Continuing our review of online games for parents, today I am reviewing Silk Road. This is a great game for fifth graders and up. It has much of the same charisma that Runescape has but the graphics will really WOW you. This is a 3-D game and is very advanced in appearance.
Kids can go on quests, link to other guests and talk and barter with them, visit new towns, ride horses and other animals including elephants, and join guilds. As the game is more advanced, so are the players. I would not recommend the game for kids under fifth grade, they should stick with Runescape. You will find many teens, high schoolers, and even some adults playing Silk Road.
The time to download the game is steep, typically several hours over DSL, so save it to a network and then install it on multiple computers if you have more that one child who is interested in playing.
Very similar to Silk Road is Voyage Century which I will review later this week but is about boating, maritime trade, and pirates.
In Silk Road, if you abhor violence, you’d better stay away from this game. The violence is not terrible, but kids can battle others and particularly kill monsters and bears. They wield swords and shields and daggers. I have carefully reviewed the amount of violence and I have a low tolerance when it comes to gore and I have approved this game for play by my kids. However, I have found that my kids still gravitate to Runescape based on their age. If you have older kids, you should check out Silk Road but you may want to set time limits for the amount of play. Using a product like ComputerTime (which is what I have installed) will allow you to control the amount of play time that your kids can have on this great online game.