Posts Tagged ‘video games’

Technology is great there is no doubt about that. With new recent breakthroughs in the form of the new iPhone being able to recognise voice recognition to the new announcement that Microsofts Project Natal for the Xbox 360 is set to have full body motion sensing capabilities with no wires and nothing plugged into you in any way at all.

However, what happens when a part inside breaks? In some cases, the costs to repair the gadgets can be more than you initially paid for them. A lot of the time it is their fault for not making the product as good as it should have been to begin with. Even though the Xbox 360 is clearly the more superior console in this current generation of console, it’s still hosting some flaws. The red rings of death. Now to any Xbox 360 owner, when they see the three red rings, it’s just the same as handing your wallet over to a thief. Unless you are still within your warranty you are looking at paying at least 50 to have to send it off to be repaired for a problem that should not have been there in the first place.

It was very rare if one of your older consoles ever broke like the N64 or Playstation 1, but now we are not just seeing Xbox 360 failures, a large amount of PS3′s and Nintendo Wii’s are also being sent away to be fixed. It could be down to the fact that this year has seen a record boom in the sale of computer games but it is more likely to be that manufacturers are more interested in shifting units than making a full proof package like they used too.

There is a solution to this and it comes from gadget insurance. This can be purchased to cover up to five of any gadgets you can think of for just under 20 a month. The price may seem slightly high, but if you consider having to pay for just one gadget to be repaired each month, you would end up paying more. The main reason for the price of the insurance is because the cost of repairing gadgets is not cheap, repairing an iPhone that had been dropped would cost 100 pound to repair. So if you think about it, having to 20 pound each month to protect your 5 gadgets is not as pad as having to pay 100 pound to repair something that you can break over and over again. Also, when it comes to repairing gaming consoles such as the Nintendo Wii, they can charge you up to 180 pounds for the repair, making it cheaper to buy a new console.

You are not required to insure 5 items if you don’t want to, you can simply pay for iPod insurance by itself. Unfortunately, the majority of home emergency insurance policies don’t cover your gadgets like iPods and gaming consoles.

In my mind, Civilization 3 was one of the best video games ever devised. Besides Civ 3, the pc games that I used to play often were Rise of Nations, Warcraft, and Command & Conquer Generals In comparison to these pc games, the one thing I didn’t like about Civilization 3 was that it was a turn-based game. As playing a mutliplayer game with other people is not possilbe. Multiplayer Gaming Experience is definitely one of the great pleasures of playing pc games, as you play against real people than some Artificial Intelligence.

Some of the Civilizations that I played most often in Civilization 3 were the Chinese, the Romans, and the Americans. The above 3 were most often civilizations, and I never played random, I always picked one of the 3 civilizations to play. Civilization 3 game itself is easy, and most people should pick up the game promptly without issues. As it is turn based, I remember I even went and had my dinner, and when I came back it was still other player’s turn. On slow PCs, the game would take quite long to load. The first part of the game is tedious, as you don’t have that much resources, and what little resources you have gets used up pretty quickly, but once you get to middle ages things get pretty fast, and it around this part that I enjoy the game most.

Culture had always been an intriguing part of civilization 3, and I tried my best to expand my culture and have other cities switch to my sides.If you don’t want you citizens to switch sides, you have to make sure that your people are happy. Compared to Red Alert 2 or Age of Empires, Civilization 3 has no comparable battle scenes, but it is nonetheless fun to watch small tank battles. To me, one of favorite units in Civilization 3 is tank.

After Civ 3 was released, expansion packs like Conquests and Play of the World were released. A newer version of Civilization 3 called Civilization 4 was introduced and it had expansion packs of its own. I was in college at this time, and playing games wasn’t really at the top of my priority. At this point, I am hearing rumors of Civ 5.

How much tolerance do you have for your children’s video game playing habits? Do you set a specific time for them to get hold of their joysticks? Or you can just outlaw video games? Whichever is the case, are you the type of parent who instills into their mind that video games are good-for-nothing avenues of entertainment?

If you are the type of parent who ensures that your child goes through the proper way of brain development, then you might as well erase the notion that video games are totally a waste of time. The notion that these gaming variants can impede the rightful development which your child’s brain must go through is a thing of the past. Now scientists see a correlation between many positive traits and video games. Traditionally when we think of studying we think of a book and memorization.

How Can Video Games Be Useful
As you would observe, most children would rather run to their video game stations right upon reaching home rather than take off their uniforms and shoes. They would also let eating pass. And more so, they would be gladder to play their favorite video games instead of finish their homework. The kids don’t know that their thumbs aren’t the only thing getting exercised. How is that possible? Kids need to learn the rules as well as how to strategize to use the right tactics to win the game. They then learn the strategies to solve the big puzzle to end up winning. This way they can figure out what needs to be done to solve the “puzzle”. I like to read xbox game reviews.

The Brain and How it Learns
Brain mapping has shown that when the brain is used it thrives. When one meets a challenge then the brain is forced to react and thus it gets stronger like any muscle. Experts agree that playing those video games lessens the chances of acquiring dementia and it is one effective way of acquiring a visual language which could be applicable in other real-life situations.

Quick reaction time is necessary for success in video games. The brain gets exercise by being presented with a problem and then being challenged to solve it. You can let kids play games like brain age that help with development. A few games I like (to get you started) look for Afro Samurai for sale and Bionic Commando for sale

For most kids, playing their favorite video games is fun. It is mainly due to the fact that what they actually say is based on how they feel about things. What they don’t realize is that they have fun in learning. After all, the video games entail self-exploration. The development of a technique heavily relies on the child’s ability to perceive things and how he could make these things easier to achieve. Needless to say, video games could be good for the brain development.

All my kids talk about getting every year for Christmas is video games if they don’t go downstairs and find Gears of War 2 under our new flocked christmas tree I do not know how they will survive. It makes me a little nuts since I do all I can to get my kids outdoors. I would prefer to get them something like new football equipment or bikes, really anything they can do outside. Alas, I suppose boys will be boys. Fighting with them is just too much work.

After saying that I guess I should get to the point that I’ve developed a few ways to control their television addiction. I do a couple of things in an effort to force them outside. First off I limit their time every day to one hour (they can earn more). I have discovered that limiting the time is key to everything else because then they know time above and beyond that is to be earned. I do give them some ways to earn more time in front of the television. That leads me into my second trick. They have a few options to earn more television time, either playing outside or doing some chores for me. I like the chores option because it is nice for me to have a few less things to do, and the reward for them isn’t bad either. I intentionally made it with the purpose of them getting around one hour of television time for every one hour they spend on chores.

The number two way they get more television time is by spending some of their time outside. For every hour they spend outside they get fifteen minutes of video games. Like I say this isn’t a huge payoff, but I also don’t really think asking them to be outside is a huge thing to ask. This mostly pays off for them on weekends. They spend all day outside on Saturdays and earn themselves a couple of hours in front of the television. I do not even mind if they play a night of video games after a good day outside.

That being said I’m ok with one or two ending up under artificial flocked christmas tree this year if it has the effect of getting my brats outside and getting some stuff done around the house for me. They had better like the games they’re getting, because I know I’ll like my “gift” of one more thing to use “against” my boys.