recently got Pink Panther’s Passport to Peril and The Day the World Broke; both of these actually look like adventure games on the outside but Nick is grounded off the computer right now, so we haven’t tried them yet. (When we do, we can update this article.) As a result, this article is going to be somewhat off the topic of the site. I will run down the list of kids’ games we have and briefly describe why Nick likes them or not.
Magic School Bus
We have all of these and wish there were more. These are definitely Nick’s favorites. They are also the closest thing to an “adventure” game for kids that we have. They are educational (science) but without shoving it in your face. In all of them, you start out in the classroom, where there are things to click on and learn about, and then you go on the field trip with Ms. Frizzle in the Magic School Bus. For instance, in MSB Solar System, you are off to space to discover things about each planet. Each game has multiple locations to visit, and you get a prize of some sort by completing the puzzles. These get an A+ in our house.
Grossology
What can I say? The name sums it up. This game has puzzles involving belching, farting tunes, vomit, and boogers, and a lot of toilet humor. It is educational in exactly the areas a seven-year-old wants to learn more about. Another A+ here, purely for subject matter. We have two of the Grossology books, too. Nick has told me more about dust mites than I ever wanted to know. I have to tell him I choose not to think about dust mites or I will freak out, so please don’t bring it up again. He just laughs and starts telling me about farts instead. A caveat: if your family members tighten their rectums to fart more quietly or drink soda slowly so as not to belch out loud, you might find this game offensive.
Sim City, Sim Ant, Sim Tower
We have a messload of these Sim games, too. Sim City and Sim Ant are Nick’s favorites. Even though for the most part these games are really more geared toward adults, Nick likes to play them. He doesn’t bother with setting up the city or ant colony or whatever to run for a long time; he just sets them up quickly and then rains disaster down upon them in the form of monsters, air crashes, spiders, etc. Next to Magic School Bus and Grossology, these games are his favorites. These are graded A in our house, but I’m not sure if other kids would really enjoy them much. I’d say give one a try–they are readily available and cheap, so you’d only be out $10 or so if your kid didn’t like it.
The Incredible Machine, The Incredible Toon Machine
These games involve Rube Goldberg-type machines. You are supposed to solve the puzzles by putting parts in the right places to accomplish the given goal. Again, Nick doesn’t spend much time “doing the right thing” with these games; rather, he goes into freeform mode and builds his own machines, then watches what happens when he runs them. For example, he puts 50 “Mels” (a little guy) high up on the screen and watches them fall when he runs it, or finds a way to pop 50 balloons. Both of these games are played a lot; we give them a B+.
Math Blasters
We have a couple of these games, the early learning one and the next level. From what I’ve seen, most of the puzzles involve shooting at the correct answer to a math problem or bouncing numbers to solve math problems. These are pretty much in-your-face educational games, but Nick plays them pretty regularly. He loves math and is good at it, so the educational factor does not put him off. (You can select levels; he always leaves it on the easiest because he is a lazy little booger.) These are not as popular, however, as the games listed above, so they probably only rate a B- from us. Also, I think if you bought one of these games just to make your kid better at math, they’d bomb. If your child does not like math or is not good at it, these games would not be much fun.
Carmen Sandiego Junior Detective
This game, like the other, more advanced Carmen Sandiego games, assume a certain knowledge base that the player may or may not have. Nick didn’t have it and so didn’t enjoy this game much. He hasn’t really tried it in over a year, though, so maybe he would like it if he were to try it again with his second-grade education. He did enjoy the book that came with the game; it had a lot of activities in it. My opinion is $25 is too much to pay for an activity book, though. I’ll pass on grading this game until Nick plays it again, but I don’t hold out much hope for his enjoying it.
Point-and-Click Games
This is how I categorize those games where you just click on something on the screen to get a cute cartoon or sound effect, and the big picture usually consists of having a story read to you. Titles include Fractured Fairy Tales, Arthur, Little Monster, Bug Explorers, and I Spy. These games are not at all challenging to Nick; they are more suited to kids with no knowledge and rudimentary computer skills. We give them a D in our house; they usually get played for a day or so and then forgotten forever.
Puzzle Games
Titles we have include The Island of Dr. Brain, Logic Quest, Puzzle Castle, and Highlights Puzzlemania. These games require a bit more focus than Nick is capable of. He is not very goal-oriented. Again, they get played for a little while and then forgotten, but we give them a C- because they do get played a bit longer and more often than the point-and-click games.
Arcade Games
We have Earthworm Jim, a couple of Sonic the Hedgehog games, Mario’s Time Machine, Animaniacs Game Pack, and Pitfall. These games are too hard for Nick. He loves to play them, but he stinks at them and gets really aggravated when he can’t progress past a certain point. These games are what gets him grounded off the computer. I don’t quite know how to rate this category: on the one hand, Nick really gets into them (A), and on the other hand, they always get him in trouble (F). I guess we will give them the ol’ middle-ground C as a rating. (For some reason, he can play this type of game on Nintendo or PlayStation and not get so angry with them, but put him on the computer and it’s only a matter of time before he’s in tears.)
In conclusion, I would most wholeheartedly recommend any or all of the Magic School Bus games for all kids; they are fun to play, not overbearing on the educational aspect, and can be enjoyed by a child of any age above preschool and prior to teenaged. I think most of the boxes say the games are for ages 6 to 12, but Nick was playing them when he was four. He liked them then and he still likes them now. I would also more reservedly recommend Grossology. If you are not hung up on political correctness, your kids would enjoy this game a lot; however, I think the more polite members of our society might frown on the subject matter.
