I guess that I hadn't made it completely clear what I was looking for. There were some good suggestions here, but I am not so sure about offering up first person shooters...lol

My friend has heard of specific games, specifically geared towards seniors. Meaning they were created for them, and could be played on current consoles (or on a laptop). That was more what I was looking for. My searches through the net have not turned up anything as of yet.

--Ryan (three_ster)

Okay, a couple things I want to throw out here. Sorry if these don't really answer your question three_ster, but I hope you're at least getting some interesting information.

The problem we're having here is that we're assuming "senior citizens" are one homogenous group. A general definition of "senior citizen" is anyone 65 years of age and older. That is millions of people in the U.S.. It's practically impossible to generalize and say that something is good for senior citizens or liked by senior citizens because it's just too large a group.

In addition the group of "senior citizens" includes people with a wide range of skill, interest, and ability. You're talking about people all the way from full physical ability (I know 70 year old martial artists who can do somet things that the average 18 year old can't) to those who are severly limited by injury, sickness, or disease. There are some seniors who could easily pick up a controller and play Halo 2 alongside any of us, and there are some who physically couldn't lift a controller. And of course there are ability, skill, and interest levels everywhere between the extremes.

My girlfriend is currently pursuing a community and counseling psychology licensing program with a goal of working with the elderly population. She volunteers weekly at an assisted living community (that's not the proper term, and I forget exactly what the proper term is). Most of the people she sees are in wheelchairs and have very limited abilities. I was considering my suggestions for a target audience that didn't have full ability but who weren't severely impaired, either. I think this is probably the ideal demographic to target because games can be excellent therapy, and if someone with mild impairment can play a game then someone with no impairment can play too, but that doesn't necessarily work the other way around.

In fact, now that I think about it, for her externship my girlfriend has to develop a program, and I'm going to suggest video game therapy to her.

One thing to get out of the way is that seniors are not stupid. A lot of people treat the elderly like they treat children; they talk to them in funny voices and humor them, or don't have time or patience when they're hard to understand. While some elderly people have advanced physical and/or mental disabilities that do impair their mental abilities, many, if not most, function perfectly well at an adult level. I'm not saying that anyone here has shown an "elderly are dumb" stereotype but it's common and an easy trap. The point here is that we shouldn't write off experiences because we don't think a senior would "understand" it.

As for accepting new technology, again the population is huge. There is a wide variance. For every senior who is afraid to use a TV remote, there's one who knows more about computers than any of us. Keep in mind that someone who is 65 today was 50 in 1990; that means they were middle-aged when computers started becoming extremely popular in the home. The people who originally developed the Internet as we know it and coded for early computers are considered senior citizens today. The only way to know if a senior would accept or reject technology is to try it. Specifically, technology that is particularly designed for seniors will be much more successful; I think this is why the original post asked for games specifically designed for seniors.

continued...

As for the specific case of Guitar Hero; it does have a familiar controller and relatively simple interface; however, even though the guitar controller is familiar, it's still fairly complicated. It probably wouldn't be a great coice for a first-time experience. However, plenty of seniors are guitar players themselves, so I wouldn't rule it out completely, and in fact it could be an excellent introduction for a senior who is musically inclined ro who already plays guitar. I do agree that in most cases it probably wouldn't be appropriate.

I guess what I really wanted to get across is that making a blanket statement that seniors don't adapt well to new technology or new experiences is just ignorant. Especially when you're talking about someone who isn't living independently, these people are dying (sorry for the bad choice of words) for new things to do. For a short time, my girlfriend was helping with a dance therapy group session that was held weekly for about half a dozen seniors. Most of them had pretty severe motor impairments and were in wheelchairs. But my god, they were so happy to see my girlfriend every week and when I visited, they were positively ecstatic to see someone new. If you sat down to play a video game with one of these people, they would absolutely love it, not so much for the game but for the fact that you're sitting there and spending some time interacting with them.

Okay, so no, I don't know of any games specifically designed for seniors. But I do think there are lots of existing games that could prove interesting enough for many seniors to try them. To be honest, I don't think card games and the like would be a great idea, because one of the reasons seniors play cards to simply to have some social interaction. They would probably wonder why they should play a card game on a screen instead of with other people in the flesh. Just a guess.

Three_ster, I hope you find what you're looking for and I hope some of the suggestions here help you out. Would you care to be more specific about the senior(s) in question for whom you're looking for games?

Quit yer bickerin'!

Just buy the old folks a deck of cards, some poker chips, and the board games Scrabble and Monopoly.

Maybe some of 'em would like a golf game? Probably not with all the bells 'n whistles of a Tiger Woods, but how about ole' Microsoft Golf? Not to generalize but with how many people play golf, some of them probably miss golf. Maybe Virtua Tennis?

Sorry if this doesn't help but they probably have their fill of Bingo and the like already.