First impressions of Street Fighter IV from a Tekken fan. (originally posted 02/07/2011)

Ok, I'm a Tekken fan but curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to play Street Fighter IV to see what all of the fuss was about. I had not played any Street Fighter since SFII in the arcades way back during my college days. I did give a SF game a try on the PS2 about 8-9 years ago but I was not impressed at all with it so it was instantly binned and I have not bothered with SF since. 

Schools Get in The Game. (originally published 03/06/2009)

Brock delivers his seminar

“Ok, it’s time to submit your school reports. Did everyone play Mario Kart at the weekend? Good. Let’s begin with group discussion, what is the premise and objective of the game?”
This may sound a little strange but for one Minneapolis teacher video games have become learning tools for his class of sixth to eighth graders.  Brock Dubbels of Seward Montessori in Minneapolis designed his ‘Video Games as Learning Tools’ class to span a three week period, requiring children to create detailed multimedia presentations from video games played in groups. He explains that the children are not just learning from the games content but also gaining key skills from playing and studying the games. Dubbels, who has a background in cognitive psychology, goes on to say “It connects to their lives. Research shows that children want to perform where they have competence.” Brock Dubbels spreads the word with training seminars and online courses designed to show other teachers how his three week course works.

Gaming is an Art. (originally published 02/06/2009)

Opinions of gaming and gamers are starting to change but the popular stereotype is still that gamers are nerdy, daylight starved kids with all the community social skills of a brick. We know that's not true of gamers and there are some of the rest of the population who see it that way too but not enough. We want people to see gaming for what it really is and gamer's as the real people that they are. This is understandably difficult given the rocky road the industry has travelled in terms of publicity through various media. "Videogames rot your kid’s brains" has quite a ring to it and sticks in the minds of concerned parents. Hundreds of articles in the newspapers about the horrors portrayed within these games and that they not only promote violence but encourage it. Causing the hapless, feeble minded social outcasts who play videogames to go and act out the brutality they have just witnessed from their games console. This, unfortunately, is the first impression modern gaming gave to Joe public and even though it is fading slowly we still need to fight it back.