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Domain: gamerdad.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to gamerdad.com.
Comments · 18
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If you want a place that you can trust...
Hit a few places that don't fuck around with ads and deadlines. Penny Arcade, Glide Underground, GamerDad, Curmudgeon Gamer and the like.
Do they always have a review of a game the given week it's out? Maybe not. Can you wait? Probably. Will they do a better job saying what's good and bad about the game? Likely.
As a general rubric wherever you go, if a site isn't willing to say "rent this before buying it" or "only for genre fans" as a recommendation, you shouldn't trust their reviews. -
Good vs Evil
On a related note, the Good counterpoint to J.T.'s Evil, Gamerdad, just recovered from a heart attack and quadruple heart bypass surgery. GamerDad is a videogame advocate in a family context, who gets into talk shows too. For you nasty people suggesting the heart attack is due to his lifestyle, he debunks that here.
You can help the forces of Good and send a penny his way to help with his medical fees there. -
Good vs Evil
On a related note, the Good counterpoint to J.T.'s Evil, Gamerdad, just recovered from a heart attack and quadruple heart bypass surgery. GamerDad is a videogame advocate in a family context, who gets into talk shows too. For you nasty people suggesting the heart attack is due to his lifestyle, he debunks that here.
You can help the forces of Good and send a penny his way to help with his medical fees there. -
Only a few of the articles...Actually, the two mentioned articles are only part of the GenCon coverage over at GamerDad. The complete coverage is as follows:
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 Indianapolis, invaded!
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - The Video Games All your board are belong to us!
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - The Role Playing Fear the brain in a jar!
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - There's always a first time Boardgamer and family man, Larry Baxter, describes his first visit to a game convention.
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - Boardgames, Boardgames, Boardgames An alphabetical tour of publishers from Asmodee to Z-Man Games
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - And more Boardgames The second half of our alphabetical tour -
Only a few of the articles...Actually, the two mentioned articles are only part of the GenCon coverage over at GamerDad. The complete coverage is as follows:
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 Indianapolis, invaded!
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - The Video Games All your board are belong to us!
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - The Role Playing Fear the brain in a jar!
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - There's always a first time Boardgamer and family man, Larry Baxter, describes his first visit to a game convention.
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - Boardgames, Boardgames, Boardgames An alphabetical tour of publishers from Asmodee to Z-Man Games
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - And more Boardgames The second half of our alphabetical tour -
Only a few of the articles...Actually, the two mentioned articles are only part of the GenCon coverage over at GamerDad. The complete coverage is as follows:
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 Indianapolis, invaded!
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - The Video Games All your board are belong to us!
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - The Role Playing Fear the brain in a jar!
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - There's always a first time Boardgamer and family man, Larry Baxter, describes his first visit to a game convention.
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - Boardgames, Boardgames, Boardgames An alphabetical tour of publishers from Asmodee to Z-Man Games
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - And more Boardgames The second half of our alphabetical tour -
Only a few of the articles...Actually, the two mentioned articles are only part of the GenCon coverage over at GamerDad. The complete coverage is as follows:
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 Indianapolis, invaded!
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - The Video Games All your board are belong to us!
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - The Role Playing Fear the brain in a jar!
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - There's always a first time Boardgamer and family man, Larry Baxter, describes his first visit to a game convention.
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - Boardgames, Boardgames, Boardgames An alphabetical tour of publishers from Asmodee to Z-Man Games
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - And more Boardgames The second half of our alphabetical tour -
Only a few of the articles...Actually, the two mentioned articles are only part of the GenCon coverage over at GamerDad. The complete coverage is as follows:
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 Indianapolis, invaded!
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - The Video Games All your board are belong to us!
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - The Role Playing Fear the brain in a jar!
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - There's always a first time Boardgamer and family man, Larry Baxter, describes his first visit to a game convention.
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - Boardgames, Boardgames, Boardgames An alphabetical tour of publishers from Asmodee to Z-Man Games
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - And more Boardgames The second half of our alphabetical tour -
Only a few of the articles...Actually, the two mentioned articles are only part of the GenCon coverage over at GamerDad. The complete coverage is as follows:
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 Indianapolis, invaded!
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - The Video Games All your board are belong to us!
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - The Role Playing Fear the brain in a jar!
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - There's always a first time Boardgamer and family man, Larry Baxter, describes his first visit to a game convention.
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - Boardgames, Boardgames, Boardgames An alphabetical tour of publishers from Asmodee to Z-Man Games
Unplugged: GenCon 2007 - And more Boardgames The second half of our alphabetical tour -
The *rest* of the article
The submitter failed to link to the second half of the article, in which games from Rio Grande and Wizards of the Coast. An interesting mention by GamerDad was The Battle for Hill 218, including a playable version here.
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Re:FOOD LABELS
Parents are responsible but its not just solely them children are also raised by their environment. Unless your children are isolated from their society in a 'cave' they are also being raised by the society they live in (which includes their peers.)
WE NEED A REAL RATING SYSTEM so parents can realistically exercise their parental rights.I should be able to set my TV, computer, and consoles with detailed instructions on exactly what I will allow shown. I don't care who applies ratings but I do think federal government is needed to define and require a smarter ratings scale.
Why do you need the government to do that? There's detailed reviews of most mainstream media, so you can figure out what's appropriate for your kids before buying it for them. If they're old enough/independent enough/rebellious enough to buy the game and play it in your living room without you noticing, then what else are they doing without you noticing? Probably things a lot worse than playing videogames. Go watch your kids. TV you might say is an issue since it's broadcast live into your house, but between TV on DVD, Tivo, and other media, your kids won't be traumatized without live TV. Computers? If you're posting on slashdot you should be able to figure out something, and if your kids get around that they're probably learning more than they're finding hardcore evil stuff. If you're really paranoid, disconnect from the internet. I know one family that didn't get internet access until their youngest was 16. The government can't tell you what's appropriate for your kids. You have to decide.
We don't know most the junk on our food labels but if we have to avoid something we look for it by name on the label.
Until the government imposed a labeling system on food we didn't really have one and it would have totally sucked if the industry was pushed into defining it, taking a never ending string of lawsuits to get each ingredient listed after it hurt some group of people.
Media is different from food. Media is not a set of ingredients mixed in a bowl. If you eat a cookie, you're probably not going to be able to taste minor amounts of peanut in it, but if you watch a movie, you can hear if they use the word 'fuck'. Peanuts can also kill people, but hearing 'fuck' won't hurt any adult, and there's not even a consensus among parents that it even hurts kids. Also, while you can list profanity used, what about other situations in the game/movie/whatever that a parent might view as more inappropriate for their child? A literal "ingredients" list of a movie/game/whatever would be a play by play of every scene in it, so what would be more effective than trying to print that out on the box is for parents to either watch it/play it/whatever, or for them to get together with other parents on the internet or wherever and tell each other what in it (which they do). So what is government intervention needed for? -
The problem with 100% playthrough
The problem is that the average congresscritter has absolutely NO clue what a 100% playthrough would cost. Obviously, they've never played through any of the Final Fantasy games, and from what I'm seeing, they're small potatoes compared to some of the newer games.
What about games like World of Warcraft, where the content is constantly being updated? How about Unreal Tournament? Sure, the package doesn't ship with content containing nudity, but nothing is stopping 3rd party mapmakers from making a map set in a bordello.
While I agree that some playing time would be a good idea, it can't be so onerous that it's cost prohibitive.
Quite frankly, most of the ratings I've seen are fairly accurate. What really needs to happen is for parents to get up off their asses and take some control of the situation. If you don't want your kids playing a game where the "hero" boinks whores to gain health points, for god's sake, don't let them play it! We all know which games contain this sort of content, so stay away from it if you're not into that sort of thing. Hasn't anyone heard of gamerdad? Guess what folks? Parenting is hard work.
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Re:Duh.
You might find http://www.gamerdad.com/ useful in that regard. Individual titles are reviewed for content, with an extensive forum that parents can post to seeking information from other community members about the child-friendliness of a prospective purchase.
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Good discussion on this last December
See here. To save you the time, here's a list of stuff I found from that story, games that sounded interesting or worth checking out.
First, I decided I should really get into Go. Some links from that Slashdot story: here, The Second Book of Go here, here, here, here, and here.
Other games:
Apples to Apples - got this for my cousin, they liked it.
Settlers of Catan - got this for myself, very nice game, try a local hobby shop or here or try Amazon.com
Others: Puerto Rico (Similar to Settlers of Catan), Lord of the Rings board game was mentioned, Kill Dr. Lucky, Deadwood, Give me the Brain, Lightspeed Games, Fluxx is fun, very random and quirky.
There's more! Mind Trap
Munchkin , Heroscape, Ticket to Ride, Mystery of the Abbey, Memoir '44, Queen's Necklace at Days of Wonder, Bang!, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Articulate
Killer Bunnies (and Quest for the Magic Carrot), Illuminati , Acquire
Some other reviews/top game lists here:
here
here
here
Happy gaming! -
GamerDad Unplugged Gift Guide
Here's the 2004 edition of the GamerDad Gift Guide to Board and Card Games
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Board Game Gift Guides - Another oneWell, the GamerDad Unplugged Board Game Gift Guide comes on on Monday, Dec. 13th... watch for it at: http://www.gamerdad.com/
Keep yourself amused by looking at last year's - http://www.gamerdad.com/modules.php?op=modload&na
m e=News&file=article&sid=424&mode=thread&order=0&th old=0 They're all still good games. -
Board Game Gift Guides - Another oneWell, the GamerDad Unplugged Board Game Gift Guide comes on on Monday, Dec. 13th... watch for it at: http://www.gamerdad.com/
Keep yourself amused by looking at last year's - http://www.gamerdad.com/modules.php?op=modload&na
m e=News&file=article&sid=424&mode=thread&order=0&th old=0 They're all still good games. -
Re:kinda off topic but related to your comment
I think, if you look carefully enough, that a number of the articles posted at Slashdot Games aren't from the 'usual' sites, and there's plenty of interesting, alternate views out there.
How about Gamers With Jobs, GamerDad, Insert Credit, DIY Games, Terra Nova, Skotos, Curmudgeon Gamer, and GamesIndustry.biz? That's just off the top of my head.
And, of course the normal response applies - if there are alternate views and intelligent comment that aren't being covered here, then write it up, and send us the link - we'd love to include it.