Posted by dkidwell on November 12th, 2006 — Posted in Christmas, ages 4-8, parenting, reviews, sons
My youngest son is 7 is very excited about getting one for Christmas. He can’t wait:
He offers the following review
“The feature gross out ones can take out their brains, can make bats fly out of its head. You can pull out its heart (that’s cracked!) and it peal off its hand so you can see its bones. You can draw on it with three different colors so you can creep out your mom.”
They have them at Amazon – just click on his guts in the image below:
Posted by dkidwell on October 17th, 2006 — Posted in Christmas, console games, parenting
We are counting down the days ’till the release of the Wii and are very excited. I got to play with one at E3 and have been giddy ever since. Unfortunately, our local Gamestop filled up on pre-orders before we got on the list – they only had 20. So dad and a friend are already planning to camp outside the local Super Target to get them. Whoohoo!
If you haven’t already – go calculate your wii budget now:Â http://www.n-sider.com/newsview.php?type=story&storyid=2440
I expect we’ll get Zelda and plan to play alot of Wii Sports and hold off on other games until Christmas. The kids are already hinting that Santa could easily leave wiimotes and nunchucks in their stockings.  32 Days till Wii!!
Posted by dkidwell on August 8th, 2006 — Posted in parenting, reviews
KidGamers.org launched last month. Very promising review site who have a nice description of what makes their reviews different:
- What skills do kids need to play the game? Some games require fast reflexes, some require logic skills, and some require reading. All skills that may be problematic for your child. These may be games to avoid, or games to pick up to help your children grow.
- Is the ESRB rating accurate? As I said above, the ESRB ratings just give the basics about what content is in the game. Our reviews will go into more detail. Maybe the rating was too low. Maybe it was too high. Our reviews will discuss what we think the rating really should be. Every parent is different of course, so help us to provide more information. If a game had foul language that we missed, point it out. If we make a mistake about the level of violence, let us know. We want the reviews here to help all parents, so the more information the better.
- What did our kids really think? Every game here will be played by one of the authors’ kids. Real kids are playing these games and our reviews will reflect that.
- Our reviews will focus on the pre-teen and younger audience. Our reviews will primary cover video games for consoles and handhelds, but PC/Mac games may be covered as well.
- Lastly, most parents don’t want to just let their kids play games by themselves. Our reviewers will also play the games and tell if they enjoyed playing it as well.
There are so many games and so many review sites, that it is heartening to a site with knowledgeable parents and plenty of kids to test the games out.
Kudos guys and can’t wait to see more!
Posted by dkidwell on May 9th, 2006 — Posted in Nintendo DS, console games, parenting, reviews
At the Nintendo press conference this morning, the Nintendo executives drew a picture of a world where older couples practice golf swings in their living rooms, and whole families play tennis and baseball in the comfort of their homes.
I expect parents to be seeking the Wii and it’s wiimote and nunchaku for Christmas this year. It’s is engaging, and my 6 year old will love swashbuckling with the new wiimote. In fact, I can just see my kids jumping off of towered pillows, or the sofa, in fantastic moves that one would expect from only Jackie Chan or Peter Pan. We’ll have our friends over to lob tennis balls at one another, and my daughter will conduct orchestral symphonies – not sure which game that actually is, but they showed alot of conducting on stage.  In fact, WiiSports and Zelda will apparently launch on the same day as the device – hopefully with some nice bundle packages.
The wiimote will have some sounds directly on the device, which they demoed with Zelda’s bow and could be very engaging. And we thought we already had surround sound!
On Thursday I’ll get the grand Nintendo tour and I’ll post over on Killer Betties a full review and specials for families here at Gamermom.
Posted by dkidwell on January 25th, 2006 — Posted in parenting, reviews
Sudoku games could awaken survival genes | News.blog | CNET News.com
Our oldest son plays Sodoku – and articles like this validate what might otherwise be thought of as an old wive’s tale – games keep your brain active, make you smarter, and are good for you.
As a gamermom, I try to stay on top of particularly engaging games. Mastiff is making a version for the Game Boy Advanced – which I expect will go over pretty well. (Althought it will most often be played on our DS system).
If you have a kid interested in the game, take some time to go read up on the mathematics of soduko at Wikipedia.
This is looking like excellent science fair project material. We’ll definitely be cracking at the graph paper and pencils some this weekend.
