Great Games for Your Kids This Summer

It’s summertime and the living is easy. But Jimmy and Sally are out of school and looking for mischief, and it’s darned hot outside and gee, mom, can’t we just play inside for a while?

If you’re getting tired of saying “go out and play” all the time and you’re looking to keep the ragamuffins from yelling at you for just twenty minutes, here are a few games that might be good for them and good for your sanity, too.

1. Portal 2
   Portal 2 is my top pick for kids this summer. It’s rated E for everyone, but has a surprisingly deep and entertaining story. If you’ve not heard of the Portal franchise before, it’s a puzzle game that takes place from a first-person perspective. The puzzles in Portal 2 are not as challenging overall as the original Portal (which you can find in Valve Software’s Orange Box), but the story is deeper and the dual player features add a great level of cooperative challenge. It’s available for PC, Xbox360, and PS3

    

2. The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
   Ocarina of Time is a classic Nintendo game freshly ported to the portable Nintendo 3DS. The Zelda games have set the benchmark for single character role-playing games and can satisfy the need for exploration and storytelling for hours. Great for long car rides, if yours can play games while in the car that is.

    

3. Terraria and Minecraft
   I’m doing a disservice to lump these two independent (and unrated) games by lumping them together, but they are somewhat similar in that you take the role of a single character who digs, digs, digs, digs, and explores and makes things from what is dug up. Terraria is a 2D side scroller that can be a little violent and gruesome for the little ones. The 3D Minecraft can also be sort of spooky — it’s got zombies, skeletons and spiders after all — but turn down the difficulty (read: monsters) and the game becomes pure creativity, where the player digs blocks from the earth and then uses them to build all sorts of things. It’s like a game of building blocks but with a to-scale perspective. Both are only available for the PC, but are relatively inexpensive compared to some of the big console games and are a tremendous value for the playtime and engagement that they encourage.

    

I hope that this helps with any of you that might be searching out something that might help keep your young charges quiet and cool and safe in the heat of the day.

Picture through the kind Creative Commons permission of Bob n Renée.