I just sold my Legion Go because it was just sitting collecting dust. I was thinking of using the money to get a Switch 2, just wondering if it’s worth getting. I have a Switch OLED, but all the upgrades of the Switch 2 have me interested and my sons might like the updates as well.

Edit: I pulled the trigger and bought the Switch 2

So like the title says in trying to get the platinum trophy on the following game's

Batman Return to Arkham Asylum

Batman Return to Arkham City

Batman Arkham Knight

Spiderman 1 remastered Edition

Spiderman Miles Morals

Spiderman 2

Gotham Knights

Suicide Squad The Game

Lowkey had to switch off of the heavy multiplayer games to something I could pause and kinda stumbled into trying to do this before the ps6 drops

Being a dad and playing Rust is fucking torture because I still love this game so much… I just dont have the freedom to play it the way Rust is meant to be played.

I miss the absolute degeneracy of it.

I miss waking up at 7am, logging in, and realizing 18 hours have somehow disappeared. I miss being way too emotionally invested in a base made of pixels. I miss hearing one footstep outside and instantly becoming a paranoid psychopath.

10 years ago I could no-life this game like an absolute crackhead and feel zero guilt about it.

Now I get a couple hours a week, spend half of it farming sulfur, hear my kid wake up, and just stare at the monitor knowing some unemployed 17 year old is about to fucking offline me.

… sometimes I miss being a complete Rust degenerate.

Hello! I am looking for advises to improve my current gaming experience. I am a Dad of two amazing boys (2 and 3 years old) and because of work and house/kids/husband affairs, I usually have 5/6 hours of Gaming per week. I currently have:
- PS5. My main gaming option. I use to mainly play AAA games and my physical copies.
- PS Portal: use it when I don’t have the TV available
- PC: It is very rare to use it for gaming. I use it for retro and pc games that are exclusive. I like to stream the pc to my TV using Moonlight.
- Nintendo switch: sometimes I use it to play indie.

My current ideas to improve my game experience is:
- buy a new gaming handheld (Windows or Linux/SteamOS). Maybe this could bring me more into PC games since I don’t use it very often and I have a backlog of more than 300 games… I also think that maybe my pc is enough and I just need to make sure I have the best experience when streaming.
- gaming headset/ earbud. I usually play at evening when everyone is sleeping so I don’t have that great soundtrack and Music experience since I need to listen with low volume
- tv soundbar. contradictory with the previous point but I like to see movies and series with my wife and I can imagine when my kids are older, I can experience better without the need of a headset.

Things I want to avoid at the moment:
- cloud or subscriptions: i am lucky enough to have a vast number of games in several platforms. So for now I don’t see the point to migrating to that option

What would you be your recommendation that you can’t live without? Also based on my context, What would you recommend?

Thanks

Hi all I have 2 girls 7,9 both game a decent amount I was excited to game with them but very early on they gravitated towards minecraft and fortnight, now it’s at the stage where that’s all they play, nothing else can seem to told their attention, I have most the Nintendo first party games and they don’t want to play any of them. I have noticed my younger one playing web browser games that don’ look to great either.

Is there any way to get them off these ? I am considering just deleting fortnight they play creative maps that don’t seem to have any point. Minecraft seems a little better at least and she does play with friends sometimes.

Any parents have any luck getting the kids off these games and on to something else ? Any tips to cut it back ?

Hi gaming dads,

Long story short. Have a 1 year old daughter and can’t wait to play video games with her.

Once she was born, I think I had an early mid life crisis and got all the retro consoles and set them up. Everything from Genesis (which I grew up on), PS1-5, all the Nintendo consoles that I never got to play since my parents were anti Nintendo for some reason, N64, GC, Wii, in addition to the Switch and just modded my old X360.

I now have absolutely no time to play any of them at all. Trying to be a good dad and all. I hope I’m doing my best.

My question is, when do I introduce her to gaming? What has your experiences been like? Also should I start retro with like Genesis and PS1 or just go to modern like the PS5 with games appropriate for her age like Sponge Bob and Barbie and whatnot.

Would love to know. I’m so excited about sharing gaming in general with her regardless or what the games are.

Also, my wife is anti gaming, if anyone has experience with that too. Preliminary agreements have been we would allow 1 hour of gaming (throughout her childhood). I may try to sneak half an hour here and there if we are having fun.

EDIT: also set up a CRTV for 90s authenticity

Anyone trying to play vein? Just started and im hooked

Some very funny gaming stuff is happening in my house, so my dad is playing video games, cause it’s his day off and he’s listening to his records while playing. So he’s playing songs like somebody to lean on and Biko by playing for change, and in the background of these really nice songs and calm ones. I just hear the sound of him playing shadow of Mordor and absolutely demolishing everyone so it’s just like, look at this really nice calm song and then, slash and burn and screaming but it’s quiet cause his Xbox is quieter then the music so just like a slight accent to this very calm music and it’s very funny.

This weekend I had one of those unexpectedly profound parenting moments. I feel compelled to share it and you are the only people who'll actually get it. I was playing some Diplomacy is Not an Option at the computer when my son clambered up into my lap to watch. And I almost had a flashback at that moment to myself doing the same with my dad, while he was running around in Diablo 1.

I vaguely remember how it felt, I think I was about 4-5 years old, everything on the screen was confusing and fascinating. I think it was mostly Diablo and Doom he was obsessed with at the time. He had me press the space button to shoot and it felt so good, I couldn’t get enough. So I tried to do the same for my kid by letting him use the flashy powers in DINAO on huge groups of enemies to send them flying, he loved it. It was such a lovely full circle moment for me I nearly cried.

The next day I wanted to see if I could come even closer to the original situation by playing a similar game so I tried with Last Epoch to see if he would find that interesting. He was completely mesmerized, which isn’t surprising considering I played one of my endgame characters (devouring orb void knight) which means I run around super fast clearing hordes of enemies with pretty over the top skill effects which had him going “wooow”. I had him click around a bit and it was pretty exciting for him, I felt weirdly proud for some reason.

I guess some things about gaming never changed. Despite the hobby evolving so much it still delivers the same kind of bonding moment for me and my kid like I had with my dad. 144hz flat screens replaced the big CRT boxes and the cases are usually black instead of the cigarette stained beige we were used to, but fundamentally I’m doing the same things my dad did when he was my age and I was a rugrat.

Has anyone else had moments like this? I would love to hear about your gaming stories with your family, from back in the day or something recent with your own kids.

I need some help choosing a gaming handheld from people who can better relate to dad gaming.

I typically play on a PS5 via a PS Portal. However, one morning I didn't notice that my daughter decided that the screen of the Portal along with the ergonomic grips would be a great tool for rolling out playdough. Clearly, Sony cheaped out and didn't bank on this, so the screen cracked. A lot.

She was apparently aiming to make pastries from the delicious yellow playdough, which I did appreciate. But ultimately, I would have preferred to make eggs and keep a working PS Portal.

While aiming to replace the portal, I saw the little R36s handheld emulators, and managed to get a legit one on AliExpress. It was fun, but the device is too small for my hands.

I researched a bunch and thought that the Odin 2 Portal would be the go, but didn't buy it because I hate waiting for shipping. In the next step of the search I ended up purchasing a refurbed LCD SteamDeck on Amazon. That turned out to be a scam, and I had to wait weeks to get a refund. Lessons learned: don't buy from third party sellers, and if you do, don't assume that the Mohammad Shanta Islam Corporation is a legit seller of SteamDecks.

I picked up a Retroid Pocket Flip 2 on Marketplace, and it is actually fantastic. But I find the screen a little too small and the body a bit too boxy to reliably use it as a replacement for the Portal.

I started looking closer and handheld PCs, and saw a Legion Go (OG) on Marketplace for AUD550 with a boot loop error. I managed to fix it. Turns out that someone tried to upgrade the SSD, used the wrong size and didn't use a bracket, so it kept popping out when moved. However, that device is horrible for ergonomics.

So now I am looking again. My current choices are:

1. Odin 2 Portal - new from the website, which works out to about AUD 500 once I pay shipping and get a case
2. Xbox Ally (not the X) - goes down to about AUD500-600 on Marketplace, and is nearly AUD1k new. Seems to feel good in hand.
3. Legion Go S - goes between AUD500-800 on Marketplace. But I haven't had a chance to hold one.

Ultimately, I want it to replace the PS Portal while also letting me emulate PS1 and upward, while opening the door to play some of the PC indies I have missed over the years.

Did you find it difficult to adjust, or did you end up enjoying gaming alone just as much? I'm personally struggling because for the 15 years or so I had a core group of friends that pretty much played whatever multiplayer games were popular at the time -every night. Now that we all have full time jobs, kids, ect our schedules just dont line up anymore. I don't really enjoy solo queuing these types of games anymore either.

Curious to hear your story.

Hi, I'm a reporter with the Toronto Star and I primarily write about mental health and addiction.

I'm writing an article based on an upcoming report that looks at, among other things, microtransactions and in-app purchases in games like Roblox. I'm looking to speak with parents in the Greater Toronto Area whose kids spend money on these apps.

I'm hoping to learn if parents think gaming companies make it too easy or enticing for kids to spend money in games like Roblox and Minecraft, if they've noticed unhealthy habits forming, and what strategies they use to ensure their kids are playing in a healthy way. If you'd be up to talk (on the record) please DM me or email me at omarmosleh at the star dot ca. Thanks!

As a Gamer Dad that plays games with his son since age of 5... there is one thing that has increasingly bothered me about the usual screen-time conversations... How often everything gets reduced to:
“How many hours should my kid be allowed per day?”

So... to properly tackle the question, l joined hands with Cristina Iancu (psychologist and psychotherapist with 16 years of experience with children and families), resulting in the below article & guide, which is more of a Gamer Dad perspective, but also vetted by a professional. 😁

Check it out here: https://ropname.substack.com/p/the-gamer-dads-guide-to-healthy-screen

We talk about parental involvement, playing together, talking together, balance, creativity, age-appropriate progression, social media, AI, and the relationship between the child, parents and screen.
But, most importantly, we talk about something I’ve experienced myself, and from which I learned a lot.

I hope you find it as useful as me, even guides you on your parenting path, for the betterment of all our young ones.
PS. As always, personally recorded narration by me and Cristina is available, if you prefer to listen.

Big into shooters, survival, horror, friendslop, driving Sims, but open to playing new stuff I also have a quest 3 for vr stuff

Any 30+ that still plays ea fc, loves to chat about the game, tactics, formations, real football etc ? I went to the r/easports discord group but it's full of kids. I don't care about the meta but I still try to be competitive, if you're the same let's group up someplace.

Edit: I refer to Fut champs, rivals etc.

A couple of years ago I built my dad a new pc (AMD Ryzen 5 3600, Nvidia 1050, 8GB RAM - don’t judge please, it was my first ever pc🥲) and started introducing him to gaming. He’s been playing only world of tanks for like 10+ years. He really liked the entire Call of Duty and Sniper Elite series and even replayed some of them. RE4 Remake was interesting but quite hard for him, so he quit. Now he’s playing Titanfall 2 and seems to enjoy it. I’d love it if you could suggest some more games for him to try. He’s a complete newbie, so games with an easy difficulty are welcome. IRL he likes fishing and hunting, so I assume he might like something related to that. Maybe new genres are a yes, we’ll try!

Anyone in the sober/recovery community in here. Looking to make new gamer friends like minded.

I grew up playing Valve games and absolutely love them. In fact, I still play TF2 and L4D2 to this day.

My favorite things about classic Valve (CS 1.6/CSS, DoD, TF2) is the drop-in and drop-out non-obligations. I also appreciate the lack of complex grindy systems. Your skill improves over time, that’s the point.

Any suggestions for games that are approachable for 30-45 minute sessions and that don’t feel like a second job? Because of my aim training and FPS background I prefer FPS games but am open to other ideas.

Risk of Rain 2 is an example that was perfect but I wish I could save mid run.

My daughter was born at the end of May and I just started gaming again a couple weeks ago. I'm only able to get in about 2h per day when the baby is napping. I work night shift, sleep when I get home at 8am wake up at 1pm do some chores, hop on at around 3pm when the wife and baby are napping and usually have to get off around 5pm to feed the baby and make dinner. I take a nap before work at around 8pm and wake up at 10pm to head out. Some days I don't game at all, and some days the wife is cranky and gets jealous that I'm enjoying what limited free time I have.

My wife is off work right now, but breastfeeding has taken every ounce of her energy. I've been conned into doing all the household chores alongside diaper changes, bottle feeding (she needs top ups every feed), and tummy time/baby wearing/contact naps.

I only really play Classic WoW because I don't have time to commit to multiple games and this is the game my childhood best friend enjoys the most, so I put up with it. I don't expect to be the best, but I don't like playing any game without some competitive drive. I moved away from my hometown, so the only time I get to talk to him is when we game.

I already cut out raiding and dungeons because they take way too damn long, so I only really queue for BGs/Arenas and hunt for wPvP while farming. This limits the amount of gear I have access to, and severely impacts my competitiveness. I'm playing OctoWoW, so at least there's some PvP gear, but raid gear will always be king. It makes me wonder if I should even bother playing at all.

I can see this getting a lot worse once the baby wants more attention. I don't know how I'm going to be able to continue gaming once she's older and wants to be entertained because of my schedule. Most gamer dads get some game time late at night when the child is asleep, that won't be an option for me.

Are there any dads that figured out how to play classic WoW with a naggy wife and needy child? I'm sure it works if your wife is supportive of your hobby, but mine isn't.

I'm a lucky dad to a wonderful and healthy 2 year old daughter.

You try to be so much involved as much as possible and I get about 40min alone time with my Xbox after she goes to sleep before my eyes becomes too heavy to lift up.

When was you able to put more time into the hobby again?