Spore, by Electronic Art (EA) and Maxis may be suffering from bad PR just out of the gate.
I was actually looking forward to it. It looks like it would be fun to play, probably even with my kids. But Wow. As of right now on Amazon, 1,928 people gave Spore 1 star because of the DRM. That's Digital Rights Management for you older folks. Usually you hear about it in the context of buying songs off of iTunes, but it's reared it's ugly head in the gaming world too.
A couple of months ago, I purchased a couple of new games so that I could give my new PC (a.k.a. The Mothership) a hearty workout. I purchased Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, and Mass Effect.
Mass Effect is also released by EA, and it's got the same DRM. You HAVE to have an Internet connection to activate the game. If you don't, you can call EA, wait 30+ minutes to get through, and hopefully they'll be able to find the place on their scripts where they can help you. Plus, you're limited to 3 (three)(tres) activations. Just for yuks, I checked Amazon's page for Mass Effect to see if it generated a similar negative vibe for having the same type of DRM. Nope. It got 3 stars. If you actually read the reviews, you'll see that the most recent DO complain about the DRM, and those are low-star rated (some 1 star, some 3). Maybe Mass Effect didn't generate the bad buzz because it was initially released for box platforms, and just came out for PC recently.
So why is Spore getting the big fat single star treatment? I haven't figured that out yet. Mob Mentality maybe? Sure, the DRM annoys me. It annoyed me in Mass Effect, but I wanted to play, so I dealt with it. I understand their reasoning for using it, to prevent piracy, and I'm OK with preventing piracy. They put a lot of time and money into creating the game, they should get paid for it.
For most people, I think the game's DRM will only become a hindrance if they get a new computer, or replace their hard drive, of decide to stop playing and pass the game on to the kids. I've lost a hard drive or two, and experienced the pain of having to restore everything from backup, and dealt with the pain of having to track down the original CD's or CD boxes for authentication keys etc. Not to mention those people who don't have computers that have the Internet "always on" (can you say 'dial-up'?)(poor saps).
For some, DRM hating is a matter of principle. I get that. Maybe someday when you buy a game, it will get digitally encoded with your ID, and they'll be able to track pirated games back to the pirate. Ew, that just opens a whole 'nuther can of worms.
Showing posts with label gaming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gaming. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckonning First Impressions
Finally got my WAR beta downloaded, unzipped and playable. Yay!
I went with a White Lion, which is a Melee character with a pet. I don't play characters with pets much in Wow, so it's a nice change. I found it fairly easy to catch on to who I was supposed to talk to, based on the huge books hanging over their heads. Run over there, kills x number of blahs, run back and talk to me again. Basic, yet useful for figuring out how to get around, use the abilities your toon has, your range etc.
I was happy with the graphics in the game, which were comparable to Wow and vastly better than Age of Conan. For AoC I had to a lot of tweaking, and had to disable SLI mode for my dual graphics cards. For WAR, I didn't have to tweak at all. Later, I'll go in and look at the available video settings to see if I can boost the resolution, but for now it's good. I did not experience any graphic blocking - where portions of the screen look like huge wire-framed shapes instead of their more refined image (a big problem for me in AoC even w/ SLI turned off.) The only complaint I had was that it was not always apparent which elements I could get around/over so sometimes I got stuck behind a wagon or a rock, and had to run around the other way. /shrug.
Most of the quests were easy to do, level appropriate, and with plentiful mobs even with all of the new players popping in. There was one quest involving a Boom Crate that I just could not figure out, however - either I never got the Boom Crate, or I accidentially sold it. Not sure.
I did one Realm vs Realm (RvR) in which I did OK. My stats put me smack in the center of the list for kills, and how many times I died. The Destruction team won (big surprise) but it was fun all the same. Note to self - don't stand there like a tourist when the big wall of flames comes your way.
I also found my way into my first Public Quest, which was loads of fun, but still a bit buggy. There were several mobs who's names were in red, which usually means "bad guy," but no one was able to attack them. Also, the second wave of the quest called for Crew members by a certain name, who never showed up, but after we killed enough of the mobs that did show up, we progressed to the third and final phase of the quest. The last part involved killing a named NPC, and a huge multi-headed monster. The monster was a bit laggy, and would suddenly appear a bit farther down the bridge, or across the courtyard. The loot system for PQ's is something that's new to me. It's an auto-generated random roll based on your contribution and some bonus stats. My first time thru, I ranked #2 and got a Lesser Loot bag w/ several green items to choose from inside. The other 2 times I didn't get any loot, dispite ranking in the top 10 for contributions. So I guess the moral is, don't depend on PQ's to net you phat loot.
I'm only up to level 4 on my White Lion. Leveling was well paced, but I had lots of /AFK time as I had to assist w/ brunch making, prompt the kids to get dressed etc before their friends started coming over, take a shower, answer 2 wrong number phone calls and 1 real phone call, throw in some laundry, show my daughter how to use the rug cleaner for the chocolate stains she left yesterday, change batteries in 3 Wii remotes so 4 10 year olds could play Mario Kart, make 4 bowls of popcorn and a pitcher of punch for the 8 kids playing in my yard and finally sweep up all the popcorn dropped on the deck and cups left around after 7 of the kids ran off to play another neighbors house.
Time for lunch.
BTW - hubby just asked me where I got the Beta key so he could try the game too. Guess I'm going to have to see if the online retailers have gotten any better about delivering the Beta Keys. He doesn't care about a shelf-full of pretty boxes.
I went with a White Lion, which is a Melee character with a pet. I don't play characters with pets much in Wow, so it's a nice change. I found it fairly easy to catch on to who I was supposed to talk to, based on the huge books hanging over their heads. Run over there, kills x number of blahs, run back and talk to me again. Basic, yet useful for figuring out how to get around, use the abilities your toon has, your range etc.
I was happy with the graphics in the game, which were comparable to Wow and vastly better than Age of Conan. For AoC I had to a lot of tweaking, and had to disable SLI mode for my dual graphics cards. For WAR, I didn't have to tweak at all. Later, I'll go in and look at the available video settings to see if I can boost the resolution, but for now it's good. I did not experience any graphic blocking - where portions of the screen look like huge wire-framed shapes instead of their more refined image (a big problem for me in AoC even w/ SLI turned off.) The only complaint I had was that it was not always apparent which elements I could get around/over so sometimes I got stuck behind a wagon or a rock, and had to run around the other way. /shrug.
Most of the quests were easy to do, level appropriate, and with plentiful mobs even with all of the new players popping in. There was one quest involving a Boom Crate that I just could not figure out, however - either I never got the Boom Crate, or I accidentially sold it. Not sure.
I did one Realm vs Realm (RvR) in which I did OK. My stats put me smack in the center of the list for kills, and how many times I died. The Destruction team won (big surprise) but it was fun all the same. Note to self - don't stand there like a tourist when the big wall of flames comes your way.
I also found my way into my first Public Quest, which was loads of fun, but still a bit buggy. There were several mobs who's names were in red, which usually means "bad guy," but no one was able to attack them. Also, the second wave of the quest called for Crew members by a certain name, who never showed up, but after we killed enough of the mobs that did show up, we progressed to the third and final phase of the quest. The last part involved killing a named NPC, and a huge multi-headed monster. The monster was a bit laggy, and would suddenly appear a bit farther down the bridge, or across the courtyard. The loot system for PQ's is something that's new to me. It's an auto-generated random roll based on your contribution and some bonus stats. My first time thru, I ranked #2 and got a Lesser Loot bag w/ several green items to choose from inside. The other 2 times I didn't get any loot, dispite ranking in the top 10 for contributions. So I guess the moral is, don't depend on PQ's to net you phat loot.
I'm only up to level 4 on my White Lion. Leveling was well paced, but I had lots of /AFK time as I had to assist w/ brunch making, prompt the kids to get dressed etc before their friends started coming over, take a shower, answer 2 wrong number phone calls and 1 real phone call, throw in some laundry, show my daughter how to use the rug cleaner for the chocolate stains she left yesterday, change batteries in 3 Wii remotes so 4 10 year olds could play Mario Kart, make 4 bowls of popcorn and a pitcher of punch for the 8 kids playing in my yard and finally sweep up all the popcorn dropped on the deck and cups left around after 7 of the kids ran off to play another neighbors house.
Time for lunch.
BTW - hubby just asked me where I got the Beta key so he could try the game too. Guess I'm going to have to see if the online retailers have gotten any better about delivering the Beta Keys. He doesn't care about a shelf-full of pretty boxes.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Balancing NEED with WANT and Games
As I sit here, watching the ticker on my Fileplanet Download Manager slowly tick downward, I'm arguing with myself. (I like doing that, either way, I win) On the one hand, I could suck it up, and pay the $39.99 annual fee to become a member, and Skip the Line. I could - it ways so right on the download page. 'skip the line'. Ahhhhhh - that sounds so NICE. Like getting cut-sies at Starbucks. On the other hand, that's $39.99 out of budget that I don't really NEED to spend.
I'm downloading the Warhammer Online Age of Reckoning (WAR) open beta. Or, I'm going to be, just as soon as that little ticker moves me to the front of the line. When I first logged on to Fileplanet, did all my account creation, Beta Key activation who-ha, downloaded the Download Manager, I was number 1139 out of 1139. Now, 5+ hours later, I'm 203 out of 2112.
I admit, I am slow to the starting line with this. I'd been reading bits and pieces about WAR, but did not really pay attention to any release dates until last week. And then, didn't even catch that the pre-order folks would get open beta and head-start on the other dweebs - uh- players. But I should have, after all, Lord of the Rings Online did it, as did Tabula Rasa. The front of my forehead has a hand print from me slapping myself on it. Multiple times, as I had to go to three different stores just to find the boxed version of the Pre-order for WAR. I could have just done full-download only of the pre-order, but I'd heard Amazon was having "issues" with delivering the beta keys. And that is the whole reason I'm even bothering to pre-order. I. Want. The. Beta. Key.
Why? I need something fun to play. I've been rather bored with Wow lately. My 54 priest has not been leveling very fast, despite Blizzard's adjustment to XP needed to get from 20-60 (and soon from 60-70). And my 70 is just a gold farmer at this point. As a matter of fact, Wow is in the background right now. I set my toon flying somewhere, the flight timer said 12 mins, so I went poking around for something else to do. Lucky you, this is what I chose! I recently purchased Age of Conan (AoC) to try out, and it really did not grab me. I've already paid for my first month (after the free one) so I really need to re-visit it to decide whether I'm going to keep it or not. If WAR beta is better than release AoC, then I think I'll be dumping AoC. After all, I'm not planning on dumping Wow with Wrath of the Lich King coming out in a couple of months, and how many monthly subscriptions do I want to carry? If my contracting job was pulling in more money, I could be a little more relaxed about it. But it's not, so I'm not.
Back to WANT vs NEED. Looking around Fileplanet and GameSpy's sites to see if the $40 spent would be worth more than line-jumping to me, I do see some other games I'd like to try. Spore looks like gobs of fun. And Cysis Warhead kind of looks like fun. But I can get those at the Brick and Mortar stores without spending $40 on top of the game prices. Sure, it won't be the very minute the games are released, auto-downloaded for me. But do I really NEED that? WAR Beta doesn't even start until tomorrow. So spending $40 tonight will get me nothing more than less eye strain from no longer staring at those tiny little number (I'm at 138 of 2221 now). And the awful temptation of spending more money on games way too easily. Plus, I wouldn't have the pretty boxes to line the shelf over my desk. I like my pretty box collection. There, see. I've just won the argument with myself. I do NOT need to spend $40 just to jump the line, because if I did, I wouldn't have my collection of game boxes to gaze at while I'm deep in thought.
I guess I'll go kill some aliens in Unreal Tournament III for a while.
131 of 2213.
I'm downloading the Warhammer Online Age of Reckoning (WAR) open beta. Or, I'm going to be, just as soon as that little ticker moves me to the front of the line. When I first logged on to Fileplanet, did all my account creation, Beta Key activation who-ha, downloaded the Download Manager, I was number 1139 out of 1139. Now, 5+ hours later, I'm 203 out of 2112.
I admit, I am slow to the starting line with this. I'd been reading bits and pieces about WAR, but did not really pay attention to any release dates until last week. And then, didn't even catch that the pre-order folks would get open beta and head-start on the other dweebs - uh- players. But I should have, after all, Lord of the Rings Online did it, as did Tabula Rasa. The front of my forehead has a hand print from me slapping myself on it. Multiple times, as I had to go to three different stores just to find the boxed version of the Pre-order for WAR. I could have just done full-download only of the pre-order, but I'd heard Amazon was having "issues" with delivering the beta keys. And that is the whole reason I'm even bothering to pre-order. I. Want. The. Beta. Key.
Why? I need something fun to play. I've been rather bored with Wow lately. My 54 priest has not been leveling very fast, despite Blizzard's adjustment to XP needed to get from 20-60 (and soon from 60-70). And my 70 is just a gold farmer at this point. As a matter of fact, Wow is in the background right now. I set my toon flying somewhere, the flight timer said 12 mins, so I went poking around for something else to do. Lucky you, this is what I chose! I recently purchased Age of Conan (AoC) to try out, and it really did not grab me. I've already paid for my first month (after the free one) so I really need to re-visit it to decide whether I'm going to keep it or not. If WAR beta is better than release AoC, then I think I'll be dumping AoC. After all, I'm not planning on dumping Wow with Wrath of the Lich King coming out in a couple of months, and how many monthly subscriptions do I want to carry? If my contracting job was pulling in more money, I could be a little more relaxed about it. But it's not, so I'm not.
Back to WANT vs NEED. Looking around Fileplanet and GameSpy's sites to see if the $40 spent would be worth more than line-jumping to me, I do see some other games I'd like to try. Spore looks like gobs of fun. And Cysis Warhead kind of looks like fun. But I can get those at the Brick and Mortar stores without spending $40 on top of the game prices. Sure, it won't be the very minute the games are released, auto-downloaded for me. But do I really NEED that? WAR Beta doesn't even start until tomorrow. So spending $40 tonight will get me nothing more than less eye strain from no longer staring at those tiny little number (I'm at 138 of 2221 now). And the awful temptation of spending more money on games way too easily. Plus, I wouldn't have the pretty boxes to line the shelf over my desk. I like my pretty box collection. There, see. I've just won the argument with myself. I do NOT need to spend $40 just to jump the line, because if I did, I wouldn't have my collection of game boxes to gaze at while I'm deep in thought.
I guess I'll go kill some aliens in Unreal Tournament III for a while.
131 of 2213.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
School's Back in Session - More Free Time?
Ah, the beginning of September. School starts, TV shows start up again (or start new), the days get shorter and cooler. All things that you'd think would allow for more free time to 'game.' (except for the TV shows - but that's what DVR's are for!)
So far, I have not found that to be true. Seems I've been spending all of my "free" time playing catchup up for things left undone during hectic days of summer, or *gasp* working. Working's all well and good, after all, it does support my gaming habit. But it sure does cut into "free" time I could be doing something else. (And if you haven't figured out the "something else" is gaming by now, you should just click "next blog")
Back in the good 'ol days before I went back to work part-time, I had gobs and gobs of time while the kids were in school to run an instance, or knock out a few quests, do a reputation grind, whatever struck my fancy. And since I usually only work 1/2 days, I often have 2 hours before the rugrats shoot off the bus to do those things. So far this month tho', I've picked up a few extra jobs, and it's kept me hopping.
How to juggle everything so I have some fun too? That IS the question of the hour. I do a lot of multi-tasking. As I write this, dinner is sizzling on the stove (any mispellings are probably due to my constant getting up from the computer to stir something) and I have to keep an eye on the kids playing outside so no one (else) jumps off the top of the swing set in an attempt to reach the pool. I still have 2 hours worth of work to do after dinner, so looks like I'll miss my weekly Wow jaunt w/ Dad and Bro. I'm hoping to still be able to jump on after working, so that I can finish the 1/2 a level my priest needs to hit 54.
Hoping next week will be calmer. Sort of. The money from the work is a nice boost to the budget, but sure cuts into the game-time budget.
So far, I have not found that to be true. Seems I've been spending all of my "free" time playing catchup up for things left undone during hectic days of summer, or *gasp* working. Working's all well and good, after all, it does support my gaming habit. But it sure does cut into "free" time I could be doing something else. (And if you haven't figured out the "something else" is gaming by now, you should just click "next blog")
Back in the good 'ol days before I went back to work part-time, I had gobs and gobs of time while the kids were in school to run an instance, or knock out a few quests, do a reputation grind, whatever struck my fancy. And since I usually only work 1/2 days, I often have 2 hours before the rugrats shoot off the bus to do those things. So far this month tho', I've picked up a few extra jobs, and it's kept me hopping.
How to juggle everything so I have some fun too? That IS the question of the hour. I do a lot of multi-tasking. As I write this, dinner is sizzling on the stove (any mispellings are probably due to my constant getting up from the computer to stir something) and I have to keep an eye on the kids playing outside so no one (else) jumps off the top of the swing set in an attempt to reach the pool. I still have 2 hours worth of work to do after dinner, so looks like I'll miss my weekly Wow jaunt w/ Dad and Bro. I'm hoping to still be able to jump on after working, so that I can finish the 1/2 a level my priest needs to hit 54.
Hoping next week will be calmer. Sort of. The money from the work is a nice boost to the budget, but sure cuts into the game-time budget.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Time to start the balancing act
It's that time of year again. School's in!
Time to start "helping" my kids balance game-time with school-work and other activities like Karate and gymnastics, as well as refereeing disputes over who's turn it is to play. During the summer, I give them fairly free reign over a lot of their day. There are chunks of the day where they get to decide when to play games, when to watch TV, when to play with friends etc. But now that the free hours in the day are severely limited, announcing I need them to come with me to do the grocery shopping because they're no old enough to stay home alone goes over like an /afk by the healer during a final Boss kill.
The beginning of our week is jammed with school followed almost immediately by a sport followed by homework time followed by dinner. That usually leaves about an hour of "free" time, followed by pleas of "just a few more minutes" or "I'll shower tomorrow!" or "but SHE hogged all the time on the Wii, I didn't get my turn yet!" Yeah, life's SO fun during those times.
Not to mention that I have to watch my own play-time. After all, the laundry can only be put off so long, because now we actually have to leave the house in those clothes, so they'd better be clean. Plus there will be the "I need help with my math homework" and the "I can't find my yellow t-shirt and I need it for gym tomorrow."
By Friday, I think we're already to do something more fun, so Friday nights are usually Game Nights here. Far from the Parker Brothers version of game night, we are usually all playing a computer or console game, sometimes with each other, sometimes not. The boys are usually teamed up with others via the net for Friday Night Fights, while the girls are often play Warcraft together. Sometimes we challenge each other to a game of Wii bowling. There's always pizza, the age-appropirate beverage, and snacks. Sounds fun to me!
Time to start "helping" my kids balance game-time with school-work and other activities like Karate and gymnastics, as well as refereeing disputes over who's turn it is to play. During the summer, I give them fairly free reign over a lot of their day. There are chunks of the day where they get to decide when to play games, when to watch TV, when to play with friends etc. But now that the free hours in the day are severely limited, announcing I need them to come with me to do the grocery shopping because they're no old enough to stay home alone goes over like an /afk by the healer during a final Boss kill.
The beginning of our week is jammed with school followed almost immediately by a sport followed by homework time followed by dinner. That usually leaves about an hour of "free" time, followed by pleas of "just a few more minutes" or "I'll shower tomorrow!" or "but SHE hogged all the time on the Wii, I didn't get my turn yet!" Yeah, life's SO fun during those times.
Not to mention that I have to watch my own play-time. After all, the laundry can only be put off so long, because now we actually have to leave the house in those clothes, so they'd better be clean. Plus there will be the "I need help with my math homework" and the "I can't find my yellow t-shirt and I need it for gym tomorrow."
By Friday, I think we're already to do something more fun, so Friday nights are usually Game Nights here. Far from the Parker Brothers version of game night, we are usually all playing a computer or console game, sometimes with each other, sometimes not. The boys are usually teamed up with others via the net for Friday Night Fights, while the girls are often play Warcraft together. Sometimes we challenge each other to a game of Wii bowling. There's always pizza, the age-appropirate beverage, and snacks. Sounds fun to me!
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Parental Controls in Games - why I like them
MCVUK.com recently posted a piece that says Microsoft will be adding Parental Controls to Gears of War 2. The violence filter will allow you to filter out bad language and change blood to sparks during fighting. The change of blood to sparks is something I haven't seen before, and is a nice way to clean up the game without changing the overall game experience.
I don't believe profanity filter is anything new, but I do believe this is something good. I have two kids in the house, and my PC is in an open area of the sun room mainly so I can be accessible to the kids. The downside of this comes when I want to play a video that may not be appropriate for kids to watch over my shoulder, or play a game that contains more violence or swear words than I want to expose them to right now. So I when I see information like Microsoft adding Parental Controls to Gears of War 2, then I might be more inclined to take a look at the game, rather than pass over it because it's got a "Mature" rating and I don't have enough late-night time free for yet another M-rated game.
I use the ratings on both games and movies with a grain of salt. The ESRB generally does a good job of rating games, but sometimes they error on the side of caution. For instance, earlier this year we picked up Transformers, The Game by Activision, which is rated "T" for Teen. Personally, I think the game would have been fine with an E 10+ (Everyone 10 and older) rating. I let my 10 year old son play it, and I don't feel the violence is excessive. After all, they're robots, so it's not overly realistic. Obviously everyone needs to make their own decisions about what games are appropriate for their own children, and I feel my son is mature enough to realize that it's just a game.
I've also given him permission to join my husband in his Friday Night Fights gaming event, provided they use the Parental Filter when available. My husband, my brother, a cousin and two or three various work friends get together online every Friday night to play. The game varies, depending on what they're in the mood for, or what's new. They started out with Call of Duty, which I would not allow my son to play at the time (I think that was 2 years ago.) They've recently moved on to Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advance Warfare 2, by Ubisoft. It's got a T rating, which I agree with. There is no Parental Filter, but as there is minimal swearing, and hardly any blood, I feel my son can handle it. I get the eye-roll when I comment "You know you can re-spawn in real life, right?" (I'm a Mom, I can't help it.) Before this game, they were playing Unreal Tournament 3, rated M, which does contain a profanity filter, and involved Aliens so while it looked scary, it was in a fun way, not something likely to induce nightmares.
I've also noticed that all the guys self-filter their Ventrillo communication when my son is joining them, which I appreciate. Most of them have children in their houses as well, so it's probably habit anyway.
The guys no long play UT3 together, so I've taken it over, and play on my own. I like it because I can practice WASD'ing to move around. I'm used to World of Warcraft - where you can move using the WASD keys has well, but I tend to use the two-mouse buttons instead as it's a smoother trip, and I need my left hand to hit the number keys to Kidney-shot, Backstab and Gouge. And I have the profanity filter turned on, so I don't need to worry about little parrots repeating inapropriate phrases while playing at their friend's houses.
So for me Parental Controls in video games is a good thing, allowing me to tweak a game to a level I feel comfortable with. As a Mom who games, I appreciate anything the game makers can do to allow me a wider variety of games I can play with kids nearby.
I don't believe profanity filter is anything new, but I do believe this is something good. I have two kids in the house, and my PC is in an open area of the sun room mainly so I can be accessible to the kids. The downside of this comes when I want to play a video that may not be appropriate for kids to watch over my shoulder, or play a game that contains more violence or swear words than I want to expose them to right now. So I when I see information like Microsoft adding Parental Controls to Gears of War 2, then I might be more inclined to take a look at the game, rather than pass over it because it's got a "Mature" rating and I don't have enough late-night time free for yet another M-rated game.
I use the ratings on both games and movies with a grain of salt. The ESRB generally does a good job of rating games, but sometimes they error on the side of caution. For instance, earlier this year we picked up Transformers, The Game by Activision, which is rated "T" for Teen. Personally, I think the game would have been fine with an E 10+ (Everyone 10 and older) rating. I let my 10 year old son play it, and I don't feel the violence is excessive. After all, they're robots, so it's not overly realistic. Obviously everyone needs to make their own decisions about what games are appropriate for their own children, and I feel my son is mature enough to realize that it's just a game.
I've also given him permission to join my husband in his Friday Night Fights gaming event, provided they use the Parental Filter when available. My husband, my brother, a cousin and two or three various work friends get together online every Friday night to play. The game varies, depending on what they're in the mood for, or what's new. They started out with Call of Duty, which I would not allow my son to play at the time (I think that was 2 years ago.) They've recently moved on to Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advance Warfare 2, by Ubisoft. It's got a T rating, which I agree with. There is no Parental Filter, but as there is minimal swearing, and hardly any blood, I feel my son can handle it. I get the eye-roll when I comment "You know you can re-spawn in real life, right?" (I'm a Mom, I can't help it.) Before this game, they were playing Unreal Tournament 3, rated M, which does contain a profanity filter, and involved Aliens so while it looked scary, it was in a fun way, not something likely to induce nightmares.
I've also noticed that all the guys self-filter their Ventrillo communication when my son is joining them, which I appreciate. Most of them have children in their houses as well, so it's probably habit anyway.
The guys no long play UT3 together, so I've taken it over, and play on my own. I like it because I can practice WASD'ing to move around. I'm used to World of Warcraft - where you can move using the WASD keys has well, but I tend to use the two-mouse buttons instead as it's a smoother trip, and I need my left hand to hit the number keys to Kidney-shot, Backstab and Gouge. And I have the profanity filter turned on, so I don't need to worry about little parrots repeating inapropriate phrases while playing at their friend's houses.
So for me Parental Controls in video games is a good thing, allowing me to tweak a game to a level I feel comfortable with. As a Mom who games, I appreciate anything the game makers can do to allow me a wider variety of games I can play with kids nearby.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Not all gamers are Male, or under 25
I'm not ashamed to admit it: I Game.
An article in the Boston Globe a while back raised the question of whether is more socially acceptable to admit an addiction to drugs or porn, than to a game. Not that I have an addiction. I can stop any time I want to. Right after I finish up this quest...
I consider myself a casual gamer, a few steps above playing the Solitare that comes with Windows, and more than a few steps below having game-controller calluses. Why is this even worth mentioning? Well, I'm part of a new gaming demographic. Companies like Nintendo are hot to get my type of player, and I'm willing to let them.
Before I started playing games, I thought 'gamers' where under-socialized males living in their parents basements way past the age on consent. Oh, sure, I dabbled in a few games: "You Don't Know Jack" was a favorite in the mid-'90's, but never considered myself a gamer. Two years ago, I was visiting my brother in Georgia when he said "Take a look at this, I found this game that I think you'll really like." It was World of Warcraft. When I got back home, I loaded up the trial version, and played for a couple of hours. I was hooked. I promptly went out and plunked down my $39.99 (now it's available for $19.99) to get my full-access product key, and have been killing off mobs in Azeroth and Outland ever since.
I play most of my games on my Windows-based PC, but recently purchased a Nintendo Wii. Subconsiously, it might have been a secret plot to get my kids playing the Wii so they'd quit hogging my PC and cutting into MY play time. But I enjoy playing on the Wii as well.
In later blogs, I'll get into what games I play, what games I allow my kids to play and how I manage to balance real life with gaming.
An article in the Boston Globe a while back raised the question of whether is more socially acceptable to admit an addiction to drugs or porn, than to a game. Not that I have an addiction. I can stop any time I want to. Right after I finish up this quest...
I consider myself a casual gamer, a few steps above playing the Solitare that comes with Windows, and more than a few steps below having game-controller calluses. Why is this even worth mentioning? Well, I'm part of a new gaming demographic. Companies like Nintendo are hot to get my type of player, and I'm willing to let them.
Before I started playing games, I thought 'gamers' where under-socialized males living in their parents basements way past the age on consent. Oh, sure, I dabbled in a few games: "You Don't Know Jack" was a favorite in the mid-'90's, but never considered myself a gamer. Two years ago, I was visiting my brother in Georgia when he said "Take a look at this, I found this game that I think you'll really like." It was World of Warcraft. When I got back home, I loaded up the trial version, and played for a couple of hours. I was hooked. I promptly went out and plunked down my $39.99 (now it's available for $19.99) to get my full-access product key, and have been killing off mobs in Azeroth and Outland ever since.
I play most of my games on my Windows-based PC, but recently purchased a Nintendo Wii. Subconsiously, it might have been a secret plot to get my kids playing the Wii so they'd quit hogging my PC and cutting into MY play time. But I enjoy playing on the Wii as well.
In later blogs, I'll get into what games I play, what games I allow my kids to play and how I manage to balance real life with gaming.
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