In the computer-dependent world of today, horse video games have become wildly popular among many horse-crazy kids. Though I am always for an authentic, real-life experience, I do also think that horsy video games provide a decent outlet for all that horsiness that can get trapped inside a horse-loving child who has no way of interacting with horses in reality.
I have put together in categorised grouping as many horse video games as I could find on Amazon.com. Unfortunately I have not reviewed them–I never was and never will be a gamer–but I am sure that those who do have some savvy regarding video game quality will be able to determine for themselves whether they want the video games listed here.
Parents, did you know that playing video games for extensive amounts of time can:
- Validate and encourage violent, aggressive behaviour in your children
- Cause your child to become socially isolated and unable to function in social situations
- Result in your child being unable to distinguish between his/her reality and gaming life
- Cause your child to become disinterested in important parts of life such as sport, homework, outdoors activity and reading
- Teach your child the wrong values
- Result in a drastic decline in your child’s grades at school
- Severely damage your child’s ability to concentrate for long periods of time
- Encourage impulsive and erratic behaviour
- Increase your child’s anxiety and depression levels
- Have undesirable effects on your child’s health, including obesity, seizures and postural, muscular and skeletal disorders
It is recommendable that you:
- Check the ratings on video games before allowing your child to purchase them
- Read reviews on the games that your child is interested in buying in order to get a more detailed idea of its content
- Limit the amount of time that your child plays video games for (between 1-2 hours of daily ‘screen-time’ is recommendable by doctors and specialists)
- Closely monitor the effects of video games of your child and respond accordingly
- Encourage your child to exercise regularly, engage with other child face-to-face, actively participate in conventional gameplay and read books in order to counteract the negative effects of video games
There are many other things that your child can do! Take a look at my Horse Fun page to see what other healthy horsy activities you can encourage your child to do instead of playing horse video games.
Digital Games
Nintendo 3DS/DS Games
PC Games
PlayStation 3 Games
Song PSP Games
Wii Games