Latest Gaming Articles
A previous anti-gaming poster campaign by the CDC - ''In the interests of a healthy America.''
A team from the United States' CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) recently conducted a study - to be published in the October 2009 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine - that reckons that those that play video games are fatter, more depressed and more reliant on the internet than those that don't.
Like its slothful depiction of video gamers, however, it was a half-arsed study with lazy conclusions that weren't put into any meaningful context. I can conduct a study right now that will prove that this CDC study is faulted and that the team in charge of it don't know how to conduct proper studies and/or conclude logical results from their studies.
Firstly, the research was conducted in the Seattle-Tacoma area "because its internet usage level is the highest within the US." Though the logic in this isn't expressly stated (either in the study or by the BBC's coverage), it is inferred that they see a correlation between internet usage (and subsequently media uptake) and video gaming. Given the close ties between the video games and the internet (the latter being the largest growing and soon potentially dominant platform for the former), this is an understandable link, but if you're trying to draw conclusions from a study that should be relevant to the nation as a whole, it's a pretty fundamental that you choose a sample of people that are representative of the nation as a whole. By choosing the area richest in internet users - and not an area with a more average internet usage level that is typical of the entire nation - you're immediately adding one big caveat to any of you're findings before you've begun. Not that the CDC would acknowledge this, mind.... - [read more]
The Nintendo Wii is selling like bags of sweets in Gary Glitter's local cornershop and part of its appeal is the barrier to entry - or, rather, the lack of. You don't need to know how to use analogue sticks, you don't need to know the difference between the 'right bumper' and the 'right trigger' or what "turbo fire" could possibly mean - you can just wave around a "remote" (which sounds a bit more familiar than 'controller' - you know all about remote controls don't you, you lazy Westerner - and a little less euphemistic than 'joypad'). Playing a tennis game? Just swing the remote just like you do in real life see people on the TV doing in real life! Not only does this expose a much wider, casual market to the Wii that hadn't bothered with CoMpUtEr GaMeZ before, but with this new demographic came new game opportunities: casual games, for casual gamers.... - [read more]
In March this year Microsoft announced that it would drop its entire Encarta encyclopaedia range. CD-ROMs and DVDs were pulled off shelves in June and all associated websites are to be shut down in October.
To be honest I had no idea Encarta still existed in any form. And it doesn't seem like any one else really did either; Wikipedia has a 97% share on online queries to encyclopaedias, with Encarta at just 1.27%. Poor old Encarta. When the Internet started throwing a big knowledge party of its own, Encarta tried to compete with flashing lights and trendy music; ultimately trying to push forward the multimedia advantages of the software. And why shouldn't they? I fucking loved Encarta. Everything about it felt like home. It was cool, sexy, and it had VIDEOS and SOUNDS! There was something comforting about seeing the title screen when you started it up. Like coming home from a long trip; you were welcomed with familiar colours, shapes and sounds that filled you with a warm and fuzzy feeling of comfort. You're safe now, Encarta's here for you.... - [read more]
A screenshot from action/adventure game Tokyo Bus Guide.
I'm not sure what first attracted me to Tokyo Bus Guide. It was probably the idea of speeding around Tokyo with the lives of 30 fragile Japanese children in my greasy, impractically small gamer-hands. It was probably the idea of observing beautifully rendered cityscapes littered with 35 million little people all going about their day, completely oblivious that there was every chance I would drive up behind them and run them over (to the chorus of 30 screaming children).... - [read more]
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