Trying to find more family time together by limiting your mobile phone usage is a good thing, and experts increasingly agree that it’s important to establish family ground rules for phone usage. Family tech expert Andy Robertson and Tesco Mobile’s new contract for mobile phone usage is designed to help families set healthy limits. It’s a great way to increase the amount of time you have to spend together, particularly as there are absolutely loads of brilliant new family-minded games, films and TV to enjoy on a night in this autumn. Here is our pick of the best.
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
Game, PS VR / Oculus Rift / HTC Vive / Samsung Gear VR
Strapping on a VR headset sounds like a fairly efficient way off blotting out one’s family entirely, but there are a few games designed with social, on-couch multiplayers in mind. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes puts the headset-wearer in the reinforced boots of a bomb disposal technician. They must then describe said explosive to their teammates, who issue increasingly tricky instructions to disarm it from a manual. Cue much filmic “the red wire!” “which red wire?!” bickering and a fair bit of genuine tension. With VR headsets now affordable to those without hereditary peerages, this could be a fine reason to invest.
Monster Hunt
Film
You could settle for the latest po-faced superhero smash-em-up that plops from Marvel’s blockbuster-peristalsis machine, but it doesn’t hurt to go off-piste with your movie-watching from time to time. And Hollywood is far from the only place producing epic family movies. Spirited Away or Howl’s Moving Castle – any of Hayao Miyazaki’s oeuvre, really – offer just the right balance of whimsy and menace, but for sheer epic scale, try Raman Hui’s charmingly weird action-comedy, and its barmy $150m sequel (Monster Hunt 2). The plot about monsters and humans happily coexisting until they don’t is basically nonsense, but you get a lot of bang, fart jokes and spectacle for your buck.
Wynona Earp
TV show, Netflix / SYFY
Think Buffy on a budget and you’re in the right area. Wild west moustache enthusiast Wyatt Earp was in fact a demon hunter, you see. His curse – the curse of having to shoot demons in the middle of the face – was then passed down through his heirs, until it landed in the lap of Wynona, a wisecracking, leather-jacketed ex-juvie tearaway with a penchant for booze and thumping people. The show’s tone is on the mature end, but is light enough for most young teens, keeping its scares, sexual references and profanity just on the correct side of Mary Whitehouse. It’s a ton of knockabout, demon-slaying fun.
Pandemic
Board game, 2-4 players
There is nothing – nothing – more certain to trigger a weeks-long Christmas-ruining family row than a “friendly” game of Monopoly. But the award-winning Pandemic is not your classic, dog-eat-dog board game – it places its emphasis on cooperation, rather than crushing your enemies before sullying their honour with a thumb-and-finger L on the forehead. The setup, admittedly, is bleak: four diseases have ravaged the Earth, and it’s the players’ job to work together to find the cures. You may just save the world. At the very least, by leaving Monopoly languishing in the cupboard where it belongs, you’ll definitely save your family harmony.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
TV show, Netflix
The Lonely Island’s Andy Samberg is Jake Peralta, an affably man-childish detective in the fictional 99th precinct’s weird melting pot of eccentric coworkers, pop culture references and inept crooks. The gags come thick and fast (Google “Brooklyn Nine-Nine I Want It That Way” for an idea of what to expect); the characters are all lovable and, refreshingly, kind; and content and tone never ventures beyond 12A. Plus, the majestic Terry Crews is in it. Oh, did we mention it’s funny? Well it is. Very.
Mario Party Switch
Game, Nintendo Switch
For anyone unfamiliar with the series, this is essentially a virtual board game whose cutesy wickle graphics disguise a brutal crucible of tactics, skill and white-hot rage, as you battle through its dozens of infuriating, competitive mini-games until a winner is finally crowned. You will laugh. You may cry. Be warned, though, you’ll probably also swear.
Lost in Space
TV show, Netflix
A Netflix original that seems to have been buried by the critical adoration achieved by some of its stablemates, Lost in Space is a beautiful, mega-budget 4K TV production aimed squarely at the family market. The Robinson family are part of an expedition to find humanity a home beyond the stars, until all manner of problems leave them ... yep, you guessed it. Far superior to the iffy 90s film, this reboot delivers family drama, a delectably evil baddie in Parker Posey’s Dr Smith, and a giant robot saying: “Danger, Will Robinson!” And, crucially, Matt LeBlanc is nowhere to be seen.
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