It's summer. It's the time for vacation, cookouts, swimming, and endless crappy games. Seldom is there ever a good game released during summer. SUCKS!

Recently two new articles came out about the connection between video games and behavior. In one article,a 17 year old kid killed his mom and tried to kill his dad, apparently because he played Halo 3. In another article, several studies were conducted noting the level of generosity people have after playing either neutral, violent, or prosocial games. In an attempt not to make this blog a multi-page book, I will only mention some of largest fallacies. First off, the 1st article doesn't take into account the boy's previous behavior and life experiences.Things likethe home environment, social or anti-social behavior, and school behavior are someto consider.The father is a minister. So, I guess people just automatically assume it's great to live in his house. Secondly, the 1st article doesn't bring up the fact that most people playing violent video games don't commit such deeds. People always point to the exception to the rule and say, "See! Violent video games do cause violence!" According to the statistics, there is a large correlation that playing violent video games results in non-violent behavior. However, correlation does NOT equal cause-and-effect. To say violent video games CAUSES violent behavior or non-violent behavior, there would have to be said behavior every single time each and every person played a violent video game. Otherwise, no one can conclude a cause/effect relationship. In the next article, the whole study just had the game players hand a puzzle to a random person. The game players had a choice to give the person a hard, easy, or medium puzzle. This only suggests that the game players were affected by the game, but it still doesn't account for the highly exagerated behavior of those that kill. Giving a hard puzzle to a random person is not the same as gunning down a family. Everyone's moods areaffected by everything everywhere all the time. This includes music, sports, dancing, TV, games, sunshine, wind, temperature, etc... However, to connect such a benign action as giving a puzzle to that of murder and assault are erroneous and illogical (not that this article was doing that). The question I have is, aren't violent video games typically more challenging than others? If so, couldn't the people playing the violent video games be influenced more by the greater challenge than the violence itself? This would make more sense given the fact that the gamers chose the more challenging puzzles for the recipients to do, instead of just making the $10 reward easy on them. The biggest problem with psycology and sociology studies is that the researchers conduct experiments with pre-interpretive mind sets. They always "know" how to interpret the results before they even give them. Any scientist will admit that this taints the scientific method. Scientists need to explore every interpretation mixed with many repeated experiments before a sound conclusion is drawn. JEEZ!

Summer is almost here! I will not be teaching this summer and will only have a part time job. I am going to game it up like nobody's business. When it finally gets here, I am going to be so excited that I will probably weep!

I know it's a bit late in the making.However, it's given me some time to mull over the review. All-in-all, I think Fable was a better game. I think the stories of both are worth about the same in value. Nevertheless, about the only thing Fable 2 has in its favor is better graphics. The first game had a better menu system equipped with a quick menu that could be brought up in game without having to go through the pause menu. Despite the advances in hardware this generation, Fable 1 felt less linear in traveling from location to location. They said that your character can now go off path by allowing him/her to jump fences. So, the makers built terrain that restricts movement off the path instead. There is only a couple of locations in Fable 2 that feels "open" to explore. Even the controls in the first one were better. The map in Fable 2 is a joke. Whereas, the map in the first one was easy to read. As a sequel on new hardware the game should have less loading screens more items, cloths, tatoos,and weapons. Fable 2 is good, but disappointing. About the only thing that really stands out in this game is the decisions within the story arch.

The Watchmen wasn't what I expected. However, It was good. And I'm definitely going to buy it. It isn't the traditional "superhero" show. The superheros have a real element of humanity that isn't portrayed in any other movie. The heros struggled within themselves on the blurry lines between "right and wrong." Can they save everyone in the whole world? If not, is it ok to destroy a few that the many can live or just let them destroy themselves? One common theme in the eyes of one of the superheros is that human depravity is human made. Globally, people are "living the American dream" by taking and consuming as much as possible before they die not matter who is hurt or left out. Whether everyone agrees with this perspective or not, it is a valid point. When looking at humanity as a whole throughout history, the most common trend is destruction. Civilizations grow and crumble by its own constituentsand those outside over and over. People hurt people and blight themselves, nature, and others by theft, greed, drugs, pollution, murder, war, lying, cheating, and bigotry continuously. From the perspective of super hero salvation, why save that which seeks to destroy itself? This may seem rather bleek and cynical, but it is a valid question nonetheless. The movie did a good job at portraying the human condition quite well.

Supposedly, time is a variable. The universal constant is 299,792,458 m/s from an inert reference frame. However, from the mover it is instantaneous. So, for those of us who are on the run, we seem to move at an instant in time relative to a fixed point. Meanwhile, an inert observer may witness a lapse in time much greater than that of the mover. This phenomenon happens as time varies between observers, changing differently depending on the reference frame. We only observe the result after the destination is reached in a specific fixed point in space. This is repeated as the intervals continue. The stipulation states that no object could travel faster than c or else the effect would precede its cause. This means that if we could break that rule then time for us would travel in reverse and we could accomplish tasks before we start them. I am working on over-riding this rule. I'll let you know when I get it figured it out.

Nintendo has been outselling the other consoles since its release. For a while, though, the 360 typically out sold the Wii's software line-up. That's no longer true. Nintendo's first party games are now outselling the best the 360 has to offer in games. The casual gamers have spoken and brought Nintendo's console market back from the grave. The NPD numbers don't lie. I'm just glad that the rest of the world's game developers haven't jumped on the casual bandwagon. As it stands, most game-players are no longer "gamers." That's fine. As long as great games keep coming for the hardcore gamers, it's all good.

From a Hopeful Gamer

I manged to play video games 2 weekends in a row! And there's a chance for 3 in a row. Ahhhh! Life is filled with little bits of joy sprinkled around like dropped candy in a litter box.

Aaaahhhh!!! I'm too busy to play videogames. The world is over!!!

This is just another reason why Nintendo's prize "next gen console" is over priced! The technologically out-dated Wii needs a price cut and a better library of games. Their corporate execs are raking in the dough, meanwhile they show very little gamer support. Not-to-mention, didn't they score like a zero on their environmental friendly manufacturing and business practices? Maybe they should throw some of that money at Mother Nature, and spring for her a new wheel chair for all of their bad practices!