Strollerderby : ps2

Guitar Hero Camp

Brett Singer — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:00:00 GMT

Ah, summer camp. Log cabins. Bug juice. Video games.

Exsqueeze me?

Power Chord Academy, a company that runs mini-music camps for aspiring rockers, has added summer sessions featuring the popular game where kids pretend to play instruments. Why anyone thinks this is a good thing to have their kids do during the summer is beyond me. To be fair, the sessions are short, as in two or three days. That only adds to the head-scratcher quality of the enterprise for me, however.

Many have hailed Guitar Hero and Rock Band as fantastic gateways for kids to start learning how to play a musical instrument. I am not one of those people. I play guitar, and I've played Guitar Hero. It's different. I actually had some difficulty at first learning to "play" my "guitar" the way the game wanted me to rather than the way I would play an actual guitar. Why? Because it's different.

I do think that the game exposes kids to music that they would otherwise probably dismiss as "lame" or "for old people." Guitar Hero 3 includes music by Mountain, Social Distortion, Heart -- guitar rock. Even a song like "Sabotage" by The Beastie Boys, which shows up in Rock Band, is retro to these kids today. (These kids today. With their hippity-hop music, and that Justin Timberwolf...)

There's nothing wrong with the game. I've played it, it's kind of fun, and I'm sure if I was 10 I would enjoy it more than I do at...the age that I am. But sending kids to camp to play a video game? No way.

Image: Amazon

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Is Barack Obama Anti-Video Games?

Brett Singer — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:00:00 GMT

Not everyone is overjoyed that Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States last week. (Was it only last week?)

Of course there are people who voted for John McCain. They're not too thrilled. But some hardcore video game players are concerned that our new President-elect may not be so friendly to their favorite pastime.

From the New York Times:

"Blog posts scoring Mr. Obama’s positions on video games have received hundreds of comments, with some readers worrying that his admonitions during the campaign to 'put the video games away' signaled new regulations or restrictions on the industry."

Here's what our new prez said:

"We’re going to have to parent better, and turn off the television set, and put the video games away, and instill a sense of excellence in our children."

Whoa. If that isn't a call to arms, I don't know what is.

In reality, I would imagine that Barack Obama is more likely than any other President to be friendly to the gaming industry as a whole. First of all, his campaign made extensive use of the Internet and other technological tools, including advertising in video games. Plus there is ample evidence that he is at least a little bit geeky. For example, he collects comic books, and made a pretty nerdy Superman reference at the Alfred E. Smith charity dinner (video is below):

In reality, I don't think any politician really wants to "ban" video games. Titles like Grand Theft Auto and other violent or sexually explicit games make "a convenient scapegoat", as the Times quotes a commenter from 1up.com. Just because a guy doesn't spend 12 hours blasting zombies every day doesn't mean he wants to stop other people from doing it. Besides, I think he might have one or two (or a hundred) more important things to worry about come January. Somewhat like the earlier concern that he had stopped telling supporters that he loved them, I think we might be expecting a little bit too much from the guy.

Source: New York Times, Image: Newser

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5 reasons it's a good thing I had boys

Brett Singer — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 17:05:00 GMT

I was going to say, "I'm glad I have boys" but that didn't sound quite right. That is, I would love girl-children just as much as I love my guys. But there are a few ways that having boys has made my life – mine, specifically – a little bit easier.

1. No pink ponies: It doesn't seem like having a Y chromosome should automatically mean that one is interested in superheroes, videogames, and action figures inspired by superheroes and videogames. But experience says otherwise. While there are definitely girls who love trucks and boys who follow the Frasier and Niles Crane path – a love of opera, Broadway and snappy clothing – my guys are way into Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, Pokémon, Wii, Playstation 2, and so on. If I had to learn whatever there is to know about My Little Pony, I think my brain would crawl out of my ear.

2. Miley-free zone: Thus far Things 1 and 2 have shown zero interest in Billy Ray Cyrus' little ~~meal ticket~~ girl, which means I can continue to go through life knowing almost nothing about her. Maybe this will change when they get older, but hopefully by then Miley Ray Hannah Montana Stewart Cyrus will have either pulled a Britney Spears and had a meltdown, grown up and started singing jazz standards, or retired to spend her days sitting on a giant pile of cash gazing longingly at Nick Jonas. OK, I guess I sort of know something about her, but that's just from trying to keep up with pop culture. I have nothing against Miley or the Jonases, but not having to listen to their music or attend their concerts is something I will never, ever complain about.

3. No batting of eyelashes: My wife has pointed out many times that if we had had girls, odds are I would be putty in their hands. I wish I could say I disagree but I think she's probably right. Little girls are so cute, and seeing them cry is much more painful than seeing boys cry. I know that's stupid, sexist, and stupid (did I say that one already?). But I've seen, more than once, little girls who lead their dads around by the nose. It's probably best if we never find out whether or not I would join their ranks.

4. Less irrational over-protectiveness: Again, I am fully aware that this is unfair, stupid and sexist. But if I had girl-children, I would be very tempted not to let them leave the house until they were 30. I guess going to school would be OK, as long as they dressed like those Mormon sect people.

5. No High School Musical: When this monstrosity first started airing on the Disney Channel and the CD went to number one, I tried to watch it out of curiosity. I made it through about 15 minutes before I realized that it would probably be more fun to chew glass. The songs are lame, the characters are dull, the story is… Feh. Anyway, the boys seem immune to whatever charms that thing has, and for that, I am grateful.

image: Amazon.com

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They Say: Limit Kids Screen Time

Brett Singer — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:00:00 GMT

What's great about "advice" is that, in trying to be many things to many people, it often comes out sounding unintentionally dopey.

From About.com's singleparents site (I guess kids in two-parent families can watch as much TV as they want to?) comes these tidbits:

"The American Academy of Pediatrics has some pretty strict guidelines for children's television viewing." What are these "strict" guidelines? Limiting the TV viewing of children younger than 2 years old to two hours per day, and not putting a TV in your kids' bedrooms.

Do you think those are "some pretty stringent guidelines"? I admit that we let our son play his Nintendo DS in his room sometimes, but no TV in his room is not even an issue. I was allowed to get a TV in my room when I was old enough to pay for it myself (hello, Bar Mitzvah cash.)

Then we get to the advice on how to actually limit viewing hours.

- "Don't use the TV as background noise. Only have it on if someone is sitting down watching a specific program." Good advice in general, frankly.

- "If you have TiVo or a DVR, record a few of your child's favorite shows and allow him or her to view them at specific times during the week. Once they've been watched, delete them from the recording device." Clearly these people don't have children, or if they do, they don't have TiVo. In my experience, kids want to watch the same things over and over again. Not necessarily right away, but there are definitely repeat viewings of favorite shows. If we only watched everything once, why do so many folks buy DVDs?

- "Avoid using TV for winding down. Instead, read a book together or allow your child to listen to an audio book." Again, reasonable advice.

- "Provide a TV viewing chart for your children, and teach them to plan out the shows they'd like to watch during the week." This one seems weird to me. Isn't this sending a message that television is so important it needs to be scheduled as an important part of your week? Admittedly, we've been spoiled by having TiVo for the kids' entire lives, so planning is a non-issue (as are commercials.)

- "Finally, choose your child's television programs carefully, and take the time to preview shows together. Talk about what you like about certain shows, and what gives you caution about the shows you do not care for." I'll take this a step further and say that you can and should watch shows with the little ones, especially once they get old enough to understand what the hell they are watching. For example, there's an episode of "The Brady Bunch" where Mike tells Carol, "If I caught one of my sons playing with a doll house, I'd send him to a psychiatrist." My mother was right there to point out the sexism of that line.

How important is the TV in your house? Any "strategies" for reducing screen time, or do you just shut the damn thing off?

image: Pegmurphy.com

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Game Designer to Teachers: Don't Knock It Til You Try It

Brett Singer — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Clint Hocking is the Creative Director of Ubisoft Montreal, a video game developer and publisher. His credits include Splinter Cell, a Tom Clancy-inspired adventure game. On his blog, he has a suggestion for the Canadian Teacher's Federation (CTF): before you tell someone not to play a game, why not play it yourself first?

Hocking was responding to the CTF issuing a press release "condemning" the game on the grounds that "the video game [Bully] is mean-spirited in that it trivializes and glorifies bullying in school." According to the release, a total of eight "teacher organizations," including the U.S.-based National Education Association (NEA) have joined in their efforts to pressure retailers not to sell the game. An article in The Globe and Mail offers a fairly balanced discussion of the issues, something Hocking praises in his blog entry.

When it was first released in 2006 for the Playstation 2, Bully caused controversy (for the record, the company that makes the game also makes Grand Theft Auto, so they're used to defending themselves.) Bully just became available for the Wii and the XBox360, prompting this latest outcry. The stated goal of the coalition is to "condemn bullying and cyberbullying in all its forms," which is certainly admirable. But blaming the game? The Globe and Mail piece quotes McGill University professor Michael Hoechsmann as saying, "As tempting as it may seem, I'm not so certain that banning this will somehow result in a more peaceful and more loving school population." Asking retailers to boycott it does call attention to the bullying/cyberbullying problem, but one wonders if the teachers' efforts are a little misplaced.

Hocking actually invites the teachers to play Bully with him, since he hasn't played the game either. Maybe they should take him up on it. This review seems to say that at least some of the criticism is misguided - that the main character, Jimmy Hopkins, is the one who defends "weird chicks, nerds and underdogs" from the bullies, who are often "jocks." So it's a bit, shall we say, retro, but it certainly doesn't sound like the goal is to give wedgies and intimidate other students.

Some school districts, like the one in Charlotte that Mike wrote about, have introduced specific policies that address the problem of bullies, which seems more proactive than issuing press releases about video games.

As the parent of a budding young gamer, I do this weird thing when my kid wants a particular game - research. If possible, I play the game myself first. If I have any doubt about whether or not a game is appropriate, I play it with him so I can see what's going on there. So with all due respect to the teachers, I appreciate the efforts, but video games are really not the problem.

Full disclosure: I haven't played the game myself, and I don't know if the teachers have either. But whether they have or they haven't (my guess is no), Hocking makes a good point.