My husband just decided he wants Santa to bring him a play station, and she is going to.

I have two questions. The first is what kind of play station? Doesn't have to be cheap. It has to be easy to use. He is a literate computer user but has a motor neuron disease that limits his mobility, and occasionally his concentration is affected in minor ways. The computer is his link with the universe now so I don't want to have to settle for an inferior play station. A handheld system is out of the question.

The second question has to do with the kinds of games available. He doesn't like shooters at all. Are adventure games and casual games available for play stations? For example, he really enjoyed several of the simpler Sherlock Holmes games that include hidden objects. However, I didn't offer him Awakened because it was gory, too complex, and both interfaces would have been too disorienting. He would have hated it.

I probably shouldn't say this but long before his illness, he didn't even get hooked on the original Myst. He was annoyingly better at solving the puzzles than I was. He just didn't like it much. Anyway, finding games he does like is difficult and at the same time increasingly important.

If I should have posted this elsewhere, moderator, please, move the post.

My grandsons (age 8 and 9) have Playstation 2. It has hand-held consoles and both boys are a whiz at them. Their thumbs fly around the controls at a fair rate of knots!!

I have played a few games on their Playstation and have found them easier to master as I frequently forget keyboard controls when playing on the PC. As far as I'm aware most if not all Playstation games are fast-paced and pretty hectic to play. I have never completed any games because I am just not fast-thinking enough and stick to the PC and games that are mainly point and click.
Hope this help somewhat!!

First, I just want to say that I really feel for you and your husband. Second, I enjoy adventure games and casual games and also console games, like the playstation games. Thirdly, and disappointely I have to say that the short answer to your question is no. There are three versions of the Playstation. Playstation 1 then 2 then 3. None of them have "pure" adventure games and as far as I know none of them have "casual" adventure games. The exception is "Escape from Monkey Island" for Playstation 2 which is an adventure game. On Playstation 3 there are games with adventure elements like "Uncharted Drakes Fortune" and "Uncharted 2 Among Thieves", which I really enjoyed playing. However, they also have alot of action and "third person" shooting. I also don't like "shooters", but there are two kinds of shooters. The difference between "first person" and "third person" shooting is that in "third person shooting" is where You the player, are able to visually see the game character's whole body and actions. "First person shooting" is how most games are made now. In first person shooting you don't see your character and is more "twitched" based gameplay. This kind of gameplay appeals mainly to younger men and not to people like me or your husband.

If your are still considering a playstation, you should get the playstation 2. Yes it is inferior to the playstation 3 and xbox 360, which are the current models of game consoles, but only Playstation 2 is "backwards compatible" with Playstation 1 games. The current Playstation 3 used to be "backwards compatible", but is not made that way anymore. May I suggest you try the "Wii". The "Wii" is the current game console made by Nintendo. It has downloadble games like "Tales of Monkey Island" and "Strong Bad" which are adventure games. Also if you try "xbox 360", the current game console by Microsoft, you can download "Wallace and Gromit" and "Sam and Max" which are also adventure games. I recently played "Axel and Pixel", which is a downloadble adventure game for the xbox 360. It was fun and had a few puzzle elements. However you may have to help your husband past the more action based levels in "Axel and Pixel" which are few.

More downloadble games are coming for the Xbox 360 and a few could likely be adventure games made by a company called "Telltale". I also have a game called "el dorado" for Playstation 1 which is kind of like an adventure game. Playstation 2 will play it and although I didn't play it yet, it seems like it would be fun.

If your husband likes hidden objects, you should stick to the computer and bigfishgames.com, which is the most trusted website for downloading hidden object games. Below is a list of some hidden object games with adventure elements that I enjoyed. I hope he will too. They are also considered to be casual games or ihogs which stands for interactive hidden object games. The games are:

The "Mystery Case files" games
The "Dream Chronicles" games
The "samanta swift" games

I can also recommend more adventure/casual type games like "Drawn: the Painted Tower" and "Nick Chase: a detective story". I'm sure other people can recommend some of their favorites.

I hope I helped in some small way.

Merry Christmas,

indyjonesfan (Doug)

There were several PC games that were ported from PC to the first version of the Playstation (PSX or PSOne). You could get Myst, Riven, Dracula Resurrection, Dracula Last Sanctuary, Discworld 1 and 2, and Broken Sword 1 and 2. Echo Night and Blazing Dragons were Playstation adventures that were never made for PC. If you lived in Europe, you could also get Amerzone and a lot of the Cryo games (like Versailles) for Playstation, but these weren't released in the US or Canada. Most Playstation games are action-oriented, but a lot of the Japanese RPG's are turn-based and don't depend on quick reflexes so much as they depend on patience. Also cheat discs like the Action Replay, Game Shark, and Codebreaker CD's allowed even uncoordinated users to play action-type games. However getting these games these days means getting used copies off ebay and Amazon sellers. And if you're using a cheat disc, you may have to search for a "black label" version of the game because cheats don't always work on the reissue versions. Games made for the original Playstation don't look that good on a bigscreen TV because they are very low resolution. Some modern TV's won't even display resolutions that low. And most Playstation adventure games suffer from being sluggish because they play off the disc instead of playing off a hard drive.

There weren't many adventure games made for PS2 in the US. There were Echo Night Beyond (PS2-only) and Escape from Monkey Island and Myst III: Exile (ports of the PC games). If you lived in Europe, there were a few ports of PC games like Syberia 1 and 2. There were also some "close to adventure" survival horrors like Silent Hill 2 (on easy settings). But once again cheat discs are the way to go if you don't have the coordination for action games.

As far as I know, the PS3 has only one adventure game made for it -- Heavy Rain. Heavy Rain is made by the same people who made Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit and Omikron: The Nomad Soul, so it may have some type of "action" in it. Since there are no cheat discs made for the PS3, I've never had any interest in buying one because there aren't enough non-action games to be worth the price. If you want a current generation console, a Wii or XBox 360 would be a better choice because the PS3 essentially has NOthing for the non-action gamer other than being a Blueray movie player.

indyjonesfan knows more about current consoles than I do. My interest in consoles evaporated when they prevented cheat discs from being made for them -- and essentially excluded everyone with clumsy fingers from playing the bulk of their games.

Instead of getting a console, you might want to consider getting a TV that is capable of receiving input from a computer. That way you can enjoy computer games on a big screen TV.

I made a quick plan change and gave him my CDs of Remedy, East Side Story, Then There Were None, Ravenhearst, and a few other assorted HOGs and IHOGs. He liked Sherlock Holmes: the Lost Cases but by and large HOGs bore him, and many wonderful adventure games are too depressing or too tricky.

Thanks for the help in avoiding a terrible trip down the chimney where I would doubtless have wound up lodged until Carol Reed got me out by finally locating the correct screen with an active cursor over the flue.

Merry Christmas.