Video Game Addiction

Video game addiction is growing like mad in our society. I personally believe that anyone who's a gamer has had a point where they have ignored their duties to play games. For me it's usually procrastinating 5 more minutes to do my homework. For others its much more serious. Some gamers actually get completely addicted to games. They will miss their job, ignore their families, and even put their health at risk. This is where the problem lies. No video game is worth screwing up your entire life over. What happens is they build up a life for themselves inside of these games and start to pursue it more so than real life. I could go on and on about how it's a big problem, but I think it's more important to provide help for this addiction.


Here are some ways manage this addiction:


1) Find a new hobby
- The best way to distract yourself from gaming would be to find a new hobby to take part in.
- Something active would be great, but small steps are a start.

2) Open up about it
- Tell your friends and family about your addiction and they can support you.
- Don't be afraid to go see someone who specializes in addictions, they can help you.

3) Limit the problem
- Cut back slowly, this will help you get adjusted to the change.
- Have someone hide your games so you cannot reach for them.

4) Order your life
- Redecorated your gaming room so games aren't on your mind right when you enter the room.
- Have time to yourself to think about what you want to accomplish in life.

5) You're not alone
- Millions of people all over the world deal with different kinds of addiction, and many of them get better!
- Take your time, relax, and don't be hard too on yourself.

Violence In Video Games

Today I will be discussing the controversial topic that deals with violence in video games. I will admit that some video games can be quite violent. However, I have never felt the urge to hurt someone in real life as often happens in video games. If you have a young child, no he shouldn't be playing games that have a rating of mature. There are ratings on video games for a reason. Just like movies they will warn you in advance if there is any violence, drug use, alcohol, or sexual content. In fact, I believe that movies are a worse influence than video games. People don't play video games to hurt people, they play them for fun. But when an actor that they look up to suddenly is playing a criminal role doing terrible things, they are more likely to try to be like him or her.

What some parents don't understand is that a lot of people play these violent games for humor. I personally don't see anything so funny about gore, but I know some people my age who think it's hilarious and make fun of the scenes shown. Grand Theft Auto has got to the be most violent game on the marker today. In the most recent one, there is actually a part where you get to torcher another character using various methods. I was shocked when I heard about this, in my opinion it was just to far to take the game. Others believe it made the game real and showed reality of certain situations.

Overall I'm not the greatest fan of playing violent video games, but I don't have a problem with regular shooting games as it's mostly just fun testing your skills. It's only when things get taken too far that they become a bother to me personally. In my final words I can understand why certain parents get upset, but I also know that gamers are just in it to win it.

Gamer Girl?

In the gaming community there is an increasing number of females who are getting into the hobby. They are known as "gamer girls" which in my opinion should just be known as gamers. Males aren't called "gamer boys" so why did we get that name? Being a female gamer has had both positive and negative effects on me over the years.

Growing up it was my brother who got me playing video games from an early age. I got older and always hid my gaming hobby from people when I learned that "gaming is for boys and losers". I would heard people in my classes talking about a great new game and I'd pretended to not know anything about it to avoid getting laugh at. I was always scared people would either call me fake and would think by gamer I played "girly" games. Also a lot of girls use gaming to get attention from boys and are portrayed as an X-Rated fantasy girls across the internet. If boys want to play video games with girls, they must first learn how to respect them.

Something else that kills me is that I will find a genuine gamer girl in a game and want to be friends and they turn it into a competition. Its even worse if this girl is attractive as this could easily start WW3. Overall I wish that girls wouldn't have to hide from this hobby in fear if being called fake over something that they truly care about.

Super Smash Bros Demo

On Friday September.19 we got our hands on the new Super Smash Bros demo for the Nintendo 3DS. The demo had a total of five characters to play with. Mario, Link, Pikachu, MegaMan, and the Villager. We only got one stage to try out which was a very basic Battlefield stage. The 3D effects looked great and the controls were better than I had originally expected knowing that its the first time the series had been brought to a handheld system.

 Mario is the most classic, Pikachu the most nostalgic, MegaMan the most powerful, and the Villager is a funny character to fool around with. As far as my favourite character goes, it would probably be Link. Yes I know MegaMan and the Villager are completely new to Smash Bros but Link always made sense to me in the game. He plays so similar to how he handles in the Legend of Zelda games and has always been one of my favourite Nintendo characters.

Playing the computer players gets old fast, so I started to play with a close friend for a few matches. This has always been where the Smash Bros series has shined for me, the multiplayer aspect. You know this series is addicting when your other friend who isn't to much of a gamer steps in and has a blast fighting you!

Basically the game still has the same aspects as the other Smash Bros games all your favourite video game characters coming together to brawl it our on cool themed stages. This time its just on a handheld system with a few new characters and lots of new fighting courses. This holiday season the Super Smash Bros series will also be launching a new Super Smash Bros game for the Nintendo Wii U. I will definitely be getting both versions and having a blast fighting my friends!

Have a 3DS? Want to try out the demo? Download it on your Nintendo 3DS today! Below is the official site for the game.

http://www.smashbros.com/us/3ds/

Blog Post #1 - ArcheAge Launch!

Tuesday September 16 was the official launch date for the game ArcheAge. Whether you are familiar with MMO games (massively multiplayer online) or not, you won't be able to disagree with what we have to say about it. Before ArcheAge launched you could gain early access to play the game. They offered a $150 Alpha pack that let u buy into a server during the months in advance. This gave you a chance to play anytime you wanted to with the known fact that all your progress would be whipped for the official launch date. There was also a $100 and $50 pack that let you buy into the closed beta events. This was basically the same thing is the Alpha pack, but only on set days you could play the game. With every pack you also received items which varied on which pack you purchased. You were also free to upgrade your current pack at any time. The biggest selling point for me was that they all had a four day head start. Meaning that anyone who bought a pack could access that game on Friday September 12. This was a huge advantage as people could get in and claim land, for giant guilds to battle for land against other guilds, and everything else that there is to do in game.

Before we head into the gameplay aspects, we
will discuss some things you should know before you start to get into the game. There are two factions which are the Nuia (American based) and the Haranya (Chinese based). Both currently have two classes each to pick from which range from humans to elves. They each have their own continent with a third continent where guilds from opposing factions fight to conquer land. There are also little islands to explore out at sea and around the world. This is the basic of how the game world is setup.


Now lets discuss what makes ArcheAge such a great game, and why you should play it. Besides the obvious factors that most MMO games have to offer such as combat, dungeons, questing, adventure. ArcheAge has much more to offer. In game there are different houses that you can purchase with what are called guilda stars (obtained from special quests and trading goods across sea). They houses vary from two different styles which are based off of American and Chinese culture. Of the two different styles you can have a small house, a two story house, a mansion, a farmhouse, a beach house, and much more! Don't get it mixed up though, once you buy the house you have to do a lot of work to gather materials to make it. Bought a stone house? You will need to mine a lot of stone to fully build it. Bought a wood house? You will do the same thing only with lumber from trees. Lets not forget about farming. Farming is a huge aspect of the game. There are different sized plots in which the players can grow goods and sell or trade them in game. Depending on what your growing and which climate your farm is located in, will depend on how long (in real time) the crop will take to grow. You can also raise animals for produce, butchering, or mount purposes. Now with all of this talk about houses and farms, I bet your wondering where will they be? The cool thing about ArcheAge is that throughout the world there are housing locations in which players can place their homes and farms. Some are more private and rare, while others are busy with lots of neibours. Didn't find the perfect location for your dream house? Don't worry! The more land that people own, the more taxes they will have to pay each week. This means that land is bound to clear up from time to time. You can even have your own castle with your guild!

Besides owning a house and decorating it to your style, lets talk about being our at sea. There are also a variety of boats to choose from ranging from a simple tiny rowboat, up to a giant ships. There are also specialty ships that are meant for fishing. With boats you can sail the seas, defeat giant sea monsters, and take your goods across sea to earn a lot of gold or guilda stars. Some trips you make you wont get attacked by anyone, others the Kraken could poop out to completely destroy your ship. Sea monsters aren't the only thing to worry about out at sea. Pirates are players who have been exiled from their faction. Stealing crops, murdering your fellow faction members, growing crops on public property will all get you criminal points. Once you earn a certain amount of criminal points you will go to trial. Trial is judged by real in game players and will land you a spot in jail for a certain amount of real time. There isn't much to do in jail unless you want to get more criminal points then you can try to escape from jail. Once you have a big enough criminal record, you will eventually be exiled from the faction entirely and be forced to live on a secret pirate island. There you will find other players like yourself who travel the sea looking to take down other players boats at sea, looking for things to steal, and people to murder. It can be a fun play style, but its nice to have a faction to back you up and give you a nice place for a home.

 These are just a few simple reasons as to why ArcheAge is a great game. Owning a house, traveling the sea, becoming a criminal, and much more lead this game to be highly unique compared to the typical combat and questing MMO games. It's free to play with some cash shop items that you could either purchase with real money or in game currency. I give this game a perfect 10 and in my opinion it will go very far in the gaming world.

 With all that said here is a link of 25 tips to explain ArcheAge's mechanics for new players. Happy gaming!

 http://www.tentonhammer.com/guides/archeage/25-tips-explain-archeage-mechanics-new-players