Parental guidance: why gaming with kids is bad for your health

http://media.edge-online.com/wp-cont...l-guidance.jpgParents be warned: letting your kids play LEGO Marvel Super Heroes might prompt a real-life Hulk smash to the kneecaps.

When the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 launched in symbiotic style at the end of 2013, many a gamer capable of recalling the transition to a whopping 56 simultaneous onscreen colours and Mode 7 wizardry, when Sega and Nintendo doubled their bit counts, could be forgiven for wondering when the console wars became so beige.Sure enough, Microsoft and Sony had (metaphorically) fired their share of (rhetorical) shots over the (proverbial) parapets in the run up to each company’s new hardware hitting shelves – but where were the once-bold battle lines? Where were the playground divisions, the office debates? Didn’t we once display our allegiances with a “Mario Sucks” pin badge?I did, for a bit (it might’ve come with an issue of Sega Pro). But as time’s trickled, so it’s become increasing evident to the maturing follower of digital culture that one man’s donkey is another’s ass – ergo, what one shiny new console offers, the other pretty much matches. Unless you upgraded to a Wii U recently, in which case: there’s always Mario (and, really, he doesn’t suck at all).And yet, it’s to Sony’s console that I find myself turning – and not because its launch roster is markedly better than Microsoft’s. My attention was piqued, primarily, because of marketing. I know, I’m terrifically shallow – but I’m not talking about how the PS4’s share function was sold, or Resogun’s frenetic action, or even Knack’s particle effects. I was hooked by their identifying of one kind of modern gamer, the kind I could relate best to.

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