The Only Video Game in Our House

Here's a cut-n-paste of the review I wrote for Amazon:

I bought this for my son (who was a few months short of 5 years old at the time) just after last Christmas (2005) because 1) I knew he wanted a video game of some kind because his friends had them and he felt left out; 2) I did not, and still don't want to get him a video game that's thumbs and fingers controlled only - which rules out most video games; and 3) I found it for only $30 at an after Christmas clearance sale.

I needed to help him alot at first to stay calm and in control within the somewhat narrow parameters of the controller sensitivity, but now he's every bit as good as I am at 38 years of age. He loves playing it with me, and we still play several times a week. He does fine with taking turns because the game is such an active, physical one that he has to take breaks to recharge his own batteries. Also, because of this workout aspect of the game I would say that the longest he's ever been able to play at a stretch is one hour. He happily shuts off the game and comes upstairs with no prompting after he's had enough.

Now, as a kindergartener, he can beat every level boss in the game and is more skilled than neighbor boys twice his age.

One of the things I like best about this game is that it has no scoring of any kind. I suspect the designers sacrificed keeping score in favor of other game features. For such a small and relatively inexpensive piece of electronics the graphics and game play are really amazing. Chris and I are still discovering fun new little tricks almost a year later.

Here's what's in the box:



















Why am I putting this on my blog?

I had a thought about this game as compared to other video games last night that hadn't occurred to me before.

Alot of video games (maybe even all of them) that involve fighting against onscreen enemies put the player/spectator in the position of having to hunt down and kill those enemies. Because of the age range that this game here is aimed at, there's no bloody killing of human enemies. Most of the enemies that the player must defeat are robots.

More important and interesting to me, however, is the fact that the limitations of the game technology were used by the developers in a way that reinforces what I think is one of the larger, and most positive, themes of the Star Wars "universe." Because the player is functionally limited to standing more or less stationary, the enemies must come to him or her. The player is not hunting or searching for enemies to fight - he or he is primarily placed in a defensive position. When you're in the game you cannot run away, or be stealthy in anything resembling the guerilla offensive fighting tactics that I think many first person shooter games invite players to employ. I think these guerilla fighting tactics are what worry the people who worry about video games. They certainly give me pause.

In the Lightsaber Battle game there is even a special move that you can do with your lightsaber that is the functional equivalent of a shield you can use in almost any situation where your enemy is attacking you with such intensity that you have no room left for offensive manuvering. As the game progresses though levels you basically have to get better and better at defensive manuvering because the enemies leave fewer and fewer openings for you to attack them. They get better at playing offense, so you must improve you defenses accordingly.

There is something very appealing to me about this notion of a defensively oriented fighting game. In my own limited martial arts training it was made clear to me that fighting skills were used most honorably in defensive mode. I think the Star Wars movies in general promote this position too, especially through their exaltation of the close-combat lightsaber over guns (though guns certainly have their place in these stories too).

Are there other games that do this too?