Orright. We seem to have made a seriously bad judgement call with the Wii and the Small Child. His favourite games were Zelda Windwalker or something about the Occarina of Time and Phantom Hourglassses or some such shit . So naturally when going shopping for the Wii we went looking for the newest Zelda game which is called Zelda and the Twilight Princess… of the Zelda and the fucking Twilight Princess shopping disaster fame.
As small children are wont to do when they have a new toy to keep them occupied, the Small Child immersed himself in his new game. It’s nearly been two weeks since Christmas and I had noticed him getting increasingly frustrated with the game and when asked to turn if off for a break was doing so but with rather poor grace. Yesterday however it became abundantly clear that the game was having a truly detrimental affect on his behaviour. Angel had picked up a bad habit of not reading the instructions in the game that told him what to do next – instead choosing to run around the different evironments smucking things about until he either stumbled onto the objectives or threw his hands up in disgust and ran up the back of the house. Where he would jump on his Dad’s PC and have a look at a game walkthrough on the internet that told him exactly what he needed to do next thereby negating most of the reading and problem solving required to succeed in the game – the very things that I’d been told these games can be good for.
Anyway, yesterday Yale tried to help the Small Child by suggesting he should read the instructions on the screen or he wouldn’t know what to do next… the Small Child basically responded with what is his version of having a tanty. Which is to say he pulled a sour face and muttered something unintelligible but blatantly belligerent and totally ignored the helpful suggestion. He doesn’t really wind it up like some kids his age do (for which I am eternally grateful) but this was basically his version of being willfully disobedient and it brought into stark reality how his behaviour has been altering since he started playing this game.
So I have a look at the game and suddenly realise that it’s got an "M" rating on it (stupid Mommy didn’t even know computer games had ratings on them) and depending on which reviews you read they state that this game is appropriate for children of either 12 and over or 15 and over. I asked Mr K if he was aware of it and he said he thought that the other Zeldas were the same yes? So I look them up – no they’re rated "G". The old Zelda was a cute little guy wandering around in cute mario-esque environments, sailing his boat and playing his occarina in a very cute cartoony fashion and the new Wii Zelda is a far more realistic guy stomping around dungeon environments in iron boots, slashing at demons and eviscerating monsters in a far darker and not even remotely cartoon fashion.
Well as you can imagine we’ve removed the offending article immediately and had a good sit down chat with the Small Child about how his behaviour has been unacceptable of late, particularly in regards to his ability to cope with frustration in his games and explained to him that unfortunately it seems this game is just a little too old for him and we should not have bought it in the first place. He was (as is to be expected) a little upset that we had decided he couldn’t play his game anymore but it was shortlived and he has been promising me all day today that he would try and show me how mature he can be so that he can have it back one day to finish even if he has to wait until he is 12….
A timely thought courtesy of Yale and GraphJam:
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