Family Gaming on the Xbox 360

by tranceVib

Sure, we older gamers get our share with a plethora of excellent games aimed at the more mature gamer, but the kids needn’t miss out either. If you’re an Xbox mum or dad and want to get your children gaming on the console you love, it isn’t as hard as it may seem.

While you may play your Halo 3 or Gears of War and have a blast, these games aren’t exactly suitable for the smaller folk. Luckily there are loads of games that you can either buy at the store or download over Xbox Live Arcade to keep your kids happy. You might even find yourself playing these games together with your kids, as they offer entertainment that people of all ages can enjoy.

Scene It? Lights Camera Action is a great way for the whole family to get together and have fun, especially if your kids are a little older. The Xbox 360 version is an adaption of the original Scene It? DVD board game, which is a quiz style game that has you watching movie clips and answering questions based on Hollywood’s most popular films. The Xbox 360 version includes a lot more not found in the standard DVD board game version, including a lot of High Definition movie clips and several new puzzle types. In total there are a massive 1,800 questions to get through, which you can answer via the included Big Button Pads that function as if you’re on your own television game show. Many nights of family fun can be spent playing through this one.

If your kids are a little younger, you can’t pass up the Viva Pinata series for all out fun. The original Viva Pinata is an excellent way for you to spend time with your younger children, as you can sit down with them and work together to create a garden filled with all sorts of cute creatures. Watch them grow, and attract other types of Pinata animals to your garden. If you’re up for something a bit more action packed though, Viva Pinata: Party Animals is a really fun selection of mini-games and Pinata races to compete with against your family members. Set out in an almost “game show” like manner, you’ll challenge each other over several rounds including many different types of mini-games offering heaps of objectives to sort out who the best in your family truly is.

If you were a child during the golden age of the arcades, you might want to give your kids a bit of an idea of what you used to play when you were their age. Well, you will find many games from this era and many more otherwise on the Xbox Live Arcade, including Pac-Man (and the awesome new Pac-Man Championship Edition), Frogger, Tron, Defender, the list goes on.

For some more modern downloadable Xbox Live Arcade games that you can enjoy with the whole family, you can’t go past Bomberman Live, which has 4 players battling it out in an arena to tag each other with strategically placed bombs, or Mad Tracks, which will have your whole family racing around in wind-up cars having all sorts of fun.

If you’re looking for something to keep the young ones entertained while you’re busy with something else, you can’t go past the Sonic the Hedgehog series for a totally fun experience, and it’s a cheap way to keep the kids going for hours on end. Classic retro platform gaming is timeless, and the old blue hedgehog will be entertaining for generations to come.

Your children might be more of the social type and want to play their Xbox 360’s online over Xbox Live with their school friends, so there really isn’t much better than the classic card game Uno for this purpose. If you have an Xbox Live Vision camera, they’ll all be able to see each other and chat while they play.

Of course, having options like the Xbox Live Vision, or allowing discs of all ratings to be played isn’t always a good idea, and even if you’re not around to make sure this isn’t happening you can tell the Xbox 360 just what you want your children to access and when.

With the latest console update, you can access a few new features that will aid you in controlling just how much your child can see and hear from the Xbox 360 console. Going to the “system” blade on the Xbox 360 dashboard, you can access the “Family Settings” menu where you’ll find options to limit what games are played through their OFLC rating (be it G rated games only, G and PG rated games, etc), or even set these options for videos as well.

You can select whether you want your child to be able to download content, such as demos and game trailers, or even just stop them from downloading restricted content. New to the latest update is the “Family Timer”, which will allow you to physically limit the amount of play time your child has per day, or even per week. Setting a time limit will shut the console off once it has been reached, but before doing so will warn the young gamer so that they may prepare themselves for this to happen, be it by saving their game or saying goodbye to their online buddies.

There are many options available for the family to ensure that everyone has a safe and fun time together, be it playing with mum and dad, or playing with school friends online over Xbox Live. Try not to get them too addicted though; you still want to be able to fit in some of your own Halo 3 or Gears time!