video games

Labour Day Special: Games About Working Real-Life Jobs

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Labour Day weekend is meant to be a day where we celebrate the economic and social achievements of workers. As far as video games go, regular occupations in video games include space marine, normal boy who doesn’t know he’s destined to save the world and all-powerful  being with the ability to create farms from the heavens.

The following post highlights a few games worthy of a Labour Day of their own. These video games bravely go into the real-world for inspiration and do their best to make ‘every day’ jobs fun.

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Dance Central: My Kinect Killer App?

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I am not a fan of motion controls. I’ve made it very clear on this very blog. In particular, I have a number of doubts surrounding Microsoft’s motion controlled solution. While I think the idea behind Kinect is cool, I have concerns about how the technology works, the price (rumored to be $149.99) and the types of experiences being made available for it. So far, Microsoft is marketing this squarely at the casual audience, providing no shortage of Wii-inspired and Wii-ripoff games, such as Kinect Sports, Kinect Adventures and Kinectimals. As Darth Vader once said, “Do not want!”

After watching Microsoft’s e3 presentation, I was ready to avoid the Kinect completely. But if I told you I didn’t want to play anything the Kinect has to offer, I would be lying. I want to play Dance Central really bad.

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Social vs. Gaming: Why I Haven’t Jumped Into the Social Games Scene

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I love social media. I am a long-time blogger, active Facebook and Twitter user, and enjoy the technologies so much that I pursued a career in which I could work with these technologies on a regular basis. I currently work in the digital/interactive advertising business, where leveraging social technologies to improve our clients’ position in the marketplace is part of my everyday life.

Combined with my love of games, I should be all over social games like FarmVille, Mafia Wars and Foursquare. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. As of now, I have no personal interest in playing any social games. It’s not the social elements that turn me off to the scene; it’s the gaming part.
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Late to the Party: Tron

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Yes, I know. I’m late. 28 years late to be exact. To be fair, I wasn’t alive when the movie came out and by the time I was old enough to understand the world around me, Tron was old news. For as long as I can remember though, it’s been referred to in popular culture countless times and often mentioned as a film that helped bring computers, computer-generated graphics and video games to the mainstream.

I’ve always felt bad as a gamer and all-around nerd for not having seen Tron. Thankfully, my girlfriend and I recently watched it a few days ago and enjoyed it for the most part. I’m pretty tired right now, so I don’t have the mental capacity to write something fully thought out. However, I did want to share some assorted thoughts about the movie.

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Portal Being Added to a College Curriculum is Not A Lie

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Students heading to school at Indiana’s Wabash College this semester will find something very cool added to their curriculum: Portal. The critically acclaimed game about mind-bending puzzles and a deranged AI that is trying to torture you to death will sit along side Hamlet and Aristotle as required material for students looking to earn a degree.

Education purists may scoff at the thought of a video game being used as a teaching tool, especially a video game that isn’t meant to be educational. But having read the context in which the game is used, I think this is an amazing idea.

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The Legend Begins

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I vaguely remember the first time I ever played the Legend of Zelda. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t old enough to go to school and I couldn’t read at the time. All I remember is getting the sword and running around the world, killing monsters. I was told that I was supposed to save a princess, but I had no idea how. I aimlessly wandered around the world and killed things, which at the time, was probably enough of a gameplay experience to satisfy my tastes.

It would take a few more years before I actually understood how to play a Zelda game, when I first got my hands on A Link to the Past. It would take a few years after that for me to finally “get it”, when Ocarina of Time left an impact on my gaming life that I still feel today.

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5 Things I’m Looking Forward To At FanExpo

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FanExpo is only a few days away and I can barely hold in my excitement. My girlfriend and I are in for a whole new experience by partaking in this event, and I just want to soak it all in. With that said, there are a few things I’m a bit more pumped about than others. If you’re heading out to FanExpo, hit the cut to see if we’re psyched for the same things. If you currently have no plans to visit, these might be 5 reasons you should check out FanExpo.

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Lineage II Lawsuit and The Bigger Discussion About Video Game Addiction

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A few days ago, Wired’s Threat Level blog reported that a man from Hawaii was suing the makers of Lineage II because the virtual-world game supposedly made him “unable to function independently in usual daily activities such as getting up, getting dressed, bathing or communicating with family and friends.” The man claims to have played 20,000 hours of Lineage II between 2004 and 2009, which breaks down to 80 hours per week for 5 years. A federal judge is allowing the lawsuit to proceed, in spite of Lineage II developers NCsoft asking for it to be dismissed.

Game addiction can be devastating to a person and the loved ones around the addict. I feel bad for the guy that has grown dependent on this game. However, I don’t think this case should see the light of day in court because I think the fundamentals of his claim against NCsoft are based in flawed logic.

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About You: Current Hot Topics On In Third Person

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Ever since I wrote the Top 5 All-Time Most Viewed In Third Person Posts post, I’ve been kind of a metrics junkie. I’ll frequently log in with the sole intention of viewing the numbers and picking out the trends. I don’t envision a day where I’ll ever give away all my numbers to you, but I think it could be a neat exercise to talk about how you, the readers, use In Third Person. I’ve already covered the Top 5 Most Viewed In Third Person Posts of All-Time and now, I want to talk about the three topics that In Third Person readers can’t get enough of within the last month or so.

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Game Nerd vs. Movie Watcher: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

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A few nights ago, my girlfriend and I watched Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Walking out of that theatre and thinking about how much I enjoyed that movie put me in a weird mental space. On one side, the gamer in me was really happy to see video games represented with a level of love and respect that movies have failed to deliver on. On the other side, the movie watcher in me wasn’t so sure I enjoyed it for the all the right reasons.

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