RENT

I picked up Generator Rex: Agent of Providence with the thought that despite it being for the 10-12 year old set, my five year old son might find it entertaining. I should caveat the rest of this review with the fact that we do not watch the show and had never heard of the series, but I am always up for a new game.

If you, like me, were unaware of the cartoon, here is the general idea: Nanites have infected everything and everyone on the planet, and they randomly mutate creatures. Some creatures manage to deal with the mutations and use them (such as Rex), but most go insane and become monsters. Rex can control his mutations and use them to neutralize the monsters and their mutations. He works for an organization called Providence, and they fight against the E.V.O.s (Exponentially Variegated Organisms). The main enemy is a bad guy named Van Kleiss.

The game is a basic hack and slash with a side scroll. You learn how to use all kinds of different mutations for different monsters and scenarios, such as jumping high or smashing through barriers. As you progress through the levels, you unlock new mutations you can use. When you kill monsters or break objects, you collect nanites that you can use to upgrade your weapons. Most level are a series of mobs followed one after another with an ending boss. There were two levels that did not follow that format: one was a motorcycle ride with a monkey E.V.O. and another that involved a ride on rock tablets through a tunnel while being chased by a huge boulder.

And that is when I quit the game. First, a boulder chasing you? Maybe a 10-12 year old would not understand why I found that irritating, but I am old enough to consider it a bit of a rip off. Second, the level was nigh unplayable for me. It involved a lot of timed jumps, and these are not my strong suit. I kept dying, and my frustration level kept going up. My husband took about five attempts to get through the FIRST section, but neither of us managed to get through the next one. Third, after an initial sense of awe and wonder, my five year old grew quickly bored with the game. He likes jumping and racing, so it had little to no appeal to him (although he did like me killing the monsters and perhaps I should rethink what a good idea this was). He would beg me to play, but he would wander off more quickly each time. Fourth, maybe it was just the DS controls, but I found myself relying on only one or two different weapons (I do not think I even unlocked them all) because switching back and forth required not only the buttons but the stylus and touchscreen. It was overly complicated for what should have been a fun, simple game.

Enemies come in waves monsters with swords and axes come at you on all sides. The character is difficult to move and the control stick does not work as fluidly as I am used to from other games with virtual joystick. Frequently he is being jumped from behind because of sluggish controls and an inability to automatically turn to face the attackers. You have two basic type of attacks on tap for the right hand. A quick attack and a heavy attack. Beneath the health bar is a heat meter, and when it is filled a greater attack power can be summoned. He sort of grunts and squats and force waves emanate off him as though he needs a dose of Gas-X.

The backgrounds and the hordes that you have to clear all all a barrage of garish colors all smashed together. You’ll see fuchsia lady bug swarms, heaps of poison spiting green ooze and tall purple crystals dripping with the turquoise waters of fountains. It has a funny over the top art style interpretation that has great resolution.

As each wave comes at you it gets bigger. Thankfully the areas expand too. There are various rewards. Some are straight forward treasure chests. You can keep doing battle until your inventory runs out of power ups and health potions.

You accumulate three types of medium of exchange, you have your experience points. And coins and gems. Killing gleans the experiences points and another factor which is soul remains. The soul remains are a multiplyer you earn by surviving successive waves. Soul remains are transformed at a ‘hearth’ into coins. Coins are used at the shop on new items. Experience points level you up.

Gems are the currency used the freemium currency. Those are earned when clicking ads, watching videos or by in App store purchase. They try to entice you with the better gear armor and weapons, buffs for your character and other bonus deals. Gems can be converted into coin but not vice-versa.

Like other Glu games it keeps annoyingly asking me to log into to Facebook. I don’t want to. I wish it would stop asking me every time. My scores for this game aren’t that important that I want to post them. I’m not likely to want to invite anyone to play through Facebook either, but if someone wanted to, it is more than available. You can play with a friend, or take their character with you on a mission. What I found even more irritating about this aspect of the game is that they repeatedly show a female barbarian warrior avatar with robust cleavage imploring you to add friends. I am wondering if she is playable in the multiplayer? I haven’t found it said anyplace that she is playable though.

Eternity Warriors is a good mindless diversion. It is brightly lit and you don’t have to do much except for tapping the attack buttons. It is a good one for taking up your time while you are doing something else or waiting around and you want something that doesn’t require your full attention. Eternity Warriors best asset is that it is free.

In Companions there are two game modes, which are the quick play ‘Single Map’ mode, and the Campaign mode. Each of the members of the four person team has a little backstory. The controls are simple taps on the characters and then a tap on the enemies to attack. Each party member has three special skills that they can equip at a time. They are limited by cool down times as you would normally see.

Graphics are limited. It’s very pixelish. You don’t actually see your characters in three dimensions. They look like little icons, or pac men. I’m not one for retro style gaming, it might be a love it or hate it type of choice of tastes. I prefer the newest most cutting edge in graphics and gameplay. The old days don’t hold any charm for me. Also the characters are so tiny and hard to see, it is difficult to know what they are doing. For the amount of graphics that are here, it might as well be a text adventure.

There were a few things that bugged me with this game. Annoyingly your characters will not attack correctly unless they are in range of the enemies and facing the right direction it’s a pet peeve of mine. I thought we were done with that old problem, now that we’re using iPads. I don’t know what they were going for here when they have competition like Order and Chaos by Gameloft to contend with. The group formation and party-wide commands do make the game act more like a strategy game, or even a puzzle game than an RPG.

Another problem is that the four of them are always are always static Minotaur, Female Elf, Human, and Dwarf and are not customizable. There are three classes to choose from for each of the the races in the four member party that changes up their stats, but still not enough to make it interesting, or to keep up with other iOS games. This one still needs some work because when you tap a particular character and nothing happens it leads to unnecessary deaths.

Companions has an inventory system, with randomized drops falling you can collect loot. Although there isn’t any shop, yet anyways. There is a way to control time in the game which is different. Called a ‘tactical pause’ it stops the game while you set up. The time is limited, but it provides a work around for the other troubles in the game.

Though Companions isn’t a perfect game it will appeal to those who like strategy games and don’t mind a challenge. If you go into it without expectations you may find it to your liking. It has the retro ambiance to it that some people really like.

BUY

If swords and sorcery is what you crave, then Hunted: The Demon’s Forge has all the qualities you might be looking for. It is a third person action RPG published by Bethesda and running on an Unreal Engine. It has a fine pedigree. It doesn’t happen too often but there weren’t many disappointments with it either. It is a pretty seamless third person action adventure with easily accessed RPG elements. You can play as your choice of two mercenaries, a guy Caddoc and E’lara, a hot female elf.

In the summer we need more games like this. It has two person co-op on the one console. You can sit down with your cousin, at that rustic family cottage on Cape Cod which has no internet service, and actually have some fun. We need two person co-op for date nights, and just for the congeniality of playing games with actual people on your side. I enjoyed Hunted’s single-player experience over online co-op.

Is E’lara short for or ‘elf Lara’? I wouldn’t complain about that comparison too much. Since the svelt E’lara can do some acrobatic moves like her human name sake, and she is a tremendous new female character, but she can’t jump. No jump button in a game is short hand programming. Even if developers had some misguided notion of justification for that, at least by the time the game got to QC someone should have dissuaded them from putting out a game with an elf who can’t jump.

E’lara makes up for the slight by being very talented in other ways. She has the ability to cast spells by hand or enchant them onto her weapons. She is excellent with the bow, and they can be set up to light on fire which comes in handy on many of the missions. Sometimes when you have enough points she will give your camera a ride along on an arrow as it plummets into an enemy in slow motion.

E’lara isn’t limited to ranged weapons, she can hack and slash with swords, although her slight figure does put her at a disadvantage. Health potions and magic potions as well as gold provide the drops. The potions fit on E’lara’s Belt so she can’t keep too many of them. You also collect crystals that are desired by a sorceress character played by Lucy Lawless. She gives out magic upgrades and mixes metaphors to go with them.

Up to now probably the best ever western style RPG on PS3 was Oblivion. Very few games since have compared in overall completeness to that game. Though it is now dated, in many ways it became the standard that carved in stone what gamers would expect in a console RPG. The amount of depth and attention to detail that was pioneered in that game has yet to be matched in the genre.

This year I played several new RPG’s, all of them had some of the qualities that might make a great game, but none of them had all of them. In each game, there was at least one element that was glaringly omitted. Especially lacking would be the department of including playable female avatars. It seemed as though every one of them failed by using some sort of odd compromise, instead of having character customization and playable female avatars. These misguided games would come up with just about any pretense, include a female, but then exclude her either from game play entirely, or to give her an odd job instead.

The RPG I reviewed most recently was Two Worlds, where you couldn’t play as a female character. You could see female NPC’s, talk to them and listen to them, they were more interesting than the main character. Plenty of space must have been left over on that disk because the map was practically a blank too. Then there was Enslaved where the female character had a male character on a “leash”. That game portrayed that she couldn’t make it without a male. Many new RPG’s have been giving a confusing message about gender and power. Dragon Age 2 had a mixture of males and females in playable roles as well as in leading roles in the story. But you were pretty much stuck in terms of the navigating through the game, it was claustrophobic. You were kept inside a castle keep for most of the game. And the outdoor missions were entirely linear without any chance of straying off a very pointedly defined path.

The better ones have been Mass Effect 2 and Fallout New Vegas. Then coming up, presumably will be Skyrim on the game of the year expectancy track. ME2 and New Vegas were excellent, but were not in the tradition of Baldur’s Gate and Dungeons and Dragons. Now a new game that has potential has finally appeared with Hunted: Demon’s Forge which lands at the top of the heap so far this year.

It doesn’t have character creation which is a lost opportunity. It is forgivable because the two mercs it does have are fun and are more than one dimensional. It does do its homage to those in the board rooms who are were nervous about putting out a game where you are “stuck” playing as a female character the whole way through, while at the same time giving her enough power and agility to solo it through the game herself in the single player experience. Yet, it does a good job of giving you that warrior princess who makes it against all the odds kind of experience that many of us enjoy.

The story is a long rescue mission of Townsfolk and their mayors across the land, who have been disappearing as kidnapping victims of some deranged despots. You will cut them down and release them by various means depending upon their dire circumstances when you find them.

The two mercenaries E’lara and Caddoc will pick up gold during their travels also. The tone is dark, there is plenty of blood and death. The bodies or survivors that you can see have been through slavery, torture and there and human sacrifice. The dungeons really are what they should be, it is very gritty and gruesome. The game is sombre without any preaching, it is mature without being slutty, and the warfare is tastefully violent.

The maps are severely lacking. But that is one of the few flaws. They have cut away so much of the clutter that you find in RPG’s and made it sleek like a slim archer. Most of the time when games do attempt to bang genres together it doesn’t work and it just seems so obvious they have skipped some things. However this game seems to get quite a few things right for a change. The game mechanics for the spells, and the targeting with the bows is excellent.

The pale visaged enemies this time are mainly undead such as skeletons, or the Wargar who are zombie-like but have become that way from drinking a mercury-type substance which has caused them to turn. There are also minotaurs, and even a few dark lords. The bosses can be interesting looking, and some have spells of their own. Those are good times to use E’lara’s blasting powers from a distance. If you are quick enough in between a boss battle and a cut scene you can grab their rare dropped weapons. I enjoyed the inclusion of the old weapon racks which you can hack down to yield randomly occurring weapons. The game gives up enough loot and items to balance the avarice of collecting bounty with the speed at which this game moves. You aren’t going to be bogged down by flicking through menus forever. Everything has a place, and usually it’s mapped right to the controller buttons. At first some of the placement of the functions doesn’t seem right. Once you are used to it, you can quickly switch from arrows, to swords, to fireballs, or engage a health potion or toggle other commands easily.

Hunted has as one of it’s many strengths the cinematic atmosphere. The environments are very well rendered. The twigs and branches look very realistic. The houses, barns and other structures have well detailed looking wood. Instead of having graphics that look like smeared peanut butter everyplace the way scenery has looked in other games this year. You do get the feeling of walking through dilapidated towns just after monsters have been through them. There is fire and smoke, the floor boards creak under foot. Even though it is linear, it still packs in many surprises, the paths twist and wind around intricately. It isn’t all entirely predictable.

Unfortunately not being able to jump is usually a sign that you are in for a very linear experience, as is true here. There is only one specific way to get through the areas. You may wander, map-less through underground mazes, finding treasure rooms and sparkling crystals, but ultimately there is only one way out, and to solve the mystery that you came there to resolve. Still, no map is unforgivable, who let that get by? The glitter ball that is deployed by a downward click of the L3 button leaves a trail for you to follow. But it isn’t always right. It can only tell you certain things such as how to go back to the beginning of the check point. It’s clever enough to the point where it almost works. Almost. Basic gaming 101, map.

The two characters can be switched in game if you feel the need to call upon Caddoc’s melee abilities, or E’lara’s marksmanship prowess. Midnight purple crystals send up a beam of dark light, as a beacon to those who would swap genders.The two banter back and forth giving a few entertaining lines. If you listen closely they crack insults on each other and the townspeople.

E’lara’s bow and arrow mechanics and the spell system were very competent. Making it a pleasure to get in there and shoot the bow. Well made bow sets can rival the satisfaction from virtual guns in a game. It is a welcome change from shooters. Looking at E’lara’s cute figure in that, shall we say, ‘interesting’ battle costume and tattoos is certainly an improvement from looking at the back of some burly guy avatar wearing a baggy jumpsuit and dirty armor.

Sure there are plenty of flaws to go over. The fun factor in the game stands up to it anyways. The lightening spells look bright blue white and they ark and crackle. Making a boss with annoying habits explode is very satisfying. Special effects, shinny lighting, glowing weapons, big kills and explosions, helps you to get over it when the cover system sticks your character to a wall when you want to run and shoot.

The co-operative AI between the characters is supportive and intuitive. You would never expect a computer controlled character to be as sympathetic to the gamer. When playing as E’lara Caddoc took up the slack, he’d shoot his crossbow, take on a few guys with his big sword, or toss her a healing potion when she would have had an otherwise untimely death. Your character can die, and you would be returned to the last check point. The game frequently auto saves, and there are walls and gates in between compartmented levels.

Hunted looks stunning, it has more than one palatte and it isn’t drab. There are many vibrantly coloured areas and the locations change up. There are jungles, country acres and not just one run down town and dungeon after another. There is lots of browns used in the palette which has caused me to shoot Caddoc more than once. The black, gray and brown can make it hard to distinguish who is who in a battle. If you can get up to a higher vantage point with E’lara that changes. The lighting changes along with where you are.

Hunted: The Demon’s Forge is an enjoyable enough game. It will be interesting to see if InXile will take this idea and run with it an enhance what is all ready a solid game, which is a contender to stand up against some other more well known franchises. It is worth it to pick up since it has multiplayer to try as well as several hours of story mode gameplay. It also has level customization, so you can check out some of your own dungeon-ing skills, giving it more long term value.

How to save money this week on Games

Hi Angels! It’s Carmageden in Los Angeles, but I hear the traffic is actually quite smooth. Must be because everyone is staying at home playing video games! If you are all caught up and looking for some new options this is the place! I’ll tell you what games are to be released this week and where you can find sales!

New Games this week
Captain America: Super Soldier (DS,360, Wii,PS3)
Call of Juarez The Cartel (PS3, 360)
Smurfs (DS)
Smurfs Dance Party (Wii)
Just Dance Summer Party (Wii)

Where to Save Money on Games
1. Toys R US
Celebrating Christmas in July, so lots of great overall deals
Halo Construction sets are buy 1 get 50% off second
Save $25 with Transformers and DS Lite bundle
$89.99 for all music bundles
Free $10 gift card with purchase of one of the following or free $40 gift card with purchase of two of the following:
LA Noire, LEGO Pirates of the Carribean,Duke Nukem Forever, Cars 2, Harry Potter, Green Lantern, Red Faction

2. Best Buy
50% off select games with purchase of Just Dance Summer edition
Smurfs dance party, any of the Just Dance games, Michael Jackson experience.
Tour 2 $19.99
Marvel vs Capcom 3 $29.99
Dirt 3 $39.99
Socom 4 $39.99
Dungeon Siege III $39.99
FEAR $49.99
Limbo $9.99
MX vs ATV $29.99
Major League Baseball 2K11 $29.99
Modern Warfare 2 $39.99
Flashpoint Red River $39.99
Red Faction $49.99

3. Target
$37.99 for the following games:
LA Noire, Duke Nukem Forever, Homefront, Portal 2
$27 for Just Dance games and Michael Jackson Experience, Zumba and Epic Mickey
$37 for Child of Eden, LEGO Pirates of the Carribean, Cars 2, Dance Central, Little Big Planet, Mortal Kombat, Legend of Zelda (3DS)

Journey is a PS3 exclusive title created by ThatGameCompany, the developers of the games Flower and Flow. Santa Monica Studios – the creator of the God of War series – also co-developed Journey. However, Santa Monica’s role was not a huge surprise as they have worked on other similar projects, such as the PS3 interactive art piece, Linger in the Shadows.  Journey has a very mystical look and feel to it. As I wandered across a vast desert that the sand rippled and sparkled like a golden ocean. The sand dunes were like giant waves that I could slide down – but climbing them took effort and would slow me down.

Journey’s controls are seamless and works well with the gameplay. At game start, the Journey prompts you to move the PlayStation Six Axis controller around to view the environment. The Six Axis camera controls concerned me, however, I soon discovered that there are also analog camera controls as well.  Jumping and gliding is also a unique, and limited, experience in this game. The amount or length of times you are allowed to jump or glide is dependent on how long your scarf is. You must refill your “gauge” by finding red, flying scarves in the environment or interacting with other players or objects.

You can also interact with scarves, or other travelers, by using the circle button. By using this “call,” you can make new scarves to refill your gauge, and interact with objects that are within range.

While playing the Journey beta, I ran across two other players during co-op mode. The first traveler I found did not attempt to interact with me, as the player stood still. He glowed after I used my “call” on him, however, he still did not move. I saw a second traveler in running in the distance, but they were too far away for me to pursue.

Character interaction is limited in Journey, however, I am very excited to see how co-op effects gameplay when the game is fully released.

Just like in Flower, the music in Journey plays a meaningful and important role in the game. Interactions with objects and new discoveries shape the musical landscape, and as always, the soundtrack was gorgeous.

Playing Journey was also an emotional experience, as there were moments that I felt happy or at peace, which was an exciting and rare moment that I have experienced while playing a video game.

The half-hour segment I played of the closed beta ended way too quickly, as I wanted to keep going on my journey. However, I will continue to check back and see if the beta changes any in the upcoming weeks.

The School 26 games are said to have been developed with the help of academic research and had extensive focus testing among teens. School 26: Summer of Secrets includes music from up-and-coming Vancouver band Hey Ocean! The first School 26 game is currently on sale $0.99 for iPhone / iPod Touch or $1.99 for iPad.

Voice acting features include over 150 direct lines of dialogue from Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams. The Army of Darkness: Defense is lead by Ash who has the ability to call upon a wide variety of allies to help save the Necronomicon. Swordsmen, armored knights, and archers defend Ash. In addition to the originally composed sound and music, the app also features many of the famous characters from the movie including Arthur, Henry, Sheila, the Wiseman, and Evil Ash.

Well hello there! I’m Jess! I work as an animator and illustrator from the great city of Chicago. Don’t get me wrong… there are many drawbacks to Chicago; the weather, taxes and lack of parking to name a few. Thankfully I’m able to say I do what I love for a living and I’m always striving to get better at it. A few of my passions are: cartoons, drawing, animating silly things, pretending to be a photographer, shoes, Snoopy and, of course, my husband! I also like to change song lyrics, which tends to irritate most people, because they find themselves singing about badgers sitting in soup bowls after listening to one of my solos.

I’m currently working for a company that makes Facebook and mobile games, and I love it to bits.

In all seriousness, however, I’m a passionate artist and love what I do. I can find good in nearly everything… except spiders. Those bloody things don’t have any redeeming qualities.

Geek Woman: So weird critters live in your soul. Any idea why they picked you?

Jessica Pempek: I LOVE this question (I see you found my portfolio)! I assume that before I was able to form tangible memories, I left ice cream and cookies out in hopes of attracting silly creatures to keep me entertained while I was bored doing baby things. I always saw things differently than most kids my age, and my dad used to tell me bedtime stories about the friendly dinosaurs that lived on the ceiling of my bedroom. (John, Ross and Nana Margie) I’m guessing a lot of my imagination came from him. The creatures must have loved my friendly attempts at feeding them and stuck with me! I’d like to think they chose me for my fantastic sense of humor, but I have to be honest with myself sooner or later… ice cream always trumps bad jokes.

What makes your pandas so crabby?

Lack of coffee. I’ve never seen a panda drink coffee, so I assume they’d be crabby. In all seriousness though, they ARE pandas of doom. Pandas of Pleasantry is a whole ‘nother website.

(I think you should know that I have a white and an orange Pomeranian who are overly fond of eating whole raw turnips.) I agree with you that turnips are on a whole other level than potatoes, but would you like to elaborate for us?

Turnips crack me up. The word, the shape of the veggie and the pronunciation is hilarious. I picture everyone pausing before speaking of a turnip and pronouncing it “teeeerrrrNUP.” I love that your puppies eat them too. It makes the image in my head that much more hilarious. Potatoes aren’t all that funny unless used as an adjective to describe people. Therefore, turnips are comedic gold! (To me, at least)

When did you start to see /  draw your characters?

I started very young, but I think the drawings my mom started to keep were when I was around the age of four. I’d frequently see silly characters in the patterns of everyday things that would inspire me to draw like clouds, wallpaper, tile floors, etc. Music is also a huge influence. Every sound or pattern of sound in a song makes me picture silly critters dancing or involved in some sort of epic scenario. I see cartoons/characters in almost every situation, which can be annoying at times. I often see the visual world as it is, then switch to what “I’d like it to look like [fill in the blank]” needless to say, without GPS I’d never find my way around because I’d be looking for the giant squiddy monster building or something.

What games did you work in before Toy Studio?

I worked for Ty, Inc. (Beanie Babies company) creating graphics for the web games and online world in which you could take care of your virtual pet. I also created the Snootz videos for the homepage with my coworker Marc.

Are you doing animations for any games recently?

I’ve been animating several mobile games currently in production, which are sprite based. As well as Flash based animations for the Facebook game we’re creating at Toy Studio. Not sure I can talk about that yet, as it hasn’t launched.

Still planning on making your own mobile game?

Oh I’d love to! I have many ideas that I’d like to tackle, as soon as I find the time.

When I saw you say that  ”…when it comes to code, but I will research the crap out of something until it’s working.” I thought, “That’s my definition of a geek.” Are yourself taught?

HAHA! Yes, I’m a proud geek and I’m addicted to learning new things. I’m not fully self-taught. I have a bachelor’s in web design from the Art Institute. Thankfully, I got the foundation I needed to at least know where to begin, and if I get stuck, I know where to search. I am self-taught with animation, however.

What programs or tools do you use regularly for work?

Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and Flash are my usual programs. Coffee, audio books and Diet Coke are my tools.

And then what is coming up next for you?

I have several websites in the works as well as MORE MOBILE GAMES! I love working on mobile games because they can be completed even faster than social games. They definitely appease my creative ADD. I’m also working towards eventually getting my own gallery showing and hopefully making a name for myself.

You can check out my website at PandasofDoom.com.

Toy Studio Bio:
Founded in 2009, Toy Studio is an independent developer for Facebook and Mobile games based in Chicago, Illinois. Toy Studio’s vision is to connect people through games that encourage meaningful social interactions, the key ingredient to fun. Core to Toy Studio are the three values of Quality, Innovation and Community.

Website: ToyStudio.com
Twitter: @ToyStudioGames
Facebook: Facebook.com/ToyStudioGames

Through twitter, I have found GamingAngels.  The staff has embraced me as one of their own and in the months I have been working with them, have found a nice little family.  Although we are spread out across the nation, gaming, social media & the internet we are able to stay in touch and run GamingAngels.com as a team.  This has impacted my life in a positive way and given me a new outlook on my life as a gamer.  I used to hide the fact that I played video games, like it was a dirty little secret.  I had a fear that I’d be judged as a non-professional, as immature.  With the help of social media, I’ve seen that there are a great many professionals who enjoy the sport of gaming as much as I do.

Of course, there is the social aspect.  With conventions, tournaments, sites like twitter and facebook, online gaming, online multiplayer and game chats, it’s easy to connect with other gamers, talk about life and have some laughs.  Through these outlets, I’ve also seen a great number of people find jobs in the industry.  It’s good to have connections.  It’s also fun.  The number one reason to play games is for fun.  What better way to end a stressful day at the office than to sit on your comfy couch and play a game of Call of Duty?  Or how about having a family game night?  A lot of games seem to be geared toward families or groups.  Who wouldn’t want their mother to issue them a beat down in a game of The Fight: Lights Out?

Many games for kids prove to be educational as well.  I’ll be honest, my kids love gaming and I feel they learn a great deal from games.  They can teach anything from Colors and ABC’s to logic and problem solving.  Yes, there are games out there that are not for kids but that is a parent’s responsibility to ensure safe and appropriate games for their child as well as to guard them from possible online connections that should not be made.

With the Wii, PS Move and Xbox Kinect, games have taken a hard right.  The fact that sitting on your butt for hours is not very healthy can be countered with the Fitness and Motion games on the market.  These games are fun, educational and many of them can get you to work up a sweat after a while (fitness games or not).  This can get you out of those boring gyms, keep you away from repetitive work out videos and give you a customized program on your personal fitness level with progress tracking and in-game rewards for reaching your goals.  In our GamingAngels forum, we recently finished the “90 Day Challenge: New Years Edition!”, and another challenge will be starting soon.  Through our forum we are able to encourage and support each other in our fitness goals, along with a few rewards along the way.  Some people have turned to good old exercise and healthy food choices, while some of us have combined them with fitness and motion games.  It gives us a whole new way to keep in shape.  I myself have been playing Dance Central lately and I love the workout mode which calculates your workout time as well as estimating your calories burned.  On those days I don’t feel like going for a run or if the weather is bad, I still find myself turning on my Xbox for a few rounds of dancing.  It really seems to take the work out of workout!

So, with all things said and done, I feel there is a good deal of positive that can come from gaming which outweighs the negative.  I think people who oppose gaming altogether should be more open to the possibility that games could bring a positive change in their life.