clavus

My 3-1/2 year old son and I are going to be stuck indoors this weekend. It's supposed to rain. He might have chicken-pox, so he can't play with friends. His mom will be gone. The suck-potential of this weekend is very high.

I'm thinking it might be cool to rent a console game thingee with a couple of games that he/we could play.

He really likes race cars. Is there a REALLY easy racing game on PS2 or whatever that an uncoordinated little kid to play without getting frustrated?

Any suggestions? Any suggestions at all? What system to rent, where to rent it, other non-racig games for little guys...If this idea doesn't pan out, I'm going to have to teach him how to play darts.

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Lokus

The only kids game I can recall coming out lately is Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom for the Gamecube. It should be perfect for him, it doesn't require much skill at games and of course it's Spongebob Squarepants which every kid is required by law to love.

The only other games I could think of would be Mario Party 5 and Mario Kart: Double Dash also for the Gamecube. The minigames in Mario Party might be a little too hard for a 3 year old but it's worth a shot. Dunno how hard Mario Kart would be.

Blockbuster or any other large chains of video rental stores will have the consoles and games for rent.

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Prophecy

Mario Party.... You could try it but the odds are that game would drive you crazy faster than 30 little screaming kids...

I haven't heard of many console games geared toward the age group your talking about, you'd have better lucky trying to find something on the PC.

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Mr.Deflok

Kids racing game? Try out Nitro Carts on the PS2 or Crash Team Racing on the PS1, both fun and hillarious games.

Might be worth renting out a few games, and have a huge weekend of gaming fun

hulk

You're kinda limited if they can't read. Basically, as I've found with my younger siblings, if you sit down with them and tell them what to do, they can eventually figure out any game. Hell, my littlest brother once beat Cradle in Goldeneye when he was 3 =S. Racing games work good, karting games especially. I'm suere there's at least 5 Mario Kart clones for PS2, have a look around =D

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Ganguro

there are some good games in the "backyard" series like "backyard baseball" and the like. These are for most consoles and pc's as well.

Also there is a mini twisted metal game you might be able to pick up for the psx/ps2.
Where you might run into trouble is renting a game console. From my experience most blockbusters dont offer that survice anymore, and if they do it's usually limited to a ps2 and they may only have 1 or 2 units per store. Generally what happends is they get 2 or 3 units per store and people rip them off (be it employees or transient customers). Good luck!

Mr.Deflok

Just for the record, we had Need for Speed: Underground on the PS2 on demonstration at work 2 weeks ago and a kid no taller than my knee, must've been 2-3 years old picked up the PS2 controller and kicked the shit out of the PS2 controlled drivers, he was using the NOS and everything. Really made my day.

dragonhawk

Try SSX or SSX Tricky. My kids (just turned 6 and almost 11) love them. The basic sking is not that hard, and when they start pulling tricks, they love it!

Crash Team Racing is cool, Star Wars kart rip off sucks without 4 people. (The computer plays the non-human players and does not like to lose)

Also look for Gauntlet: Dark Legacy. It is a good co-op game, and my 6 year old's favorite. It helps that you can cover for him when you are playing and just pull him along. It supports up to 4 players (with a multi-tap) and if you decide to buy it, you can find it used for around $15.00.

All of these are for the PS2.

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"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
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yoshi

It's not really racing, but any of the Putt Putt games might be fun for him.

Lasereth

All of the games mentioned are good kids games, but not many are suited for 3 year olds. If you actually want your 3 year old to enjoy the game, then you're gonna have to find something incredibly simple. Your son might enjoy the games, but it won't consist of anything more than bouncing off the walls in racing games. Mario Party is way, way too hard for him. The only racing game I'd suggest is Mario Kart Double Dash!! for Gamecube, but your son will still have trouble playing it too.

I hate to be pessimistic, but 3 year olds are simply too young to play games sometimes. There are a few that'll be able to play games and understand that something is going on, but that's rare. I have a 3 and a half year old sister, and I've let her play SSX Tricky, SSX3, my GBA, GoldenEye, Rogue Squadron, etc. She didn't understand any of it. Hell, she had no idea she was controlling anything, and she does not have a learning disability.

My point: whatever game ya get, it's gonna have to be really, really simple and easy to control. Like I said before, Mario Kart might work, but it'll be constant bumping against walls, etc. I think your son might enjoy it! Good luck in whatever ya get. You know how it is -- kids at that age will have fun playing most games regardless of if they know what's going on.

-Lasereth

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hulk

Lasereth, from my experience, oyounger kids can get a feel for games in about the same time as older ones =D. My little bro can beat CPU guys in Burnout 2, and he's only like 5 years old. They're not as dumb as you think...in fact...they could be watching right now....

Hoo, I need to stay of the bourbon.

__________________
"'There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person,' says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex."
-- From an IGN game review.

Mr.Deflok

hulk is right, let me quote myself.

Lasereth

I didn't say 5 years old, I said 3. Believe it or not, there's a BIG difference. Some 2-3 year olds can't talk. 5 Year olds are in school. Of course 5 year olds can play games; I played Mario for the first time at that age and got to like the third level.

I can't believe that unless I see it. Sorry, but I can't. That game is incredibly challenging, even on the easy difficulty setting. Maybe if he were 5 or 6, but 2-3 is way too young to be able to play that game and even finish a race. I'm not saying you're lying, but I just think he was older than he looked judging by the fact that he beat the CPUs on NFS Underground.

-Lasereth

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clavus

Yo! Thanks for all the advice.

I couldn't find a place in town to rent the hardware, so we may never know how well Clavus Jr. would do at Mario Cart. But since we are on the subject of kids and games, my kid has his own PC and plays games on it pretty well.

Once I figured out he was left-handed, and set the mouse on the left side, he did a lot better. All his games are educational, so coordination and reaction time are not critical. But he moves the mouse where he wants it to go, and clicks what he wants to click.

Coordination for kids of that age is all over the board. We know one 3-yr old kid who can catch a football on the run. My own son can't catch a ball if he's standing still and its thrown right to him. However, he can pilot a remote controlled boat around the pool pretty well. Sigh...my son is going to be a geek like his father.

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GSRIDER

i know this is a bit late since the weekend is almost over. But If you give the kid a dead controller while you are playing... they'll be thrilled. Of course this works only if they are younger. Once they can grasp that nothing is happening when they think it should be they'll be onto you.

i have a ton of computer game for the PC that are education/play games for my kids. Miss spiders Tea Party and Brainy Bunny are two kiddo favorites. They really want to jump into the other games because there is more action on the screen to pull them in.

I did however purchase a Gamecube this year for the younger kids since they have all the mario titles. It's dads for now... but they'll get their turn.

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diergray

My 3 1/2 year old enjoys playing the old williams games with me. They just released a compilation disk for the Xbox and the emulation is perfect. He loves playing Rampage. When he figured out he could punch my character he couldn't stop laughing as his character chased mine around. He didn't really play the game per se but we had a lot of fun. If you ever played and loved Smash TV I can't recommend the Xbox version enough. It is simply amazing.

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Derwood

There is a Monsters Inc. game for GC....mostly a dodgeball type thing. Pretty simple to pick up

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skysooner

We ended up buying Jimmy Neutron and the Sponge Bob game for our 4 year old. For the 7 year old, it was Spider-man and some kung fu game that his cousin likes.

dragonhawk

Hey,
Don't underestimate the kids now days. I say give them a challenge, most of them will step up to it if you let them.

I agree that there is an art to not letting them get frustratied, but that's what we are for, right?

Of course, my daughter finished 112 in the nation in the Gateway Country Challenge a few years ago when she was seven ( in the 6 to 10 year olds or something like that)
She beat the pants off of the sales people at Gateway (Midtown Madness on the PC)

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"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.