Sony sent me a PlayStation 3 and a couple of family friendly games to try out with my family. This is going to be an ongoing relationship with them that I’m looking forward to. I am a total casual gamer so I’m hoping to be able to find some new favorites from this.

Buzz! Quiz World

The first game was the Buzz! Quiz World Bundle which in addition to the game comes with 4 wireless controllers. These allowed me and the family to spread out in my office and get comfortable while we played. Definitely a plus when you don’t have to be tethered to the gaming station with wires!

Anyone that is a fan of trivia will love this game and don’t worry about knowing all the answers. With a database of over 5,000 questions you are not going to be hitting repeats anytime soon.

One problem we did run into is that this is geared more towards adults than it is kids. I would love to be able to adjust the settings so that I could make the questions more kid friendly. More often then not, both kids would announce they were just hitting buttons because they had no idea what the answer were.

That being said, we did have an absolute blast playing. The ability to pick unique avatars for your character as well as fun names from a pre-determined list gave us all good laughs. The silliness of some of the game types adds to the fun. Laura and I commented more then once that we hope to get to play this with some other adults.

Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack In Time

Dylan loves adventure games and we had both played previous releases in in this series before so when Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack In Time showed up he instantly popped it in and started playing.

While there is plenty of destruction in this game it is done in a very G rated way. Everything that is destroyed falls apart and gives you nuts and bolts to collect. There is no blood or other things found in many games and because of that I feel it is one of the most family friendly game series out there that is also engaging enough to keep kids into it.

The visuals and story line are something straight off the big screen. During the cut scenes, you might forget that you are actually watching a video game rather then a movie. In fact they should think about making this into a movie. I know I’d go see it.

I liked how instead of playing a single character, the plot actually switches back and forth between the two main characters and the shift in game play between the two of them may be a bit startling at first, but you quickly fall into the groove. I am not much of a puzzle fan, so some of the unique game play was not appealing to me, but Dylan loved it. The ability to customize weapons and the addition of game play in space brought some great new features that fans of the previous games will welcome.

Dylan completed the game and loved how it ended, but I’m still working my way slowly through it and hope to actually finish it because I want to know what happens.

I’m glad that Sony gave me a chance to try out the games and I look forward to reviewing other games in the future. I hope that if you are looking for some last minute gifts for the holidays, you’ll consider either of these as great options.

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