Celebrity Celebrity Family Celebrity Kids Neil Patrick Harris Says His 11-Year-Old Twins 'Whoop Me Uniformly' at Video Games Neil Patrick Harris talks to PEOPLE about teaming up with Nintendo and how his new partnership has "gained great brownie points" with his 11-year-old twins Gideon and Harper By Georgia Slater Georgia Slater Georgia Slater is a staff editor on the Parents team at PEOPLE. She has been working at PEOPLE since 2018. Her work has previously appeared in USA Today and Washington Life Magazine. People Editorial Guidelines Published on November 10, 2021 12:00PM EST Photo: Nintendo When it comes to video games, Neil Patrick Harris' kids have him beat. Luckily, the actor, 48, is teaming up with Nintendo, so he can continue to hone his gaming skills alongside his 11-year-old twins, daughter Harper Grace and son Gideon Scott, whom he shares with husband David Burtka, 46. "I thought that the older I got, the more nuanced my skill set at say, Super Mario Kart would be, and I think that's not true. I think the synapses must slow down, or my children are just very, very skilled because they whoop me pretty much uniformly," he tells PEOPLE. "[It's] demoralizing, but I'll take it, and watch them laugh at me." Harris says he's been a "fan of Nintendo since I was a child myself" and that he "never imagined that, decades later, as a parent myself" he would be asked to team up with the company. The dad of two recently spent a day on set with his family trying out the new Nintendo Switch game Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain, out Dec. 3, which he says gained him "great brownie points with my kids, who love video games." Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Neil Patrick Harris Celebrates 1,000th Instagram Post as His Twins Tease Him for Social Media Use "It's been a cool thing to have now 11-year-old kids because it is allowing me to get to play video games again and not have it feel like a distraction. In fact, that was the main reason why we wanted to be a part of this, to be super-honest," he says. "This particular game is fun to play, and we can play competitively against each other, and you can adjust your own individual experience levels. So my adult brain can still compete with Gideon and Harper's fifth-grade brains, and we can play simultaneously, so that was really cool," Harris adds. "It was very exciting to play all day because we got a sneak peek at a game that we're going to be playing a lot this holiday." Harris also admits that he uses the Nintendo Switch as "a barter" tool at home. PHOTO: Nintendo PHOTO: Nintendo "Once [the kids] get some scholastic-ing done, then they get to do some Nintendo Switch-ing, and they're fine with that," he shares. The actor also opened up about his "amazing" kids and how he can't believe how fast they're growing up. "It happens faster than the people that say that it happens so fast," he says. "I'm always their biggest champion and inspired when they push themselves in any way. So, I'm very proud of both of them."