![]() ![]() So many experiences are buried beneath layers of esoteric user lore. When you play games with your kids for the first time, it hits you like a thunderbolt - so much is taken for granted. ![]() Obviously most console games aren't aimed at four-year-olds, but this suddenly made me realise how game developers and experienced game players often completely overlook the essential gate-keeping weirdness of the controller, and of most design conventions. He loved the look of LittleBigPlanet, he adored the way Sackboy moved his head around in response to the Sixaxis controller (the first time he saw that he literally laughed until he was sick - on the controller), but that game's labyrinthine menu systems and unforgiving physics meant he was all but excluded from the meat of it. He was only four at the time, so of course, the structural formalities of most games - the rules, the obstacles, the control systems - were a frustrating mystery to him. It gave you a city and a car, and it just said 'drive'. The 2008 open-world driving title from Criterion, which is being released in a remastered edition on PS4, was a formative entry in the emerging universe of free-roaming multiplayer racers, leading us to the likes of Forza Horizon and The Crew. We played together, but he took control he decided what he wanted to do and he did it. The first video game my son ever played - I mean really played, rather than toyed with - was Burnout Paradise. ![]()
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