Welcome to GamerDad: Gaming with Children. My name is Andrew S. Bub - the GamerDad. I've been writing in the games industry for years now and I've devoted the last five to educating parents on gaming issues to critical acclaim. If you're looking for our GamerDad Review Archive click here. Games are fun, kids love them, and they aren't going away. So lets cut through the hype and have a real conversation about the things that matter. Video Games, Virtual Violence, and its supposed effect on children.
Welcome to GamerDad: Gaming with Children. My name is Andrew S. Bub - the GamerDad. I've been writing in the games industry for years now and I've devoted the last five to educating parents on gaming issues to critical acclaim. If you're looking for our GamerDad Review Archive click here. Games are fun, kids love them, and they aren't going away. So lets cut through the hype and have a real conversation about the things that matter. Video Games, Virtual Violence, and its supposed effect on children.
No, I won’t help you get Grand Theft Auto IV
5 Comments
Posted on May 8th, 2008 by
CrispyGamer has the latest issue of my GamerParenting column and in it I sort of go nuts reacting to the deluge of emails I got over Grand Theft Auto IV. Lots of articulate teens want to play this game, the game is fantastic, but I really think parents need to tread carefully with this one. It’s a very mature game in every sense of the term. It pushes the envelope with the violence, the sexual situations, the storyline, the gambling, drinking, drug use, mayhem, car jacking and . . . oops, sorry, to a teen pining for this one, I bet that stung a bit.
Retro: The Oblivion Re-rating
Posted on May 8th, 2008 by
by Colleen Hannon, the Momgamer
Back in 2006 a role-playing game called Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was released and it has the distinction of becoming one of the few games re-rated by the ESRB. It began as T-Teen and ended up as M-Mature. GamerDad.com was on top of it at the time - here’s what we said:
Brawling with Children
Posted on May 7th, 2008 by
Henry chose Kirby, I picked Mario, and Maggie settled on Samus from Metroid. I would have bet on Princess Peach because she’s still in a princess/girly phase (yeah, thanks Enchanted) - but then again, unbeknownst to her, Samus is also a girl underneath that armor. Equilibrium = 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! more…
Retro: GamerDad on PBS!
Posted on May 7th, 2008 by
Back in 2005 GamerDad was recommended to parents on the PBS syndicated program PC World’s Digital Duo! Come on in and watch the video & read the article.I’m a bit late with this one, because nobody told me about it! But apparently on November 2nd a PBS syndicated program (put out by PCWorld Magazine) called “The Digital Duo” did a segment on the best websites for parents and kids. They hit the basics, The ESRB, Edutaining Kids, and more, but they also included GamerDad. It’s nice to see your website on television, I thought you might get a kick out of it too.
PSP Turns 3, Phones Home
Posted on May 6th, 2008 by
I had planned to do a sort of ‘happy birthday’ post for the PSP as it turned three years old (in the US, that is) at the end of March. But also during March I made use of my PSP along with some new software updates to do a variety of new things, and wanted to highlight the ever-growing usefulness of the device as a multipurpose device. So now you get a merged post that will do both!
Idol Thoughts: The Final Bore
Posted on May 6th, 2008 by
OK, so by now we know that the auditions we see aren’t what really happen in the early rounds, that not everyone sees the judges, that the producers push certain contestants, that the words the judges use are tailored to get a certain response from the audience, and most recently that the judges words are either prepared or scripted. No biggie …after all, this IS a reality show, not a singing contest.
Ratchet and Clank Retrospective
Posted on May 6th, 2008 by
Last week, on a whim I bought Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters for the PS2, so I figured I’d write a little bit about each game in the series.
Retro: GamerDad Loves a Parade!
Posted on May 5th, 2008 by
Retro: back in 2003 Parade Magazine featured us in the Gadget Guide. This was significant and helped GamerDad reach mainstream parents early on!
What a nice surprise today! There’s a blurb about GamerDad in Robert Moritz’s Gadget Guide column. Under the heading “Sites You’ll Like” it reads: more…
Ask GamerDad 5/2/08
Posted on May 4th, 2008 by
Not to take anything away from the special Grand Theft Auto IV Edition of my column, but the newest edition has arrived and with it I move away from GTA and talk about game addiction, Portal, and just a little bit more!
Dungeon Explorer: Same name, Two games
Posted on May 3rd, 2008 by
Apparently there was a game called Dungeon Explorer released on the TG-16 back in 1989 that was also released on the Wii Virtual Console last year. The game was a fairly blatant Gauntlet-clone with additional RPG elements and some nice varied locations, but nothing all that revolutionary even nineteen years ago - it is certainly not one of those historic gems that brings a nostalgiac tear to older gamers’ eyes. So it is perhaps surprising that Hudson chose this franchise to resurrect for a pair of games on the DS and PSP bearing the same name but otherwise very different. But neither new Dungeon Explorer: Warriors of the Ancient Arts game owes much to the original other than the moniker, and they are different enough to deserve their own reviews.
