Video Games

My kid's currently hooked on Animal Crossing. I guess Echoes of Wisdom to round out the Zelda content also?

Cheers both! I should probably have mentioned a budget of 20 - 25 too..

Although Horizon Adventure might have to go on my own wishlist, as I'm just coming to the end of a Zero Dawn & Forbidden West binge.

Given that you're a parent, I assume the Zero Dawn binge happened before the remaster (which is phenomenal).

It's going to be a long wait for the next Horizon game, because Sony decided to put resources into a Horizon MMO for the moment. What could go wrong?

So thinking about getting a switch next year probably to play coop with my son, he’ll be 4 in April, is that unacceptably young to start playing video games?? With me exclusively I should say

I wouldn't say so, I started my kid on Minecraft when she was 4 (again, playing together with her on it). And she'd be sitting watching me play Kerbal Space Program since she was 3.

She's 7 now and one of my favourite things about it is how much reading practice she's getting. Mainly through the Zelda & Mario games with subtitles, and recently Animal Crossing.

Ah nice! Ok cool, reckon I’ll hold off till switch 2 is out next year and then take the plunge.

Really enjoying Stalker 2 on PC at about 20 hours played. Huge, gritty, bleak and beautiful. Gunplay can be very satisfying against npc's but other beasts best avoided. Ukranian voice acting is great. The environment is the main character but the plot elements are not bad once they get going.

Bought a few indies yesterday during the steam sale, next thing I know it's 1am, I've forgotten to have dinner and I've got 5h in Into the Breach. Great game

Into the breach is an all-time great. Fantastic example of how mechanics really are the crux of good design.

Very much into Stalker 2 now. Plenty of largely forgivable jankiness, but they're pretty good on getting patches out. Find a few things pretty annoying tho...

The lighting balance is weird. Even in broad daylight, interiors of the smallest buildings with the door wide open are so dark you have to constantly turn the torch on and off. Light sources also seem to fall off far too quickly, only illuminating a small radius around them. Increasing gamma doesn't really help.

There's no prone mechanic, which is a really weird omission considering the game can otherwise be played somewhat stealthily.

Worst of all, having to chose between authentic Ukrainian and awful English voice acting. I can't for the life of me understand why they didn't just get the Ukrainian actors to also record their lines in English rather than use native English speakers with all sorts of random accents. Having to rely on subtitles for cut scenes is perfectly acceptable, but needing to read stuff at the bottom of the screen is shit during gameplay. Lots of background dialog is also just lost.

7.5/10 so far.

Posting this up here as well as in mums and dads thread.
Missus wants to get Minecraft for jnr (6, will be 7 in April) they currently are playing janky free to play stuff on our Amazon fire stick and my missus’ iPhone.
I’ve got a ps5 (as you know) and have brought some games which I think they’ll enjoy, and have decent gameplay, without being too violent/shooter/fighting. Have also started the process of setting up a kids profile for them.
They’ve been nagging for Minecraft for a while, lots of their friends play it. Can someone give me a quick overview of it, and any potential pitfalls I should be looking to help them avoid in terms of online play, violent play etc?
Link to the version I’m thinking of getting for them

https://store.playstation.com/en-gb/prod­uct/UP4433-PPSA17221_00-MINECRAFTPS50000­

Thanks

I probably need to know more about this too. Haven't been paying much attention to 7yo asking about Minecraft for his Kindle Fire- but my wife has heard something about it being bad (mostly about other players talking/messaging each other). For whatever reason (other parents let their kids play it) Robolox is allowed. A quick search would suggest this is exactly the opposite of the right decision based on the initial concern: https://brightchamps.com/blog/roblox-vs-minecraft-2022

So, I can only speak of Roblox and I don't think it's A) suitable - lots of FPS-type games, which admittedly are not exactly graphic, aren't thematically appropriate, nor is something I found him playing that was clearly based on The Last of US (!). And B) it's shite - buggy and slow. Don't know how he bears it a lot of the time. I did at least get a PS controller hooked up as it annoyed me having to watch him struggle.

Similarly, though, have been encouraging playing games together on PS4. It gets mentioned a lot, but It Takes Two is an absolute winner to play together. Others we enjoy together/taking turns have been Unravel, various Lego games, Tony Hawks, Spiderman, Overcooked, Driveclub, FIFA and Rayman.

FWIW, I had Roblox on my ban list in all places (router, isp, family apps), but am absolutely okay/encourage Minecraft. There was too much un-vetted dodginess on Roblox, and their peers (school, extended family etc.) who kept asking them to play were not from the crowd of ideally-behaved kids or whose parents seemingly didn't give two shizzles about checking and restricting content.

My kids, even the older ones - still play Minecraft and I've not noticed any concerning online abuse when they play random online modes with others. It helps that the only access to it is via a console in the living room, and that the younger kids have restrictions on chat and friending on Microsoft/Xbox.

Another consideration - Nintendo's online play is so basic and archaic (friend codes) that there is even less room for abuse, and as we know is a much more child friendly system; online, consoles and their 1st party characters.

We haven't let our kids play Roblox, and we just said ok to the younger one (10yo) playing the original Doom (he's been interested in retro gaming lately, which I obvs fully support). Both were quite into Minecraft earlier, but without public online multiplayer stuff allowed. Neither really played the actual survival game mode that much, mostly they just liked to build things in the creative mode. I though that was nice, kind of like infinite Legos, and it was genuinely fun seeing the progress they made.

It's been the online multiplayer thing I've been most vary of earlier. But recently we've let the 10yo play Fortnite, with strict chat/contact settings. And sure, it's a shooter, but it's really the monetisation aspect of the game, plus the friction it seems to create with his real world friends that bothers me the most. Possibly I should just flat out tell him to play something else instead, but so far I haven't had the resolve to do it.

Main thing would be to prepare for dissuading him from wanting all the cosmetic DLC. Aside from that I haven't found any issues with it. Mainly been across PC/iPad or Switch/iPad.

I recommend doing a dry run across devices first to make sure the accounts can link.

If you are playing on PC, middle mouse button turns the torch on and off quickly.

Early reviews are out....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF8huW3imyk

Nice.

I hate the way if you want to play a game on release day you have to pay extra under the viso of 'play early!'. It's not early, it's the release day! Or wait a few days otherwise. Luckily it's on gamepass.

Grumble over.

I paid £25 to play PoE2 tonight and thats for a F2P game... Still, with the amount of time I've put into PoE it's pennies per hour.

Luckily it's on gamepass.

On Monday, when my partner goes away for work all week, maybe I'll put in my leftover holiday day for Tuesday too.

@Sumo

Available again: https://direct.playstation.com/en-gb/buy-accessories/playstation-portal-remote-player-30th-anniversary-limited-edition?clickref=1101lzZKgn77&app_clickref=1101lzZKgn77&emcid=ot-ps-456951

Thank youuu!!!

Don't do this to me

Stood next to my wife on the ps store on my phone "I'm going to buy this" -no, don't. "Oops." - did you just buy it? - maybe. 🤣

You’re welcome.