Welcome to GamerDad: Gaming with Children. My name is Andrew S. Bub - the GamerDad - and I've been writing about videogames, movies, and children for over 15 years now. After working as a magazine journalist, I switched gears to write about how media violence affects children, educating parents about them, and working closely with magazines, newspapers, major retailers and even politicians. GamerDad is an internationally recognized expert in this field. Games, movies and media are fun, kids and families love them, they aren't going away. So join me in cutting through the hype and lets have a real conversation about the things that matter: Video Games, Violent Media, and their supposed effect on children and families.
Welcome to GamerDad: Gaming with Children. My name is Andrew S. Bub - the GamerDad - and I've been writing about videogames, movies, and children for over 15 years now. After working as a magazine journalist, I switched gears to write about how media violence affects children, educating parents about them, and working closely with magazines, newspapers, major retailers and even politicians. GamerDad is an internationally recognized expert in this field. Games, movies and media are fun, kids and families love them, they aren't going away. So join me in cutting through the hype and lets have a real conversation about the things that matter: Video Games, Violent Media, and their supposed effect on children and families.
No More Heroes – Wii
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Posted on January 31st, 2008 by
It’s far too rare, but every so often a true visionary, an auteur or maybe just a madman, takes the reigns of a video game title and sweeps everything generic, rote, boring, or predictable from the code. A game that posesses singular vision. You’d think they’d be more common in a creative medium as wild as videogaming. No More Heroes for the Wii is such a game. An endlessly controversial, hilariously offensive, mildly sophmoric, and endlessly playable new sword-simulator from a design team that’s clearly off the deep end and ’round the bend. I love this game and at the same time I hate it. Here’s my take on the laundry list of ESRB descriptors courtesy but uncredited by WhatTheyPlay.com. Oh, yeah, I wish I’d remembered certain details like how the only way to save is to go to the toilet. Suffice it to say, it gets our ADULT SEAL. Great game for grown ups though! What do you think?
More bad math for kids …
Posted on January 31st, 2008 by
Piracy is a problems for video game makers, and always had been. I recall having to skim through my PGA Tour Golf for Mac manual to find a certain detail – every time I started the program. That was 17 years ago. Now we have Starforce and rootkits and other elements to supplement manual authentication. Yet there are claims that piracy is worse than ever – every platform loses sales due to ‘hacks’ and downloads. There are those whose business it is to estimate the losses incurred by piracy. One of them has chimed in this week with regard to the top-selling Nintendo DS. Can you guess his estimate of what percentage of North American DS users are playing pirated games? Answer to yourself before you click in …
Advance Wars – Days of Ruin
Posted on January 31st, 2008 by
Advance Wars is a series I should enjoy more than I do. There’s something about the happy, happy take on warfare I always found vaguely off-putting and the series is marred, in my opinion, by way too much writing. Still, they’re great for kids – they’re easy to learn, hard to master, and the tactical challenge is brain-teasingly fun and second to none. WhatTheyPlay has published my takes on Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising for GBA and Advance Wars: Dual Strike, and now they’ve put up my take on Advance Wars: Days of Ruin. An excellent new direction for the series where the story gets darker, the warfare is still happy, and the gameplay is still unparalleled and perfectly safe for kids as young as 8.
SAW – The Videogame
Posted on January 30th, 2008 by
I suppose you could call it “job security” – for someone trying to defend an industry and help parents all but single-handedly, this could be considered good news – because someone is going to make a videogame out of the “torture porn” progenitor SAW series of movies. The one with the puppet who makes people ironically harm themselves or others to save the lives of themselves or others. It’s pretty easy to imagine how you could make a topic like this into a videogame. Interactive torture is not a trend I want to see, but then again there is an audience and my principles demand I support them too.
GamerDad Health Update
Posted on January 30th, 2008 by
Thought I’d knock down two birds with one stone – hmmm, there’s got to be a less violent analogy that means the same thing. No matter! First of all, let me thank you for your generosity. Our little eBay fundraiser was a success and since it’s looking like the medical bills are paid for, I get to use this money to do something fun for my family. I’m so proud to be a part of this industry. Gamers are generous, never let anyone tell you different, and Linda and I are proud to know you. Second, I’m going in to the hospital next Wednesday to have all the metal removed (sounds scarier than it is) this will be an outpatient procedure and I had something similar done back in November. I recovered in about 3 hours then, I can’t think why now would be different. I can’t wait to be rid of this low-level pain I’ve sadly grown accustomed to. And lastly, a big thank you goes out to Alienware. They offered me a generous discount on one of their super-gaming computers. It arrived recently and it sits in my office – looking malevolent, cool, and powerful enough to handle anything. (Note: It’s black like the one in the picture but that’s actually a MUCH more powerful unit than mine.) Thanks again GamerDad Nation!
Happy Birthday GamerMom!
Posted on January 30th, 2008 by
Yes, yesterday was my wife’s birthday! A special day indeed for this family as you can see from this picture – even Bubbles the GamerHound stood at attention to sing in her own inimitable way. (Okay, for some reason I can’t upload a picture today.) A friend made Linda a homemade carrot cake. The kids, and I, gave her that sweatshirt with the kids picture on it. And she also got some books, recipe books, and more. We’re doing dinner and a movie this weekend. Happy Birthday sweetie, here’s to many, many more!
Hot Coffee – Settled
Posted on January 28th, 2008 by
GamerParents who’ve been reading for a while doubtlessly remember the “Hot Coffee” scandal (here’s my take on it courtesy of questions from the Dallas Morning News). As a synopsis, “Hot Coffee” is a piece of what’s called “abandoned code” – a common thing in software development. Basically one of the designers of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas created a silly sexual minigame and the code was severed from the game. It was found by a hacker and a bunch of faux outrage was the result. I mean, there was no nudity and what was depicted if you went to the considerable trouble to get it working, is tamer than the marionette sex scene in “Team America: World Police” (Rated-R) – not to mention that the game already had an M-rating and “sexual content” descriptor. The ESRB over-reacted and forced the game to accept the sales dooming Adults Only rating and the game was re-released at considerable expense for basically no reason and protecting no one. Well, Take Two settled and guess who won?
The Mini Games of Duck Amuck
Posted on January 26th, 2008 by
In the 1953 Looney Tunes cartoon Duck Amuck by Chuck Jones, an unseen animator bugs the crap out of Daffy Duck, with hilarious results. And this past year, a Nintendo DS game was made with that same concept and title. As a fan of cartoons, I was mildy curious about this game, but didn’t want to play full price for it. I’m sorry, GameCrazy, but it’s just not worth 35 bucks. Luckily I found it for 20 bucks elsewhere, so I decided to snag it.
Video Game Sales 2007
Posted on January 25th, 2008 by
If you read or watched or listened to any news reports during the holiday season you undoubtedly heard that video games were at the top of the heap in terms of ‘most wanted gift items’ … well, aside from 60″ LCD TV’s for everyone’s bedroom. But looking over the latest sales numbers including data through the end of 2007 is simply staggering in terms of the volume of systems sold by the 5 currently shipping ‘next gen’ handhelds and consoles. more…
Son of Godzilla!
Posted on January 25th, 2008 by
Godzilla Unleashed from Atari is a mediocre game in what is sadly a mediocre series. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun, especially with a 5-year old! It brings me back. My Aunt Bev, bless her for it, took me to see, in the theater, Godzilla vs. Megalon. I must have been 4 or 5 years old myself and I was awed. It began a real love of Godzilla movies that lasted long into my childhood. Despite that mediocrity the love is back, because my son thinks Godzilla is super cool!
