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Question

Non-violent games ( strategy)

Jun 25, 2011 4:16AM PDT

Hello. This is a first for me. I'm an old fart so, I'm not particularly computer literate, nor am I interested in playing video games. My son, who is "Special needs or developmentally delayed" likes to play video games, and I find his fine motor skills have improved some although most of what he has are filled with violence and foul language.
Therefore, I don't want to play.

Does anyone know how I can get a game or games involving strategy, or a better use of the brain than just blowing people away so I can play games with my son?

Many thanks for this site.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Why not the Wii?
Jun 25, 2011 4:27AM PDT

The Wii games for the most part seem to match up with your request.

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Answer
Well
Jun 25, 2011 9:14AM PDT

Well, Disgaea for the PlayStation 2 kind of comes to mind. It is SOMEWHAT violent, and the humor is a touch crude at times, but it's done in a very amusing way. You have to love a game with exploding penguins don't you? It's all cartoon level violence, so no blood and gore, and when you kill an opponent they just kind of poof out of existence. The overall story might be a good one too. It's about the path of a selfish, arrogant, untrustworthy daemon learning to love. Considering you style yourself an "old fart" you are probably the sort of person who can look past some crudeness when it's done for comedic effect. Along the way is a lot of really great humor that, so long as you are able to look past a slightly crude nature, you'll probably enjoy. That way there's a little something for the both of you.

It's what you'd call a strategic or tactical RPG. You have a series of characters, the opposing side has a series of characters, and then you move along a grid. Some parts of it may be a little involved, but you can kind of help your kid out with that. You can also get some considerable mileage out of this game. A good player would probably require 60-80 hours to complete the main story, and then there's 2-3 alternate endings, and the daemon senate and item world where you could literally spend hundreds of hours.

You can probably find some videos of the gameplay on YouTube and the like. IMO, you should search for the Prism Ranger bit, where they take a stab at the old Power Rangers TV show.

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here it goes
Aug 3, 2011 2:44PM PDT

It really depends on what you want to improve. Games that improve motor skills are defintely the 1st person shooter games because they involve the user to focus; sight, touch, hearing, all at once. When i say touch, I mean the ability to click the mouse or a button on the d-pad. Ill get into even more detail below:

BlackOps: This game requires the use of the analog and you need to be good at it. And when im saying good, I'm saying you need to be able to move your cross hair into the direction of an enemy as soon as you see/hear and move your fingers holding the controller a fixed distance to engage. This isnt the only thing. When you throw grenades, even though there is a fixed distance from all angles, you can control the distance by choosing which angle to throw at. This may seem easy at first but once you're in a game in real time, time is not on your side and this requires very quick thinking in a short amount of time. Things improved : Situation assessment, reaction time, hand eye coordination, calculation.

Racing games: These type of games require slow calculating precise movements in comparison to blackops. Calculation comes from knowing when to make turns, downshifting, drifting; slow precise movements are needed during turns at high speeds, making the turns, etc. Things improved: Slow, precise, calculating movements.

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Answer
good old days
Aug 17, 2011 4:49PM PDT

I think my post will seem really unprofessional compared to the ones above... But what happened to the good old days of Pokemon?? Those furry creatures are cute and although they have battles, they're not exactly what you would call violent or foul. These battles require some sort of strategy too, right?

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pokemon
Aug 22, 2011 3:02PM PDT

hahaha! good old days indeed Wink
I know what you mean.. I remember seeing kids everywhere with those GameBoys and playing Pokemon Yellow or whatever... what color are they up to now? Silver? Ruby? I need to keep up with the times...