Do any kid friendly first person shooters exist?

[WCP]

I know this is a strange request, but I was wondering if there were any First Person Shooters in existence that you wouldn't mind letting a 6 year old kid play. I have a 6 year old and a 9 year old, and for a very short period of time I was actually letting them play Halo 3. My Wife thought I was crazy for allowing a 6 year old to play such a game, and I realized that it was probably a very bad idea on my part. My wife has decided that neither of our kids should be playing any realistic shooting games until they are closer to 12 years old. I'm not sure I completely agree, because I think my 9 year old can handle it, although I definitely wouldn't let him play any ultra-violent games, or super realistic games. Halo to me, isn't that bad a game, it does have some blood and a few curse words, but I don't think it's ultra-violent. I think I'd be willing to let my 9 year old play a game like Halo when he's 10 or 11, but I understand my wife's point of view.

I was trying to think of a non-violent, non-bloody, non-expletive laced First Person Shooter, but I can't think of any. Do any exist? You'd think that somebody would make a first person shooter designed specifically for kids, where the players in the game shoot Nerf guns, or throw water balloon grenades or something along those lines.

[Lerxstnj]

Paint Ball

[Scissors]

Chex Quest immediately comes to mind:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chex_Quest

There's also Super Noah's Ark 3D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Noah%27s_Ark_3D

[Leo_A]

Nerf Arena Blast comes to mind. I can't say that I've ever played it, but I remember wanting it briefly because it was one of the first titles released by Hasbro using their new Atari branding, after the Atari name had been dead for several years in the home.

IGN seemed to like it. I can't imagine there's anything not appropriate for a 9 year old in it.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/162/162982p1.html

[Tupin]

Three words:

Nerf. Arena. Blast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7hcljdzyJs

Awesome game, based on the Unreal Engine, but it is rated T for some reason.

[WCP]

I was thinking of something for either Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, Xbox 1, PS2, Gamecube or Dreamcast. You know... wasn't there a Ratchet and Clank game on PS2 that had a deathmatch mode?

My primary interest as far as this goes is to actually do system link. Thats what I was trying to do with Halo 3. I actually have three Xbox 360 systems. I had two, and then recently bought a banned from Xbox Live 360 for super cheap on Ebay. My hope was that I could hook up the 3 different 360 systems, to 3 different monitors (small computer monitors), and then play deathmatch, or capture the flag or whatever with my 2 kids. I think they'd really get a kick out of running around and seeing the other guy run around, and each of us having our own viewpoint instead of split screen.

I'm not sure if that Ratchet game on PS2 that had multiplayer allowed you to do that or not?

[Kid Ice]

Escape from Monster Manor for 3DO...horror-themed but without any gore IIRC, mostly shooting at ghosts with an electronic gun.

[WCP]

Escape from Monster Manor for 3DO...horror-themed but without any gore IIRC, mostly shooting at ghosts with an electronic gun.


Good Memory. The funny thing is, I actually played this game with my kids not too long ago. I really liked this game quite a bit when it first was released. I was a early 3DO adopter at the time, and starved for any decent games. This one was pretty fun. The only downside was that like Wolfenstein, no floor or ceiling textures. They only did textures for the walls. I liked the background music in this game.

[SplashChick]

Definitely Nerf Arena Blast. That game was so cool.

[BetaWolf47]

There's the Extreme Paintbrawl games for PC and Nerf N-Strike for current-gen systems.

[dao2]

conduits not terrible...

and the nerf game for wii like everyones saying, never played arena though.

[Dangerboy]

Metroid Prime Trilogy - Get their logic circuits running while shooting.

[Ryaan1234]

There's a PC game that I particularly like, called HEDZ (http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/hedz-head-extreme-destruction-zone). It's fun, coloful, a shooter game, and it's also relatively tame. I know it's an older game but I think the graphics are good enough. The game is actually a 3rd person shooter with a bit of platforming mixed in, but you can change it to a 1st person perspective if you want. The best part is that it's like 3 bucks on eBay last time I checked. YMMV on how well this game will work on your computer. It works fine on my dad's computer with XP home edition but I can't get it to work on my computer, which has XP Professional. I haven't even attepted to try it out on Vista.

[RASK1904]

Gotcha!

[ScourDX]

Look for H.U.R.L (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.U.R.L.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWTxS8I6jnI

[Ed Oscuro]

Faceball 2000
Nitemare 3-D (legendary)
Wolfenstein 3D isn't more than most kids can handle, really.
There's also the earlier games Hovertank 3D (ehh) and of course Catacomb 3D (woo!)


Escape from Monster Manor for 3DO...horror-themed but without any gore IIRC, mostly shooting at ghosts with an electronic gun.
Looks and sounds pretty scary though!

[WCP]

I probably should have specified that I'm looking for a Lan game on consoles with a deathmatch or capture the flag type mode, that is kid friendly.

Probably the closest thing that qualifies is Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal. It's not a FPS, but it's more along the lines of what I'm thinking of. I've heard that this game will work over Lan. Right now, I only have one PS2 system, and one copy of the game, but I'm sure I could find another PS2 for a pretty cheap price and another copy of the game. I've never tried to do Lan with a PS2 game before, so I'm not sure exactly what's involved. The PS2 that I have is one of the PS2 slims. I think it has an ethernet port on the back, so if I get another PS2 slim, could I just use a patch cable? I can borrow my brother-in-laws PS2 just to see if it would work I suppose. Thanks for all the tips everybody.

[skaar]

Ghostbusters maybe? Super Mario Sunshine is sort of an FPS but isn't multiplayer ;)

Team Fortress is totally cartoony and might pass the wife test. The Orange Box is rather cheap and they might totally get a kick out of Portal.

[Lord_Magus]

Metroid Prime Trilogy - Get their logic circuits running while shooting.

This. I'm not sure if the multiplayer component is as good as other, more multiplayer focused FPSs out there, but the single player experience is second to none.

[kupomogli]

Unreal Tournament 2004 or Unreal Tournament 3.

Just teach your kid to get the Link Gun and run up on a group of people shooting. Seems to work for a lot of noobs in the game.

[jthenerd]

Doom 3 for your 6 now 9 year old, :roll:, just kidding. Considering that your nine year old is thirteen right now I (my age) Doom 3 would be ok, my friends and I love playing that. Half Life 2 would be good for your 6 year old if he can play an in depth campaing.

[The 1 2 P]

I know this thread is mad old but Gotham City Imposters would be a good choice of fps for younger gamers. It's also a cheap download title so it won't break the bank.

[JSoup]

I know this thread is mad old but Gotham City Imposters would be a good choice of fps for younger gamers. It's also a cheap download title so it won't break the bank.

I believe it's free on PSN+ as well, if that's of interest. In fact, isn't is free to play on Steam as well?

[SOL BADGUY]

Portal

[Gregger]

The only ones I can think of are Greg Hastings Paintball on the original Xbox and Midi Maze on the Atari ST.

[Collector_Gaming]

Portal

All of the yes for this. make sure to get Portal 2 so they can coop it.

But if they wanna shoot each other (which imo that kinda defeats the purpose of this thread imo).... Then this won't work

[kupomogli]

Since this topic is back up here's some others. These are third person but you did mention Ratchet and Clank, so third person should be okay.

There's Twisted Metal Small Brawl as well. Calypso is a bully in the game although he can still use magic. The tournament itself is with rc cars. You probably wouldn't care about them watching the endings so they could play the entire game. Check out the endings on Youtube. If you want to watch them, the other Twisted Metal games as well. You can turn off pedestrians and the PS3 game has LAN play.

Jet Force Gemini on the N64.

[The 1 2 P]

I believe it's free on PSN+ as well, if that's of interest. In fact, isn't is free to play on Steam as well?

I'm not sure about PSN+ or Steam but my 360 copy was free with my copy of Batman: Arkham City GOTY. There are still a few of them available at retail but I don't know if the PS3 versions were included. This promotion was exclusive to Walmart as far as I know of.

[crazyjackcsa]

It's criminal that Fur Fighters on the PS2/Dreamcast was never mentioned.

[Zama]

Goldeneye? ;)

[JSoup]

Banjo-Tooie has a fairly tame FPS multiplayer mode.

[Nature Boy]

FWIW, totally independent of this thread, I have recently started letting my boys, 7 and 9, play Halo 4, coming independently to the same conclusion you did: it's realism is muted because of the sci-fi setting, and the language won't have them swearing like a soldier at school.

I don't think there's a magic age for anything, it's a matter of their maturity and how playing the game (or viewing a movie) affects them. They've proved to me they're mature enough additionally by respecting the rule that their friend's aren't allowed to play unless they have received permission from their own parents.

What they do in that case is play 'Halo' with their Nurf guns. Cops 'n' Robbers is long dead ;)

[Gamevet]

It's criminal that Fur Fighters on the PS2/Dreamcast was never mentioned.

Ahh! You just beat me to it. ;)

Was Naughty Bear sort of a followup to Fur Fighters?

[thewildace]

Faceball 2000 for the Super N.E.S. & Game Boy come to mind as being kid friendly first person shooters too, and may have been the first of their kind as well, or were at least one of the original F.P.S. games made.

[BlastProcessing402]

Wolfenstein 3D is cartoony enough that I'd have no problem letting kids play it unless the kid is really hypersensitive or something, but in that case I wouldn't be letting him play much of anything.