‘This is impossible!’

Can kids master the video games their parents loved?

For years, I hoped that my children might develop a love of video games – not just any games, obviously, but specifically the ones I like. Naturally my oldest son only wanted to play ad-infested garbage on his iPad and/or Fifa, and my youngest showed no interest at all. What changed this was Pokémon. Last Christmas I got Let’s Go, Pikachu! out of the cupboard, reasoning that my wee guy might be able to use the simple Pokéball controller that came with it, and Pokémon is now an obsession for both of them. I was delighted. But then we finished Let’s Go, Pikachu!, which was a remake of the Pokémon games of my youth, and they started asking for one of the new ones. I haven’t played Pokémon seriously since about 2003, so I’m a little trepidatious… More here.

There is something in this. When my kids have tried games I used to play, they complain about the difficulty and the fact that losing your lives means a lot of work to get back to the same place. It would appear that for all of the complexity and graphical splendour of modern gaming, sheer difficulty is not a big part of the mix.