GameCube kids games?

October 10, 2006 1:49 PM

What GameCube games are good for small children?

My friends have a bright 2-year old. I have a GameCube that is collecting dust. I was thinking about giving the system to them, but something tells me Metroid Prime and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker might be a little advanced for someone still struggling to form complete words. Are there any games for this system that a 2-5 year old might enjoy? I remember playing Atari as a young kid whenever I could get my hands on it, but times have changed...

posted by jtron to technology (13 comments total)

Something like Wario Ware might be a good bet -- it's short games of the Atari sort -- hit a ball off a bat and the like. I'd have loved it as a five-year-old, not so certain about 2.
posted by bonaldi at 1:59 PM on October 10, 2006

Paper Mario might be pretty good, bonus: you might like it too, I did... the graphics kind of grow on you

Any of the Mario Party series may be good as well, it's a board game plus a bunch of mini-games (which require simply a lot of furious button tapping, kind of thing them tiny humans love)
posted by qbxk at 2:10 PM on October 10, 2006

Mario Kart: Double Dash!!! At least for five year olds, younger than that... it needs some hand control. It's insanely fun. My brothers and I found it over a Christmas when we were all together and played for 4 hours straight. I could swear we only played for 30 minutes or so, but the family says we were occupied much longer.

Of course you're not going to want to let the kids drink as much as we did.
posted by Science! at 2:20 PM on October 10, 2006

Animal Crossing is fantastic for kids.
posted by brool at 2:22 PM on October 10, 2006

2 years old might be too young to get any real gameplay experience out of console games.

Uber-simple games I can think of might be Wario Ware or Super Monkey Ball 2 - but even these games may not really scale to the intellect/abilities of even a precocious 2 year old.

you might want to check out the plug n' play Jakks tv games - they have very kid-friendly gameplay & licenses like Care Bears, Spongebob, Dora the Explorer, etc.
posted by gnutron at 2:25 PM on October 10, 2006

Super Mario Sunshine! Nonviolent with lots of fun sounds and colors. An under-5 will probably need some help with it, though.
posted by yogurtisgenocide at 2:29 PM on October 10, 2006

You might want to wait a few years on Paper Mario. It requires quite a bit of reading.

Mario Kart has a time trial mode (or at least, the DS version did) so I'd second that. That way the younger kids can drive around and have fun without losing or having time run out.
posted by Gary at 2:30 PM on October 10, 2006

My 2-year old is crazy about Super Monkey Ball. He can't actually make the monkey do much yet, but he loves the music & the bright colors, and you're not going to find a simpler control scheme.
posted by designbot at 2:42 PM on October 10, 2006

My boy started liking Mario Kart Double Dash when he was late 3 / early 4 age. Still loves it (just turned 5).

I would recomend getting a Game Boy Player. This attaches to the bottom of the cube and plays Game Boy Advance games. There are a lot of good 2D platformers (eg: all the 8 and 16 bit mario games) that my boy really likes as well.

Just as a note: Mario Sunshine is hard. I have trouble with a lot of the levels (damn camera flying around while trying to do jumping puzzles!).

The Gamecube Winnie the Poo game was a bust. Very boring even for a kid that age.
posted by Riemann at 3:26 PM on October 10, 2006

Mario Kart
Animal Crossing
Paper Mario

all very good.

when my kids first got Mario Kart I kicked their little hienies as they did not know how to corner, well, that has changed.
posted by caddis at 6:12 PM on October 10, 2006

I think that, realistically, a 2-year old isn't going to have much fun with any Gamecube games, because they're just not ready for them yet. The Wii may actually be a bit more accessible when it comes out, because there's more of an intuitive tactile interface.
posted by Hildago at 9:58 PM on October 10, 2006

Around the age of 4, my nephews really liked Super Monkey Ball and Mario Kart. On Gameboy they liked any games with Yoshi in them.

Paper Mario and Animal Crossing require a lot of reading so I doubt a young child would get much out of them.

And maybe I'm the only person who thought this, but Super Mario Sunshine was *hard*. I couldn't handle the coordination of hanging from pipes and stuff and I'm 29.
posted by bcwinters at 6:38 AM on October 11, 2006

Super Mario Sunshine, is actually too hard for most "hardcore" gamers who are just to just blowing up things, the jumping alone is far too much for a 2 year old.

Monkey Ball is probably your best bet.
posted by BobbyDigital at 9:14 AM on October 11, 2006