Well I would imagine that situation would cause a child to age more quickly than one should. But again, most children don't (and shouldn't) go through what you did.

At age six I was still watching Sesame Street. I would not have been able to deal with Fallout or any game like it.

I remember getting freaked out by Super-Mario 64 on occasion.

It is definitely the exception to the rule, I pretty much confirm that every day at school. I think its safe to say that only a small number of fourteen year olds would truly understand this game, but again, there are still exceptions. For example, Cloudstrife's statements are spot on from what I understand of human psychology, but that doesn't mean it applies to everyone, just the majority of people. I guess what I'm getting at is that I feel that I have a good understanding of this game and the concepts it presents, while my actual age is lower than the 16 mark. Perhaps you guys don't think so, and perhaps I don't truly understand the game, but from what I've seen I understand everything about it just as well as everybody else despite my age being lower.

Yeah, well I usually go with, "[censored] happens" and get on with my life. I've lived through it and it's made me stronger.

My mistake.

I'm sorry to hear that you went through what you went through.

Kudos to you then and good luck. I can't imagine living in a household like that, nor do I really want to.

What happened during your childhood would most definitely throw you into mentally maturing much sooner than normal, so I think in your situation it isn't at all far fetched that you were in the "experience" phase of life at age seven.

Tycho did point out one main point. There are people, even this day in first class countries, who are young & forced to work. That being said, they grow up quicker than they should have. The bottom line is simple, there are people in the world were age means nothing for them to be able to understand what is going on around them.

But it does not stop there. There are people who can excel in certain areas & remain lacking in others at young ages. That would not stop them from understanding what this game is about simply due to their age.

It's a funny thing, but you don't know that you don't know until you learn what you didn't know. If you know what I mean.

When I was young I was fairly advanced (no, not a genius, I just grew up in a house full of academics). I was reading books like The Chronicles of Narnia when I was 4-5, and started reading authors like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky when I was 11-12. At the time, I felt like I had a good command of the material and was pretty full of myself. I went back to books like Crime and Punishment when I was in undergraduate school and was amazed by how much of it had gone completely over my head when I was in junior high. If I read them again in 10 years, I'll probably pick up on more stuff I missed. Now Fallout New Vegas isn't War and Peace, but it's certainly not without its complexities.

Personally, I think a relatively nuanced game like New Vegas would be a good exercise in critical and moral thinking for 13+ year olds. But at that age it's not all that likely they'll fully comprehend the narrative nuances. And there is a big difference between the developmental stage of your average 13 year old and your average 8 year old, who almost certainly would not be able to process all (or even much) of it.

But adolescence is typically characterized by arrogance, ego centrism and obstinate willfulness, so you can't always count on a teen to even consider that they might not "get it".

Then see it as a younger person reading an more advanced book than the majority of their age group can Cloud. After all, this game is basically like a book. Only each decision causes you to turn to a different page.

Oh, I'm fine with 13+ year olds playing it, I'd even encourage it (unless they were unusually sensitive to violence). It's thought provoking for a video game. I just believe that only negatives would come of kids under 10-11 playing it. There could be exceptions to that, but they would be too rare to merit consideration when setting any kind of "guidelines".

i agree, FO:NV dose contain alot of mature content.

This, basically. Fallout 3 is pretty clearly inferior to New Vegas imo, but that's only because FNV is such an amazing game. I really enjoyed finding and reading the little bits and pieces of the past. Though I wouldn't go so far as to agree with the article that it's a superlative history/archaeology sim. Personally I would have dug Fallout 3 more if it was set fifty to a hundred years after the apocalypse. There were too many parts that didn't make sense for me to be completely immersed in the setting.

One thing that does make it seem more for kids was that six is markedly missing in FO3. I mean, there was the Black Widow perk I guess, and then there was that horny Russian (why does he have a Russian accent?) and his lovers. I don't recall any other instance six plays any sort of role. I'm not saying make a porm game but come on. By contrast New Vegas has straight six, homosixual six, six with hokers, six with old hokers, ghoul and robot fetishists, six slavery, ra-pe..... Does it make the Mojave a particularly randy place? No, but it does make it seem more real, not to mention mature.

EDIT: Forgot about Nova. But still.

And I should have read the rest of the thread first. Oops.