Mental Cobwebs

When you're a parent, it's hard to get in a free moment for some gaming. Even when you manage to sneak upstairs and escape butt-wiping duty with the glow of a shiny video game, your kid is likely to open the door five minutes later and ask what you're playing.

Actually, I kind of love moments like that. Sure, if I'm playing a Mature title it means I have to quickly save and turn it off before someone swears or kills somebody, but I'm always up for introducing my kid to video games. It's fun to plop her down on my lap and watch her stare in fascination at the game. But even better are the things that come out of her mouth.

For a few nights in a row I let her pick out some games we should play from the downloaded titles on my PS3, and documented the reactions. These were the results:


Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1

"He doesn't run too fast."

Noby Noby Boy

Emmy: "I don't want this. I want you to turn this off."

Emmy: "What's that worm's name?"
Me: "Noby Noby Boy."
Emmy: "Mm, it's Nobby Nobby Boy."

Linger in Shadows


In a desperate attempt to not watch Clifford's Really Big Movie for the zillionth time, I tried the hard sell on virtually every game on my PlayStation.

Me: "You want to play this game? It's got a unicorn!" I said as I stopped on Peggle.
Emmy: "No."
Me: "How about this one, you can feed fish!" I didn't know a lot about Feeding Frenzy 2, but I assumed this was the case.
Emmy: "No." as I scrolled up past each game at a time, I stopped on Linger in Shadows, whose graphic featured a creepy (dead?) cat and dog with...tubes (?) coming out of them. "I want the dog and cat!"
Me: "Uh, alright." I was desperate.

She seemed fascinated for awhile, as the game flashed past a couple scenes of people or statues, then I realized stuff happened when I shook the controller. Creepy things. I regretted it immediately. She said nothing, but it was clear she was getting more uncomfortable. The creepy shaking didn't stop, so I shook the controller even more. Suddenly we broke through to an even creepier, and darker scene. This was the breaking point.

Emmy: "I don't like this now."
Me: "I'll get back to the people. Do you want the people."
Emmy: "No. I want it off. I don't like it. I want to feed the fish!"
Me: "OK, OK, we can feed the fish."

I quickly exited the game and switched to Feeding Frenzy 2.

Feeding Frenzy 2

Emmy: "There's fish! We're going to feed them?"
Me: "Um, well I guess I'm a fish and I need to eat the smaller ones."
Emmy: "We need to feed them."
Me: "Yeah, that's how you feed the fish, he eats the other fish."
Emmy: "No, that's not nice. I don't want him to eat them."
Me: "That's what some animals do, they eat other animals."
Emmy: "No!"