Online gaming parental control is being ordered by the Chinese government to online game 'operators' (click here to read full article).
Quite frankly, although it's with good intentions, this is just a very futile attempt which may just be for show so that parents would think they're trying to do something about it. Why do I think it won't work? Here are a couple of their suggestions/provisions they want the online game operators to do:
1) "Upon proving their identity, parents will be able to put daily or weekly restrictions on their child’s game playing time, the notice said. They would also have the option of putting in place a total ban."
Get ready for more, as parents say it, "rebellious" children. Kids will surely find ways to make it happen. It will prompt hackers to create some work around, sell it to kids who have been banned or limited in gaming. Yes, it will drop the number of kids playing their eyeballs out (some kids who can't get their hands on the new hack), but it will not stop them from rebelling.
2) "It urged game operators to employ special staff to assist with the project and to set up web pages and hotlines"
Employ additional staff? Set-up web pages and hotlines? Both mean additional expense items for the companies. Of course they'd protest, but if it's something mandatory, they'll set something up, like a crappy system that would be the most cost effective set-up for them, and it won't be efficient enough to do the task the government intends them to do (with regards to parental control) and of course, kids would stay away from online games that would boast "GREAT PARENTAL CONTROL SERVICE"... What!? No way! So do companies like that? Hmm... I bet not.
In any case, there's been similar attempts to limit gaming in the Philippines, but I don't remember that ever stopping me. Is it something I should be proud of? Well, of course not, but that's the reality. I remember walking to one computer shop at Dapitan (the other UST Exit parallel to Espanya) and a group of guys almost ran past me as I was nearing the door to the shop. And once I got in, the group of boys (high school boys) were calling their friend warning him that their teacher was on his way to the shop because he heard (the teacher) from one of the classmates that he cut school to play. Apparently, it was a very important day or he was just a very pissed off teacher, or the kid was a frequent offender. In any case, even after I left the shop, the teacher was delivering his sermon to the highschool boy. It wasn't scandalous, because the teacher was very calm and very gentle. It was just a sad sight seeing kids neglecting their school duties for video games, but there are also kids (like me and my bro) who turned out ok, and was able to balance school (get good grades) and gaming (get good scores). ^_^
So, am I saying that nothing should be done? Definitely something should be done, and that something is the right kind of discipline starting from when the kids are really young. One way to do it is gaming through reward system. Instead of restricting gaming to 1 or 2 hours a day or a week period, it would probably better if parents say, "Son/Daughter, you can play 1-2 hours a week only, but you can get 1 or 2 hours more in the weekend if you do good in school." Something like that. Another thing is, videogames are just electronic versions of real-life games that parents can play with their kids. If, at an early age, kids enjoy little games with their parents (scrabble, boggle, chess, flash cards, twister, etc), then even if they try videogames, it won't be too difficult to switch them back to those non-electronic games every now and then, because to them, videogames and boardgames, etc are all the same.
What do I know, I'm not a parent? Well, but I was a kid, and I had parents. This is how they did it with us, and we turned out ok. We appreciated all games in general. We loved boardgames (tried all ninja turtle version of boardgames, snakes and ladders, scrabble, chess, Salpakan - Games of the Generals), we loved trivia games (Thinkaton), card games (flash cards - yes, the math ones, suited cards... ^_^), games with other kids (langit-lupa, si nena, dodge ball), etc. These are what worked out best for us, but you can try different styles or approach according to your kids' personality.
My opinion, government mandated parental gaming control >>> FAIL
In-house, personal parental gaming guidance >>> ^_^ thumbs up!
Gaming aren't just for kids! - from Anne in Red.
Showing posts with label Games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Games. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Bug War 2 - Tips and Review
ABOUT THE GAME
Bug War 2 is a second release (duh!) for the Bug War title by Bubblebox.com. It’s one of those strategy games where you or your minions occupy a tower at the start of the game and you have to overrun enemies by occupying all of their towers.
There are 2 types of towers in the whole game, the Spawn tower which can produce bugs every second and there’s the Cannon tower that can fire cannon balls at incoming attacking bugs but can’t create bugs. Both towers can hold unlimited number of bugs. There are 13 levels in the game and after finishing a level you’ll get a rating of 1-5 stars depending on how well you do for that level. 5 stars is the maximum number of stars you can get in a game and it’s very important you get all 5 stars for every level if you want to complete the trophies. This game encourages replay by offering trophies and other races of bugs. At the start, you’ll see that there are 3 options for races of bugs: Agile, Fast or Strong – but you can only choose Agile type of bugs if you’re playing the game for the first time. Fast and Strong bugs can be unlocked after finishing the game using the Agile Race. Also, there are 12 trophies or achievements you can complete while playing the game which are all fairly easy to get.
Here's when all levels are played and have 5 stars rating each plus all the trophies completed.
HOW TO GET 5 STARS IN ALL LEVELS
The key to get all 5 stars in each level is speed and to some extent, not losing any spawn over to the enemies.
SPEED
To finish the game really quick, you should attack the enemy straight on. Don’t bother occupying the nearby towers if they’re not leading the shortest path to your enemy’s tower/s. Better if you capture another spawn tower at the start of the game for higher levels so that you can produce more bugs per second, but for lower levels, if the nearest tower is a Cannon tower, then go ahead and occupy it right away.
SPAWNS LOST
The lower levels are more forgiving in terms of losing spawns to the enemies. As long as you finish the level really fast, even if you lose a couple of spawns or towers, you’ll still get 5 stars. But for the higher levels, 10 and up, you’ll need to secure the spawns/towers you occupy by concentrating on putting bugs until you get to have 30 or so bugs in the tower, a comfortable number that you know can’t easily be overrun by the enemies.
Here's finishing level 1 in 11 seconds and 1 spawn lost, still got 5 stars.
OVERALL RATING FOR THE GAME
I love this type of strategy game because it does get you to think of strategies per level because some levels can prove to be challenging if you make a wrong move for the first few clicks. But I think the games is a little too easy and the trophies, aside from being easy to get, aren’t at all that rewarding (well, maybe it’s because they’re easy to complete so that’s why there’s no ‘feeling of satisfaction’). I like the art and the levels but after completing the whole game, I won’t bother to play the levels again unless it’s to complete the trophy set. I’ve played a lot of other games like this that really have more replay value.
The end of credits - after you finish level 13 'aka' "The Final Level"
For more game reviews and tips, you can go to my game blog GameBoots (http://gameboots.wordpress.com).
Happy Gaming! - From Anne in Red
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
How to Get Top Score in Bejeweled Blitz Every week
Bejeweled Blitz is one of the games in Facebook that has sustained its popularity since it has been introduced to the site last year by PopCap. It is a fast paced puzzle game, a round lasts only 1 minute, and the goal is to out-score your friends every week because the scores are reset every Wednesday early morning. Here are some tips on how you can out-rank your friends every week and be the talk of the town for your high scores in this game. Our goal is to get 300,000+++ every week for a safe spot on top.
First, you should know how to recognize a good set from the first 5 seconds of the game. If you find yourself struggling to find a match, then chances are, it’s not going to give you good results in the end. Quit it and start a new game. If you start a game and quickly find matches easily, then that’s a good round. Halfway through the game, if you haven’t got any multiplier or you’re still at less than 50 thousand points, then it’s best if you quit the game and start again. It’s important not to waste time on games that won’t put you on the leader board.
Speed is the key to this game and as soon as the game starts, you should have already found at least a couple of possible matches in the board. And every time you successfully find some jewels to match, as your hand is leading the mouse to make the match, your eyes should already be looking for another one. Think a step or 2 steps ahead of the game. If you do this, you’ll start piling up Speed Bonus. Speed Bonus gives additional points to every quick matches you make hereafter. Speed bonus starts at 200 and increases to 1,000 points as long as you keep matching colors or jewels quickly. You should not break the momentum or else you’ll lose the speed bonus and have to build it up again starting 200 points. That’s a waste of a lot of points and time. Also, once you max out the speed bonus, as long as you keep getting matches really fast, you’ll notice that the bonus (upper left corner of the game) is filling up with orange color. Once it’s full, you’re going to have a few seconds of speed bonus explosion. All the jewels that you create matches with will explode and break the other jewels around it, which is good because it means more points for every match.
Learn to prioritize matches that contain 4 or more jewels instead of just 3 jewels. Simple reason behind this is that they give you more points and give you bonus items. It’s important that if you see bonus items such “multiplier”, “flame gem”, “star gem” and “hypercube”, you should prioritize finding matches or using them, especially the multiplier. If you can break the multiplier as soon as you see it, then it will start multiplying the points that you get for every match from the moment you break it. Imagine if you have 1,000 speed bonus and you currently are at 7x (after matching a 7x multiplier gem), that 1,000 speed bonus gives you 7,000 points.
Start finding matches at the bottom of the board so that it shakes up the placement of the gems and gives you a lot more chance to find good set or balance of colors and matches.
If you have enough coins to buy boosts, make sure you can buy the maximum number of boosts which is 3. Buying just 2 or 1 won’t do much good. Here are my top 3 boosts that work absolutely great when used together; Mystery Gem (and pray it gives you a hypercube or a multiplier), +5 seconds (adding 5 seconds at the end of the game is crucial because this is when you have a big multiplier and you’re piling up speed bonuses at this point) and Free Multiplier. Using boosts will give you easy 300,000+ points or as much as 500,000++ points.
All in all, practice makes perfect and as soon as you get the hang of applying all the tips in this article, then you’ll find yourself placing first every week with the least amount of time spent on the game.
I hope you find these tips useful! - Anne in Red
First, you should know how to recognize a good set from the first 5 seconds of the game. If you find yourself struggling to find a match, then chances are, it’s not going to give you good results in the end. Quit it and start a new game. If you start a game and quickly find matches easily, then that’s a good round. Halfway through the game, if you haven’t got any multiplier or you’re still at less than 50 thousand points, then it’s best if you quit the game and start again. It’s important not to waste time on games that won’t put you on the leader board.
This is a so-so game. You can find 3 matches in a glance so you can play this set but I've seen better combination so you can quit this and start a new one too.
This one's a good game. You have possibilities for big scoring and multiple jewel matches. You can play this game.
This is a great game! Do I need to explain why? Just a few clicks and you'll have bonus items!
Speed is the key to this game and as soon as the game starts, you should have already found at least a couple of possible matches in the board. And every time you successfully find some jewels to match, as your hand is leading the mouse to make the match, your eyes should already be looking for another one. Think a step or 2 steps ahead of the game. If you do this, you’ll start piling up Speed Bonus. Speed Bonus gives additional points to every quick matches you make hereafter. Speed bonus starts at 200 and increases to 1,000 points as long as you keep matching colors or jewels quickly. You should not break the momentum or else you’ll lose the speed bonus and have to build it up again starting 200 points. That’s a waste of a lot of points and time. Also, once you max out the speed bonus, as long as you keep getting matches really fast, you’ll notice that the bonus (upper left corner of the game) is filling up with orange color. Once it’s full, you’re going to have a few seconds of speed bonus explosion. All the jewels that you create matches with will explode and break the other jewels around it, which is good because it means more points for every match.
Learn to prioritize matches that contain 4 or more jewels instead of just 3 jewels. Simple reason behind this is that they give you more points and give you bonus items. It’s important that if you see bonus items such “multiplier”, “flame gem”, “star gem” and “hypercube”, you should prioritize finding matches or using them, especially the multiplier. If you can break the multiplier as soon as you see it, then it will start multiplying the points that you get for every match from the moment you break it. Imagine if you have 1,000 speed bonus and you currently are at 7x (after matching a 7x multiplier gem), that 1,000 speed bonus gives you 7,000 points.
Start finding matches at the bottom of the board so that it shakes up the placement of the gems and gives you a lot more chance to find good set or balance of colors and matches.
If you have enough coins to buy boosts, make sure you can buy the maximum number of boosts which is 3. Buying just 2 or 1 won’t do much good. Here are my top 3 boosts that work absolutely great when used together; Mystery Gem (and pray it gives you a hypercube or a multiplier), +5 seconds (adding 5 seconds at the end of the game is crucial because this is when you have a big multiplier and you’re piling up speed bonuses at this point) and Free Multiplier. Using boosts will give you easy 300,000+ points or as much as 500,000++ points.
All in all, practice makes perfect and as soon as you get the hang of applying all the tips in this article, then you’ll find yourself placing first every week with the least amount of time spent on the game.
I hope you find these tips useful! - Anne in Red
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Addicted to Free Online Games
I've been addicted to games all my life. I think it's my brother's influence on me. We started with the good ol' Family Computer, then Atari, PSX (the 1st playstation but shouldn't be confused with PS1 which was the more portable version and sometimes comes with an LCD monitor attachment), borrowed Dreamcast so we played a few games there too, PS2, PC games played over the internet and LAN like Counter-Strike, Starcraft and MMORPGs (Mass Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) like Ragnarok, and now... I can't stop playing free online games!
Free online games are free games (of course) created buy heaven sent game developers, which are often flash based or sometimes even java... They have really quickly achievable end goals compared to long playing console games and almost goal-less MMORPGs. They're often hosted on the developer's own site such as Girlgamesclub.com and Armorgames.com. This means, these sites develop their own whole barrage of assorted types of games and host them on their own website (only their games are on their websites) but make it available for other websites to embed the games on their sites. A sample of these "other websites" that host various games from different developers are Sugar-free-games.com and Freeworldgroup.com.
I check a whole lot of my own bookmarked sites everyday because there's sure to be a least 5 new games posted in a day. But I don't play all of the games. The games are categorized as (the most common categories) Strategy, Adventure/RPG, Skill/Simulation, Sport, Puzzle, Action, Shooting and Classic/Arcade. The categories of games I love to play are Strategy (mostly tower defense games), Skill/Simulation (lots of cooking games, mostly mouse heavy games - use the mouse a lot) and RPG games (role-playing games).
Exactly how addicted am I? Well, I did mention I check the sites everyday, right? I guess that would make me an addict already, right? And when I play, my goal is always to reach the end goal with the best statistics or with the most number of points. Most of these games allow you to submit your scores online at the end of the game. Then you'd be able to see how you ranked among all the other players around the world. If you're playing with a Philippine IP, you get to see our flag beside your name! I've ranked really high in some of the games and I'm proud of it.
Here are some of the tops scores I've landed:
If you're looking for something to do with your free time, well, I'm not saying this is the best and most productive activity you can do, but incase you want to give it a try, here are some of the sites I check everyday for new games:
Happy gaming and hope to see more Philippine flags on highscores, from Anne in Red!
Free online games are free games (of course) created buy heaven sent game developers, which are often flash based or sometimes even java... They have really quickly achievable end goals compared to long playing console games and almost goal-less MMORPGs. They're often hosted on the developer's own site such as Girlgamesclub.com and Armorgames.com. This means, these sites develop their own whole barrage of assorted types of games and host them on their own website (only their games are on their websites) but make it available for other websites to embed the games on their sites. A sample of these "other websites" that host various games from different developers are Sugar-free-games.com and Freeworldgroup.com.
I check a whole lot of my own bookmarked sites everyday because there's sure to be a least 5 new games posted in a day. But I don't play all of the games. The games are categorized as (the most common categories) Strategy, Adventure/RPG, Skill/Simulation, Sport, Puzzle, Action, Shooting and Classic/Arcade. The categories of games I love to play are Strategy (mostly tower defense games), Skill/Simulation (lots of cooking games, mostly mouse heavy games - use the mouse a lot) and RPG games (role-playing games).
Exactly how addicted am I? Well, I did mention I check the sites everyday, right? I guess that would make me an addict already, right? And when I play, my goal is always to reach the end goal with the best statistics or with the most number of points. Most of these games allow you to submit your scores online at the end of the game. Then you'd be able to see how you ranked among all the other players around the world. If you're playing with a Philippine IP, you get to see our flag beside your name! I've ranked really high in some of the games and I'm proud of it.
Here are some of the tops scores I've landed:
This is from a game called "Cook Until Done" where you have to cook (mostly grill) sausages and stuff until they are perfectly done and serve them to your customers. And yes, top score! See the Philippine flag proudly on number 1? This one's a cooking game, but some sites don't have a separate "cooking" category so they place these kinds of games under "skill".
The 2 pictures above are from "Parasite X" where you have to aid the parasite and stop the blood cells from killing it. It's considered to be a strategy game and a skill game too.
If you're looking for something to do with your free time, well, I'm not saying this is the best and most productive activity you can do, but incase you want to give it a try, here are some of the sites I check everyday for new games:
Happy gaming and hope to see more Philippine flags on highscores, from Anne in Red!
