{"id":942,"date":"2008-05-07T16:22:43","date_gmt":"2008-05-07T22:22:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamingwithchildren.com\/?p=942"},"modified":"2008-05-07T16:22:43","modified_gmt":"2008-05-07T22:22:43","slug":"brawling-with-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2008\/05\/07\/brawling-with-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Brawling with Children"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Henry chose Kirby, I picked Mario, and Maggie\u00a0settled on\u00a0Samus from Metroid.\u00a0I would have bet on Princess Peach because she’s still in a princess\/girly phase (yeah, thanks Enchanted)\u00a0– but then again, unbeknownst to her, Samus is also a girl underneath that armor. Equilibrium\u00a0= maintained! The battlefield was on top of a fast moving jet or something. Kirby swallowed me and spit fire, Mario grew to an enormous size, and Samus curled into a little ball. We all just laughed, laughed, and button-mashed! <\/p>\n

My kids aren’t good at video games. That’s my dirty little secret, but there’s a good reason for it. As GamerDad the message is moderation. My kids have access to games, but they basically have to ask to play. Most of the time they’re busy drawing, coloring, cooking sand, finding bugs, tormenting The Gamer Hound, and talking incessantly.<\/p>\n

I figure there’ll be plenty of time for virtual violence and mayhem when they get a bit older (Mags is 8, Hank is 5). But for now, it’s too frustrating and they get too frustrated.<\/p>\n

Enter Super Smash Brothers: Brawl.<\/p>\n

I want to make this clear – I don’t like this series. Or at least, I never did. In terms of fighting games I like my old school Street Fighter and Soul Calibur works for me as well. Smash Bros. just involved button mashing, lots of garish special effects, simplicty, and a high potential for random outcomes<\/strong> (you know, games where you can be winning and then the enemy like smashes you into goo with a super-move or whatever?)<\/p>\n

I cracked the shrink wrap and began the 20-minute process that has me trying to remove the security tape with my nails (I do this until it really hurts), then looking around for something sharp, then slitting the tape with the sharp thing (often its not a good sharp thing – like my keys or something), then putting the sharp thing down and heading over to the game console, then\u00a0realizing that there’s another tape strip on the bottom! So I have to repeat the process, starting with my nails. That’s how 20 minutes goes by. I hate that tape.) Meanwhile my kids are growing more and more agitated and before I can get the box open they’re leaping around the room with double-jumps, tossing Poke balls at each other, and … okay, okay, they were getting antsy.<\/p>\n

So I get the shrink wrap off, pry the tape away, and make an effort to ignore my kids frantic questions of :<\/p>\n

“What game is that?”<\/p>\n

“Is it a movie?”<\/p>\n

“Can we watch it?”<\/p>\n

“Oh look, it’s a game! He put it in the bowling machine!”<\/p>\n

I started it up and went to the title screen. We watched the movie intro and started playing the game. Whaling on each other with abandon and just enjoying the special effects, the chaos, and the combat! And you know what? I love this game! Why? Because it amounts to button mashing, lots of garish special effects, simplicty, and a high potential for random outcomes<\/strong> (The random outcomes can be fun, it’s the only reason both Maggie and Henry have a “Win.” I like that because, while I do throttle back on my skill when I play with the kids, I don’t really enjoy doing it.)<\/p>\n

We played for about an hour. Countless matches almost always won by me, but it didn’t matter. What mattered were the little moments. “Dad, remember when I …” etc.,<\/p>\n

That’s what Super Smash Brothers Brawl is all about. Frantic fun that anyone can enjoy.<\/p>\n

Note: This game is rated T-Teen.\u00a0 As a parent I disagree with that and consider the violence cartoony enough to merit an E or E10.\u00a0 My kids are 5 and 8, and I’m 37, and we had a great time.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Henry chose Kirby, I picked Mario, and Maggie\u00a0settled on\u00a0Samus from Metroid.\u00a0I would have bet on Princess Peach because she’s still in a princess\/girly phase (yeah, thanks Enchanted)\u00a0– but then again, unbeknownst to her, Samus is also a girl underneath that armor. Equilibrium\u00a0= maintained! The battlefield was on top of a fast moving jet or something. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}