Online game play

I'm not a big gamer, but I know some of you all are, so I'm hoping you can help me out.

My son wants his PS3 hooked up for online play. His buddies have it, and he wants it, too. He's 11.

I don't know anything about the PS3s' online experience other than the dire "not rated for online play" warnings that come with every game.

Is the online play full of bad behavior, or just more people playing the same games? If I turn it on, am I opening the door for all those card-carrying NAMBLA members out there to start contacting my boy?

Yeah, I should probably know, but I've been spending my time, you know, doing work and stuff.

What games?

Didn't think to ask him which games. I'd guess all of them he has, which would be quite a few different war games (medal of honor, civil war, etc). He plays James Bond quite a bit. Civilization. Honestly, I have trouble keeping track of what he has, but most of it's E or T, except for a few of the war games.

Fast moving, "low strategy" FPSes tend to be full of racist 12 year olds. Example

Games like Counter Strike and Halo tend to be the worst offenders. Games like Rainbow 6 and Call of Duty seem to have less. Don't play anything but FPSes on consoles, but in all my years of Star Craft, Civ, Diablo, Half Life, etc on PC I've never encountered NAMBLA members.

xBox live is WAY worse than the PS3 options.

Find the "mute mike" option and use it unless you're around, that's what I'd do.

If you care about your kid's well being, ditch the PS3 and get him a ball in a cup

I have never been insulted so quickly or so thoroughly as when playing Halo on XBL. And not by my peers, oh no. Some 12 year old punk is all "WTF you xxxxxx loving xxxxxx you suck xxxxx and eat the xxxxxxx for dessert!" And that's just in the lobby.

And actually acknowledging them just makes it worse. I can't imagine PSN is any better.

Actually I would bet that PSN IS better therex. Two reason Firstly, and this is a very very minor one... PS3 is more expensive so parents who don't care xbox vs ps3 are more likely to get their kids xbox. Parents don't want to pay the PS3 pricetag so it has more people who are old enough to have bought it themselves. Though that aspect probably has a pretty minor effect.

Mainly its because xbox comes with a headset, and PS3 doesn't. Almost no one on PSN actually uses voice chat, hearing ANYONE speak during a game is pretty damn rare. So even if the same dumb people are out there on PSN you likely wont notice it. PSN just has very little interaction between players besides from playing the game (for better or for worse)

If he plays long enough, he will likely come across it at least once though... You CAN turn off voice chat though, or at least set it to headset (he probably wont have one unless you go buy him one separately)

Depending on the games you buy him I would worry more about game content then people he plays with, he will likely almost never hear them.

I have an Xbox 360 and I love to play Rainbow Six Vegas 2. I found that if I played with people I knew either in person or from a gaming forum I frequent I had a great time. Loads of fun.

When I joined random people it was a very hit or miss affair. I will not play with anyone who turns the headset off. It is inconsiderate to not communicate with players on "your team". I did have better success when I narrowed the age group to people my age or older. Some groups still had lots of opinions about my gender, but more often than not that ended after a round or two. When it did not I found another group.

I have no doubt he will encounter some abrasive personalities online, but at 11, he probably has enough friends who are playing online that he may not need to explore the "random player" options.

EastCoastMojo wrote: Some groups still had lots of opinions about my gender, but more often than not that ended after a round or two. When it did not I found another group.

Apparently homosexuals are very good at CounterStrike. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it seems that anytime someone is getting a significant number of kills, someone outs them as being a homosexual.

Our PS3 has never actually seen a game disc, instead being used only from Blu-Ray. I can say that my first few minutes on XBox live were eye-opening, in that nobody was discussing the game being played, unless the subtext of the game involved doing things to each others' moms that even prisoners wouldn't dream of.

So, yeah, unless you know who he's playing with (through friend lists and what not), I'd be real careful.

I mostly play Buttoucher, Windowless Van 3 and RapeQuest, but maybe other games are better about this sort of behavior.

jg

Windowless Van 3 and RapeQuest

Diet coke. Through the nose.

JG Pasterjak wrote: I mostly play Buttoucher, Windowless Van 3 and RapeQuest, but maybe other games are better about this sort of behavior. jg

I need coffee. I didn't realize anything was wrong with this until the last one of the three.

93celicaGT2 wrote:

JG Pasterjak wrote: I mostly play Buttoucher, Windowless Van 3 and RapeQuest, but maybe other games are better about this sort of behavior. jg

I need coffee. I didn't realize anything was wrong with this until the last one of the three.

The third one isn't so far off, of course it comes from Japan. http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20090223/NEWS03/90223030

NEW YORK — Anti-violence advocates are taking a stand against a video game in which players stalk and rape a mother and her two daughters. Amazon and eBay have already banned the sale of the game, called Rapelay. But New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said Monday that the game is available on other Web sites. Quinn and the New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault called on all video game distributors in the U.S. to refrain from selling Rapelay. Rapelay is made by a company called Illusion, based in Yokohama, Japan. The company’s Web site says its products are not available for sale outside of Japan. The company did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

Japan: Bringing you 99.9% of the world's most berkeleyed up E36 M3 since 1945.

I went over to a friend's house a few years ago, and was introduced to Xbox live. We played Halo, and he realized that he hadn't taught me "corpse humping" yet. The other players cursed us out whenever we killed them.

Online with the Wii has been fine, though.

Tommy Suddard wrote: I went over to a friend's house a few years ago, and was introduced to Xbox live. We played Halo, and he realized that he hadn't taught me "corpse humping" yet. The other players cursed us out whenever we killed them. Online with the Wii has been fine, though.

Mildly NSFW: Greater Internet Berkleywad theory