Timewaster's Guide Archive
Games => Video Games => Topic started by: 42 on November 19, 2003, 11:23:24 AM
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I'm trying to advise my older sister and my mom what video games they should get my nephew. Here's the problem, my nephew is eleven years old and is in middle school. He has a PC and a Playstation (1). Being that he is eleven, he's not quite a teen, yet no longer a kid. It's that confusing tween years.
So the video games need to be low violence and should probably not encourage any illeagle activities (unless it's really clear that the activity is illeagle and he shouldn't do it in reality). My nephew plays soccer, basketball and football, and loves to snowboard and skateboard. He likes to draw manga and super-heroes. He like fantasy and scifi books. And he keeps gerbils. He use to like Tommy the Tank Engine and Barney, but I think that was when he was three.
So suggestions? Anyone? Anyone?
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"He likes long, romantic walks on the beach and sensitive girls."
er...
any sports game by EA, probably.
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I wrote a bigger response, but I realized that I really have no idea what an 11-year old would understand or enjoy. If you can find a copy of Super Puzzle Fighter for PS1, that's my best suggestion. I'm afraid I'm not into sports games, so I can't recommend any of them.
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I don't know if he wants sports games. I think he likes actually playing sports rather than playing sports games.
And I'm trying to convert him to the gospel of scifi/fantasy geekdom. There has to be something out there.
And Fell, what do you mean you don't know what an eleven-year old boy would want? Were you grown inside a cave on a remote island? If so, I feel sorry for your little boy.
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He likes sports, he likes video games. I'd bet you sports games are a good bet. There's a big crossover there. Seriously.
And uh... don't be so hard on fell. After all, YOU'RE the one asking for suggestions for the gift.
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Well, I know what I wanted when I was eleven. I wanted the violent, action games like doom and stuff when I was that age. Course, there was no way my parents would have gotten me those games, which was probably good considering how messed up I got in high school.
Some day I'm going to convince my sister to let my nephew come and play at my place. Then I can introduce him to games like diablo and neverwinter nights.
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We didn't have video games until I was in high school, as far as I can remember--all I ever wanted at that age (that I could have) was action figures. And I still want action figures. Hm.
But let me try to think. It depends on how opposed you are to violence. Commandos 3 is a great action/strategy game with wonderful graphics and a lot of very tiny people who slit the throats of nazis and other sundry bad guys in World War 2. It's rated T, and there's no gore (becayse the graphics are so small), but the throat-slitting is there nonetheless.
I don't know--all the games I like are violent. Maybe you should go for CCGs instead, like Magic or .hack//ENEMY.
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otoh, RTS might be the way to go. I know that starcraft was released on at least one console platform some time ago. Have no idea how the console version played. But he has a PC too right? A lot of RTS games only have abstract violence, so that might be a lot more acceptable.
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It came out on the N64 SE. Maybe you could try something like SimCity 4, or maybe The Sims. Or any kind of simulation. Someone I know (of a like age) has the Sims and loves it. But then again anything you get them will be put down after a few months anyways. So maybe just a savings bond or something would be better. Since we all know the economy can't go anywhere but up now. javascript:undecided()
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depending on your brother/sisters view on video game violence I give you what's cool right now. Unfortuanly a lot the popular games for that age are on the game boy advance and game cube. You're not going to find much for someone that young on the PC, there are some games but the PC market isn't as geared twordsa that age group like consoles.
If he likes Dragon ball (and his parents wouldn't care about a beat em up game), Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 2 comes out the second of December. The first one was popular and easy to play.
the Eye Toy (http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/action/eyetoy/index.html) is going to be realy hot this christmass. it had a huge selling in Japan, Europe and the US. It basicaly is a camera that puts you into different mini-games.
You can also never go wrong with a Tony Hawk game.
Also there are several types of raceing games depending on what he likes (cars, dirt bikes, jet skies) and kids that age like those games.
A new TMNT game is out that plays like the old arcade games (ie Fianal Fight). So if he's a fan of the cartoon that's a good way to go.
And if he's a snowbording fan SSX3 is a great game.
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He said playstation ONE spriggan...
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I think you should get him either FIFA 2k4 or Cricket 2k3. That ought to make him happy.
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lol Cricket!!!! they don't even sell that here in the states.
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Actually they do- and it's fast gaining popularity among the masses
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Well, my nephew probably doesn't no what cricket is. So it will either fasinate him in its foriegness or repulse him in its boringness.
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"Cricket? CRICKET?! Nobody understands cricket! You gotta know what a crumpet is to understand cricket!"
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I just did a search on all the major video game retalers (gamestop, toys r us etc) and I can't find a single cricket videogame, heck even Amazon.com dosen't sell them.
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Cricket is not a boring sport. Anyway, since he plays soccer, you could buy him FIFA2k4.
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EA Sports publishes the Cricket games.
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http://www.geekspeak.netfirms.com/crick.html
Cricket2k2 was a really challenging title and was voted as the best cricketing videogame ever by most gaming magazines.
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Ya but they don't sell it in the US. There's no info that the game even exisits on their website. They don't even have the game on their Europiean website.
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Let's not argue about Cricket, please. It simply does not exist in any form on the US mass market--just trust us on this one. That doesn't mean that it's bad or that it doesn't exist elsewhere.
As for 42's question, Spriggan mentioned the real problem--the PC is simply not a kid-friendly game system. Platform games and action games are almost all on consoles, and there's nothing new for PS1. But I bet you could find a buying guide (or at least an age guide) on something like Gamespot or IGN.
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This is from the telegraph (right wing, pro american paper).
The Bronx is bowled over by a new ball game
By Charles Laurence in New York
(Filed: 16/11/2003)
Cricket, a word which to most Americans suggests insects in the woods rather than the sound of leather on willow, is making an extraordinary renaissance in the land of baseball, gridiron and basketball.
Even President George W Bush, a noted baseball fan and one-time owner of the Texas Rangers team, would acknowledge its growing popularity: there are now at least 100 cricket teams in New York alone, with 5,000 players crowding 64 pitches every summer weekend.
Ten thousand more active players are registered with the United States Cricket Association in clubs spread from Paterson, New Jersey, to Chicago, California, and the president's home state of Texas. In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the country's first purpose-built cricket stadium is under construction, and in Brooklyn, New York, the first children's Junior League opens with a newly-built playing field next April.
The new US love affair with cricket is a dream come true for the International Cricket Council, which has a freshly printed 56-page document, entitled Project USA, recommending the founding of an American professional league in time for the next World Cup in 2007.
Its members would have been heartened by the scene behind the tall brown buildings of a gritty New York housing project last week. There was not a baseball glove in sight as Trevor Singh, an 11-year-old American wearing whites, worked on keeping a straight bat under the watchful eye of Steve Massiah, 19, who is tipped as a future superstar of international cricket.
Massiah, whose earliest memories are of swinging a bat in the muddy back garden of a tin-roofed house in Guyana, was already a schoolboy star when his parents brought him to New York six years ago.
He holds a green card, entitling him to live and work in America, and dresses like a Brooklyn boy, but often lapses into the Caribbean patois of his parents' household. He boasts of a 186-run score in a 35-over game and has taken eight wickets for 25 runs as a brisk mid-paced bowler.
"My dream is to be a professional player and win Test matches," said Massiah, who has already scored three centuries for the USA national team and who has played on English county cricket grounds. "Cricket is what I do. I'd like to see international professional cricket here, but if that doesn't happen, I'll sign with an English club."
Although cricket has been played in America for at least 200 years - some claim that the first international cricket match was played between America and Canada in the 1840s - it has for decades been an obscure sport practised largely by British bankers serving time in Wall Street, a few members of the upper classes at the Philadelphia Cricket Club in Pennsylvania, or expat actors and journalists in Los Angeles.
Its status in the USA has been transformed, however, by immigrants from the Caribbean, Pakistan and India. Eighty per cent of America's players are estimated to have come from the West Indies.
"We brought the game with us, because it is our national sport and our first love," explained Paul DaSilva, a computer systems engineer who arrived from Guyana in the early 1980s and who is now chairman of the Council of the US Cricket Association.
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"What's happened now is that our sons, first-generation Americans, are playing the game because the whole family goes to the park together every weekend. We are already a bigger cricket market than in the United Kingdom. Cricket may never be the game of white guys in the Midwest - but in New York and Florida and California, it's going mainstream along with the people who play it."
He was speaking at Singh's Sporting Goods, a shop in the New York borough of Queens, which has become the epicentre of American cricket culture. The shop is lined with the best bats world cricket has to offer: Slazengers, Gray Nichols, Pumas from Australia, and CAs from Pakistan, every one made with aged willow from England.
"When we were touring against English clubs in '95, we went to Lillywhites in Picadilly, which was a boyhood dream for us. Then I saw that I stock more stuff than they do! I'm selling 1,000 bats a year," said Dupaul Singh, who owns the store.
The game is becoming big business. Former Test stars such as Viv Richards turn up to play exhibition matches on the 14 pitches in Van Cortland Park in the Bronx, and contemporary Caribbean players are paid up to $10,000 for three-week guest appearances in the New York league.
"It used to be family fun on the weekends - now it's business like any other sport," said Gerald Singh, a regional director of the US Cricket Association. "It's cricket - but this is America, and world cricket is realising that as with everything else, the potential here is simply so much bigger. It won't be long before we are on television."
The first Junior League now has its own ground - and sponsorship - courtesy of the New York City parks department. Games will be played at the new Brooklyn Bridge Waterfront Park. "Why not? Cricket is the fastest-growing sport in Brooklyn," said Julius Spiegel, the department's local commissioner.
The association is now seeking a five-acre site and millions of dollars in a business deal to build a New York stadium. Even with 64 working pitches, the city's leagues can no longer find a place for all those who want to play.
Sorry about the huge quote, but the telegraph online requires registration.
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what can I say? other than this alleged popularity is over stated. No one plays cricket. By which I mean, a few people do, but there's not a huge fan base, and in proportion to the population, the players are nearly insignificant
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Yes, what SE said. We don't deny that it's here, just that it's not here in any significant way. No matter what a right-wing British paper may suggest.
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Sorry WM, I wasn't trying to be anal about the Cricket thing. I just wanted to find a link to the game and was amazed I couldn't find one. The last one that I could find that EA made was back in late 98' (cricket 99).
Oh and I've never meet anyone who's played cricket, but the east cost tends to have trends that never see the rest of the country.
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I should point out that the US is very much like a bunch of little countries. Utah is definitely a little country unto itself. I just can't picture people playing cricket at the ski resorts or in the desert. New York, Texas and Illinois are all very flat, therefor I can see rich poeple there playing cricket. They are all alos seperate countries in a way, particularly New York, Texas and California who are loathed by their neighbors.
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NY isn't REALLY flat, except in certain stretches. I think in certain localized areas it may be a fad that shows up, but not enough to be a national phenom.
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Well, I guess NY has some of those hills Easteners like to think are mountains.
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Yes, just like Utah has some of that scrub the residents like to think are trees. Also, the pitiful little gutter run-off they call "rivers," which is laughable, since none of them are any bigger than Bull Run. There's probably more water flowing through the Potomac in a year than every bit of running water in Utah, including the faucets, sees in 3 years.
but no, I was actually referring to hills. Real hills.. The east is very hilly and uneven, even when you're not near the mountains. The valleys in Utah probably provide much more flat terrain than anywhere in the east. You don't get straight roads in the east, because the terrain doesn't allow it, unlike in Utah, where you can have roads that run straight as an arrow for miles and miles and miles, and incidentally, are boring as hell to drive.
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No, not hills. Nor are they mountains. They are valley's. I'm sure none of you have ever been around Little Valley or places such as that. The outer parts of the Buffalo plains are really cool. Eden is just full of hills. In Evans we have a nice sized gorge. We call it the 18 Mile Creek. And Lake Erie, oh what a joy. As long as you're not near the parts of the lake that are next to factories. This northern country, St. Lawarence County, isn't all that impressive though. Sure there are huge jagged rocks that outcrop themselves on the highway, and meadows that have giant rocks coming out of the tops, and some elk farms. But it's meh sometimes.
Anything else?
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I've been through upstate New York, Gemm. And uh... it's hard to have valleys without hills or mountains.
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oh butterscotch. there's valley's everywhere, but I've never seen a mountain. Unless you think valley's are mountains.
And I'd like to say that you easterners don't count. :P I'm a northern easterner, so I win. javascript:tongue()
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wow. Can't argue with that logic.
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Really? Cause if so, I'd like to know so I can print it out and tack it up onto my fridge here at school.
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Darn Easteners! Probably never had to shoot someone for water rights. The wusses. Trees make people soft.
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You know what makes people soft? Moisturizer! And you know what Utah has? Lots of Moisturizer! So huzzah!
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Gemm, i'll say this. When you come to the UK, i'm going to knock you out, kill you, stuff you, and put you on my wall. It would be like having some rare and bizarre creature as a pet, only a whole lot safer.
And eh. Try living in yorkshire. The whole damn thing is a series of hills going up, and down, up, and down. It's like being on a damn seesaw. But you freakish americans simply HAVE to have the most 'XTREME' natural stuff. Not content with winds, you have hurricans. Not content with fireworks, you have to have fires that burn an area the size of Dorset. Not content with rain, you have floods. (Although we have them too, but they only affect southern english, who i laugh at. Haha!) So i guess you have more hills and stuff.
Silly bastards.
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No, Utah does not have a lot of moisturizer. NuSkin and other skin cares companies that are located here, refuse to sell their products here because they might tick off the locals. And we've all seen what happened to Frankenstien when he tried to sell his brand of moisterizers to the locals.
Utah has lots of salt and children.
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Both of which mean the yanks who lived there back in the 18th century days never had to worry what to eat in the winter months. Have a baby, kill it, salt it, and it will store for positively months.
Remember people, mormons are more suspiciously moralised than they look.
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uh... there WERE no Mormons in the 18th century. The LDS church was organized in 1830, which is in the 19th century.
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Aren't we talking about video games?
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"Zer'Nutul!" "Zer'Nutul!" "Need a light?!" "Up the butt, bye bye bye." Yes, the terran transport really says that!
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Watch Aliens. Virtually every line the transport pilot says come from that movie, and no, that's not one of them.
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Instead of describing the Topography of east coast I think we should help the poor guy make an informed buying decision.
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This is such a strange thread. It's like Gemm has somehow gained ROOT access, and is impersonating everyone on the board to fabricate his own world of insanity.
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Interestingly enough, I've found that I've been acused of such an acquisation before. Except it was impersonating different people and not our own. And I had something to tell the Mormon's but I forget it right now. I also happen to love topography, and what better coast to use than New York?
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I can hear the crickets(pun intended). Somebody plz post a decent reply to the previous post.