Losing to a teenager?

Hah! Try losing to a 9 year old!!

My sons have an XBox 360 & a Wii. Long ago I made a promise to Angela that the only violence oriented games I would allow them to own/play would be ones in which the violence was "neccessary", not gratuitous or without purpose. This allows the following: Medal of Honor European Assult; Medal of Honor Pacific Assult; Call of Duty, Airborne Division (the 101st no less); and the list goes on. My eldest has a gaming magazine subscription and it notes that the most popular theme - in purchases & rental popularity - for the most popular gaming format, "first-person shooter", is games oriented to World War II. There are currently over 50 different titles that are of the WWII geonra. We have conquered the Empire of the Rising Sun, stormed Normandy, assulted Panzer's in the Ardenne and stood tall in Berlin - at this point, when he's fighting with his younger brother & he really wants to insult him I'll hear "you freakin' German!"

He,he ....

My sons are aware already but I can just see in a few years all these kids getting into High School level history classes and being shocked that the games they played, along with the titles, are not fiction! If you think about it, it boads well for the next generation. The moment they learn all that fighting, sniping, dying, battling and evil opposition they played out, were actually done by real men, well, they'll have one hell of an appreciation that their beatnick 60's grandparents/parents did not.

And on the one on one versus mode - forget about it. 9 years old & he snipes me on a running jump. And check this out - we've done it with the XBox 360, but the same is available on the Wii console: they are computers now, not just gaming boxes & there is an ethrenet connection on the back. For $50 you get a years subscription to online gaming and you can play anybody in the world instantly with their voices coming through the speakers of the TV in real time - it's incredible technology. Peice of advice though - you run into any kid in Japan between the ages of 8 and 17, conceed ahead of time. Thank goodness we (the US) preforms better in REAL combat..... he,he.