Mackenzie Clarke (11), from Clifton Village, impressed the judges with her idea and her description of what her family game characters’ powers would be. In her game, her family  work together, using their special moves to make other people happy and protect the world from turning evil. Her ‘Magnificent Mum’ can stretch to over 50 metres to protect her family, ‘Dynamic Dad’ can  push any objects no matter how heavy, Mackenzie can turn anything hot or cold and her brother can run as fast as light.

Having come top in the regional round of the competition, winning a Kinect for Xbox 360 console bundle, Mackenzie then went on to win the national prize. As part of this, the family visited Microsoft’s Soho Productions facility in London, home to developers of interactive entertainment experiences, such as Kinect Sesame Street TV and Kinect National Geo TV, exclusively on Xbox. They met staff at the studio, and were given an insight into the many roles involved in creating these new experiences, where kids can engage and learn in an entirely new way through full-body, interactive television. They were also given the opportunity to play the recently launched season two of Kinect Sesame Street.

At the end of their visit, Mackenzie was presented with an image of her family created as  games characters, based on her competition entry. The family are also now official PEGI Family Gaming Ambassadors and get to test games together, and review them right here on askaboutgames.com.

After the visit to the studio, Mackenzie said: “I’ve really enjoyed today. I’ve learned a lot about games, and how much work goes into making them. I love my family picture too – it actually looks like us! When I entered the competition I took lots of time on my entry to make it good, so it’s great to see it come to life – I’m really pleased that I won.”

Her mother, Lisa, added: “Our visit today has shown us that games are more educational than ever, and seeing the technology behind them has been fantastic. We’ve definitely been inspired to play even more as a family now!”

Jo Twist, CEO of Ukie said: “Games are a fantastic way to bring families together.  “We’re delighted that Mackenzie and her family are our overall winners. We loved her competition entry and the way she used her creativity to come up with a great game idea and characters who all worked together to save the world. We look forward to working with her and her family as PEGI gaming ambassadors in the future.”

Question: Do you believe on average that most parents are aware of the violence that occurs in alot of games?

Answer: Parents awareness will differ from family to family. We encourage them to use the PEGI ratings to be better informed about the games their family are playing, as well as joining in to see first hand.

Question: Can Nintendo 3ds games work in a none Nintendo 3ds system?

Answer: 3DS games will only work in the 3DS or 3DS XL system. You can however run older DS games on the new 3DS systems as well.

Question: I have the Skylanders Giants starter pack, can i play Spyro’s Adventure with the new portal? Also, can you reuse a fully upgraded skylander if you bought it second hand? Finally, do you have to buy all the character’s to complete the game or can you complete the game without all the characters.

Answer:You can use the new portal to play the older Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure game, although you will need the game disc to do this. You are able to reset Skylanders figures via a setting in the menu, this makes them like a newly purchased character. You can finish the Skylanders games with just the Starter Pack figures.

Question: Can u play sonic all star racing transformed wii u, on the old wii console ?

Answer: You can only play Wii games on the old Wii console. To make use of the Wii U games and their new features you need a Wii U console.

Question: I’m in Europe at the moment and want to buy a Skylander Giant figure for my child in the US. Will it work/is it compatible in the USA with the game he owns?

Skylander figures are not region locked, although the games to which they relate may be.

Check back next month for more great questions from readers, and our best attempts to answer. If we’ve missed anything in our responses this month, why not fill in the gaps in the comments. Also, you can ask your questions here.

[Image Credit: flickr/mathrock]

We spent a morning in the Exeter GameStation store talking to families and offering advice in our Pop-up Gaming Surgery.

Here is the third of the Family Gamer TV conversations we recorded at the event — you can also catch the first and second conversations. The Brace family were in store looking for a puzzle game for Dad “to keep the mind working” as he puts it.

It was good to hear from a father and daughter looking for a game that wasn’t just for the kids to play. As we talked about which games they play together it becomes apparent that Dad is something of a Pokemon expert. They also talk about playing the Harry Potter Lego games together.

We suggest that he tries the Layton games which combines both storytelling and puzzles. It was a game that they were already considering. We also suggested that their daughter might like the collect-them-all style of Moshi Monsters, which is similar to Pokemon but with less adventuring and fighting.

They talked about using the PEGI ratings as a guideline when choosing games, although not always finding the need to strictly adhere to them. With PEGI becoming the single statutory ratings body we were able to distinguish between the 3 and 7 ratings that are advisory and the now legally binding 12 ratings, along with the existing 16 and 18 ratings.

Many thanks to the staff of GameStation who accommodated our FGTV filming session.

We spent a morning in the Exeter GameStation store talking to families and offering advice in our Pop-up Gaming Surgery.

Here is the second of the Family Gamer TV conversations we recorded at the event — catch the first video here. We talk to the Brooks family who were in store discussing which games are appropriate for their younger members. This is, as with any growing family, a changing situation.

Although they found the ages on the front of the game box helpful there was some confusion between BBFC and PEGI ratings. This is something we were able to clarify for them, with the PEGI ratings now being the single statutory ratings system — information that seemed to help simplify their choices.

They also talk about the pressure on the boys to play older rated games, because some friends played games in the playground themed around older rated games. It was good to hear that this was something that the whole family discussed together, even if they hadn’t found an easy answer as yet.

One approach they talk about is playing more mature titles together as a family so that any untoward experiences can be discussed and explained. By combining this with the adults playing the games through first (so they understand the content contained within them) this is a positive approach.

Many thanks to the staff of GameStation who accommodated our FGTV filming session.

We spent a morning in the Exeter GameStation store talking to families and offering advice in our Pop-up Gaming Surgery.

Here is the first of the Family Gamer TV conversations we recorded at the event. You can hear from three generations of the Barker family who play games — both separately and together. It was really helpful to hear how they use the PEGI ratings to identify which games would be suitable.

We were delighted to hear that they all played games together, rather than it just being the children. It was also interesting to hear how Eddie was an active gamer, whether that was part of the game controls or not.

We also talk about how they decide how long they play games and the limits they put on the family game time.

Check back for more videos from our Pop-up Gaming Surgeries in the next few weeks. Maybe you’ll even spot us in your High Street, come and say hello if you do.

Many thanks to the staff of GameStation who accommodated our FGTV filming session.

We return to the park to find some more parents to ask about PEGI ratings. Martin has a young daughter who is just starting her journey into gaming, he talks about how askaboutgames.com may help him to find appropriate games for her. He also discusses how he chooses games to play himself and how the PEGI ratings help this decision.

It’s interesting to Martin talking about the different rating information (Fear, Violence etc) as a way to choose games rather than a way to avoid games. This further detail about the ratings can serve as guidance for adults as what sort of game it is they are buying.

We also look at the new PEGI 18 ratings with him, and ask him how much difference the age limit makes to his purchasing decisions. He was keen to clarify whether this is now legally enforced, and how much attention shop keepers should be giving to it — something we could obviously answer what with PEGI being legally binding for 18, 16 and 12 rated games.

Martin’s daughter (3) plays games on the iPad and has various apps on that. However, like many parents he is considering what the next gaming step might be for his family — mentioning technology like the Wii gesture controlled games and the Xbox Kinect hands-free controller that lets you control games with your body.

Like many dads who play games Martin has a console (Xbox 360 in his case) but currently only uses that on his own. He talks about choosing games based on reviews and advertising rather than purely age ratings. This is something he finds easier than buying for his daughter when you “never know if your kid’s going to like it or not” as he puts it.

We’ll track with Martin and his family as they decide how and when they will be playing games together. It will be interesting to see how the PEGI and related resources can aid this journey.

With so much choice, even video game fans can struggle to pick out a game that will be good for them to play. In families it is often left to the children to make these choices because parents aren’t interested or find the whole thing a little bewildering. But that doesn’t have to be the case.

We talked to Mum of three, Mary Emmens, in the park this week and as you can see in the video she was keen to get some help to find games for her family. Her initial instinct was to talk to someone who had kids of a similar age for a recommendation, and this is a really good first step.

Not only will other families have asked the same questions as you at some point or other, but they may have done some of the leg work to track down games that work really well for their age group. As Mary admits, she’s really not that interested in video games, so won’t naturally follow what’s good and what’s not.

Introducing Mary to askaboutgames.com we outlined how this is a place for parents to start to understand games and share their stories. The hope is that for families who don’t have someone they can ask for advice from, the site will fill that gap. It was good to hear Mary sounding interested in this discussion.

This got us on to talking about the PEGI ratings, which Mary had heard of but not used very often. Asking her how they might be improved. She asked about whether the PEGI age rating would be on the disc and cartridge as well as the box, a very good question if you loose the packaging.

With the PEGI ratings now legally enforced the PEGI age mark will also start to appear on the media as well as the box, something that Mary seemed to think we a step in the right direction.

We’ll talk more with Mary and her family in the coming weeks to see how they get on with video games and PEGI ratings as they journey into the world of gaming.

It’s always an eye opener to talk to real families about video games. This is particularly true when it comes to video game ratings and labeling. This first episode from Family Gamer TV looks at how PEGI ratings are understood and perceived by families.

At askaboutgames.com we’re keen to collaborate on this to get fresh input and feedback on how we could improve the website ready for its recent re-launch. It’s part of a process that started a few months ago when we sent out questionnaires to ask families what information and advice they needed about video games.

In this first episode it was interesting to hear the questions Vanessa had about the current ratings and her positive response to the simpler system going forward. She reflected wider feedback where BBFC badges are seen to have more legal weight than the PEGI ratings.

This isn’t a huge surprise as it is a longer standing system and has looked after the older end of the videogame ratings for some time. However, in moving to a single system PEGI was much more suited as it was tailored to videogame content specifically. Not only what the player may see in a game, but how they would interact with it and the overarching experience that creates.

The conversation made it clear we need to clarify that the 3 and 7 PEGI ratings will be advisory while the 12, 16 and 18 PEGI ratings will be legally binding. We talk more about this in our Frequently Ask Question about the penalties for selling a game to someone underage.

Vanessa also made a very good point about finding games that would be playable (as well as suitable) for her family. The PEGI ratings are a guide to the suitability of the content in a game, and not a measure of who will be able to play and enjoy it. There will be many PEGI 3 games that would expect players to by much older before they would be able to enjoy them — the Formula One 2012 3DS title used in the episode is a good example here.

Finding ways of identify good games for particular ages is something we will be looking at in the coming months on askaboutgames.com.

As you can see we went up to the Games Britannia festival with a stack of family games and our brand new website. It was a great week for us, meeting families and playing games. But more than just entertainment it was the conversations we had that really stayed with us.

We heard about how all sorts of different families, parents and children played games together. Which games worked best for them, and which had been less successful. Everyone was very happy to talk about how they played games.

Having wondered over to play the Xbox Kinect and Wii games we had on offer, it was great to see players of all ages having fun together. A couple of mum’s particularly hadn’t played video games with their kids before, and said they would do so in the future.

There was also some great father/son friendly rivalry and team-work going on with the sport games. Again it was really good to be able to talk first hand to families as they played together.

Everyone was keen to enter our competition to be a PEGI Family Gaming Ambassador, and the chance to win videogame consoles and games. Don’t worry if you didn’t make it to Games Britannia because you can still enter online via our competition page.

This can be easier said than done. To help, askaboutgames is working with advocate families who are on hand to talk openly about the games they play and what has worked best for them. With the launch of the new site we’re on the look out for new family gaming advocates.

One way we’re doing this is with a great competition looking to find the UK’s most collaborative and creative video game playing families, one of which will win the opportunity to see their video gaming family come to life as video games characters, and become PEGI Family Gaming Ambassadors.

Of those who enter, one family from England, Scotland and Wales will be selected as the finalists, each winning a games console and a selection of video games for the family to play together.

One of these three finalist families will then go on to be selected as the overall winner, and will win a day-trip to visit a UK-based video games developer and have their family transformed into video games characters by a top video games designer.

They will also be named PEGI Family Gaming Ambassadors, and have the opportunity to share their stories of playing video games together with other families and the media. What’s more, as Ambassadors, the winning family will have the opportunity to receive and test games together to be reviewed on askaboutgames.com and appear in videos to be featured on the website.

Do take a minute with your family to enter the competition. Who knows perhaps you’ll be reading your own advice and tips on these pages, or even appearing on Family Gamer TV before you know it. If you don’t want to enter the competition but have tips or stories about how you and your family plays games to get in touch.