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Razer Blade: Most Innovative Gaming Laptop

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“The Razer Blade is a full aluminum chassis gaming laptop featuring true portability, incredible performance, and an all-new revolutionary user interface. Razer is introducing the world’s first true gaming laptop.”

With an intro like that from the CES website, any gamer would probably want to get their hands on the Razer Blade and see if it lives up to its reputation. By the way, a glowing description is not the only thing that CES heaped on this laptop, but also the 2012 Best in Innovation Award for Gaming Hardware and Accessories.

Released in the market just last August, the Razer Blade is a laptop like no other in terms of performance with its 64Bit dual core 2nd generation Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB DDR RAM, and NVIDIA GeForce graphics processor. All this power doesn’t make it crazily heavy though, with the 17” laptop weighing in at 6.9lbs. More impressively, it is incredibly thin and is in fact almost an inch thinner than the average gaming laptop being only 0.88 inches thick (compared to 1.7-inch gaming laptops).

What makes this a gaming laptop unlike no other though is the Switchblade UI that I am personally raring to test. The UI comes with pre-defined profiles for popular games like Battlefield 3 and League of Legends, but is also fully customizable for gamers who are used to their own keysets. It also has a really cool LCD panel that doubles as an in-game information display and multi-touchpad, depending on the gamer’s preference.

So guess which laptop I’m craving for this Christmas?

Violent Video Games – The Other Side Of The Story

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GTA IV
We’ve all heard about how violent video games can bring harm to people who play them, especially the young people. More often than not, hardcore gamers get sick of these studies and proclamations of violence making players immune. That is why when I read this blog post on a study looking at the other side of the coin, I was pleasantly surprised. I was even more surprised that I haven’t heard more of this study, conducted by Dr. Cheryl K. Olson, which was actually started in 2004.

So what are the findings of the study? Dr. Olson states in an interview:

Many children in our survey, as well as our focus groups with boys who play violent games, said they played games to manage their feelings. This included playing games to “help get my anger out,” to forget problems, to relax, and to feel less lonely. Children who played at least one M-rated video game “a lot in the past six months” were significantly more likely to agree that getting anger out was one reason they played video games.

The bottom line is that adolescents who play video games are better able to manage their feelings – anger in particular. This is due to the fact that they are able to vent out violent emotions through video games. Another thing that I liked about the study is how they approached the issue – not using the premise that violent games cause aggressive behaviors. Instead, they focused on something more concrete – the reason behind adolescents playing these games.

Video Games: Possible Tension Reliever

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children playing video games
Another study gives much needed support to video games. According to Carmen Russoniello, a professor at East Carolina University, video games are potentially beneficial when it comes to relieving stress and tension. Here is more information from IT World Canada:

Carmen Russoniello, a professor at East Carolina University, recently finished a six-month study of people playing Bejeweled 2, Peggle and Bookworm adventures. The study concluded the games could have “potential therapeutic applications,” according to a press release issued by PopCap games, which by sheer coincidence happens to be the developer of these three games.

The school’s department of recreational and leisure studies observed the behaviour of video game players and measured their stress, psychological tension, anger, depression, vigour, fatigue and confusion. For example, people who played Peggle experienced a 66 per cent reduction in “psychological tension” while 43 per cent of those who played Bookworm Adventures experienced a reduction in depression. Rumour has it people who reached the fourth screen in Space Invaders also experienced confusion, though that game was not included in Russoniello’s study.

It is interesting to note, however, that only specific games were covered by the study. The GTA series, which could be the most popular game franchise ever, was not included in the study.

The East Carolina University study did not include Grand Theft Auto, a game where players can pretend to be criminals taking on rival gang members and robbing banks. The game’s developer, Rock Star North, also makes Bully and Manhunt.

Oh well, it is a start, isn’t it?

Video Games and Schooling

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toddlers video game
I came across a short article by Christopher Dawson over at ZDNet posing the question “Do game consoles have a place in primary education?” His rationale is as follows:

However, the new game, Cosmic Family, is a slick game filled with puzzles and animation. While the puzzles are engaging, the Wii itself, with it’s motion-sensitive Wiimotes, takes a remarkable amount of coordination and sensitivity to operate.

As I watch the kindergarten teacher work to develop just this sort of skill, I have to wonder if there might not be a place for systems like the Wii (with a limited selection of appropriate software, of course) in early elementary education, just as there is for desktop or laptop computers.

It seems to me that the Wii could be a great tool for developmental work, as well as occupational or physical therapy for particular students with identified needs in these areas. The parent in me feels a knee-jerk sense of horror at the thought of Nintendos in classrooms or gymnasiums. However, the technologist in me sees some new tools that just might take us beyond technology for the sake of technology.

I understand how a parent can feel that sense of “horror” at the thought of video games in school. But then again, it really depends on your perspective. If you see video games as a tool to enhance your children’s educational experience, it would probably be a sense of elation and not horror that you would feel.

I think the bottom line here is control and discipline. Just like any other school subject, the idea of using video games for educational purposes should be monitored and guided strictly. I think that it is a perfectly good idea to expose young children to technology – learning and fun together, don’t you think so?

Fighting Obesity With Video Games

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Is your child gaining too much weight? Then buy him video games! But hold your horses, we have to qualify what kind of video games you have to buy. According to a team of researchers from Hong Kong, obese children can benefit from video games which urge them to move.

Of course the first thing that entered my mind when I read this was the Wii. However, there are other video games out there that provide similar benefits. One India reports:

“A recent active gaming concept that allows players to experience various activities (e.g., bowling, fishing, tennis, golf) in a virtual world is the XaviX gaming system (SSD Company Ltd., Shiga, Japan),” the authors said.

“In addition to the exercise gaming modalities, the XaviX system includes a gaming mat (XaviX J-Mat) that allows participants to travel the streets of Hong Kong at a walk or a run, avoiding obstacles and stamping out ninjas,” they added.

Robin R. Mellecker, B.Sc., and Alison M. McManus, Ph.D., of the Institute of Human Performance, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, measured heart rate and energy (calorie) expenditure in 18 children age 6 to 12 (average age 9.6) during a 25 minute gaming protocol.

“Our data demonstrate that the two active gaming formats result in meaningful increases in energy expenditure compared with the seated screen environment. The next step is to test whether active gaming interventions can provide sustainable increases in childhood physical activity,” the authors said. The study is published in the September issue of Archives of Paediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Not bad, eh? I think the Wii is still the king when it comes to these kinds of things but I am also thinking that more and more in the industry will follow suit.

Teen Aggression-Video Game Link (From the Archives)

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Will this ever stop? Will researchers ever find something definite about the link between violent video games and the behavior of those who play them? While I was doing my regular news browsing, a headline caught my eye. It read “Violent video games tied to teen aggression.” In my mind, I was wailing “Not again!”

After all, we have heard such statements from various people across various sectors for so long now. Then we have those people from other sectors claiming that these statements are unfounded. So what is it, really?

So I just the article anyway – if only to find out what proof they have found now. This is what Reuters reported:

Adolescents who play violent video games may become increasingly aggressive over time, a new study of Japanese and U.S. teens suggests.

Researchers found that among three groups of 9- to 18-year-olds followed over several months, those who regularly played violent video games were more likely to get into more and more physical fights over time. The study is among the first to chart changes in gamers’ aggressive behavior over time, lending weight to evidence that violent video games can encourage violence in some kids. And it’s the first to show that the effects are seen across cultures, researchers report in the journal Pediatrics.

I have to emphasize the use of the word MAY. Grammatically speaking, this word is used to indicate a possibility. It does not really provide a solid link between the two factors being considered. To be honest, I am not surprised at all, are you?

Have You Got An Addictive Personality? (From the Archives)

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Apparently, Mark Wahlberg does and that is why he refuses to play Max Payne even if he is playing the starring role in the movie adaptation. I am sure that you know all about Max Payne but let me refresh your memory nonetheless.

Max Payne is a third person shooter game that can trace its origins back to the year 2001. Back then, the game was developed for the personal computer and was compatible with Windows. Soon after the Windows version was released, Max Payne for the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox were developed by Rockstar Games (of course you know who they are, right?). A year after, Mac users had the chance to play Max Payne on their babies.

The first game became very popular that in 2003, a sequel was published. This time, it was dubbed Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne. To date, this video game franchise has sold over 7 million copies worldwide.

As the trend seems to be these days, popular video games are being made into movies – and that is what Mark Wahlberg is working on. The movie is set to be released in October of this year with Mark being the star. And yet he refuses to get himself a copy of the game and actually play it for himself. He said:

I didn’t want to play because I have an addictive personality. I got more responsibility now than I’ve ever had with the kids and everything else. I don’t want to be spending 14 hours on the videogame and then eight hours on the set. It’s not going to work out.

Nightmares And Video Games (From the Archives)

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I remember having really bad dreams after watching a scary movie when I was a kid. Come to think of it, it still happens every now and then as an adult. Maybe that is why I do not really have an affinity for scary movies.

Have you heard of people putting the blame on video games for nightmares, though? I have not, really. Yet apparently, someone has been fingering video games as being the cause of nightmares in children. Thank goodness for researchers, though, as they have conducted a study that negates this belief.

I read an article over at Canada.com about this topic:

Television and computer games aren’t to blame for dark dreams about things that go bump in the night, according to a new study that finds no link between children’s viewing or gaming habits and their nightmares.

The research debunks popular wisdom as well as previous studies in which parents and children reported that frightening dreams were triggered by TV programs.

“We found no correlation between the amount of TV watching and computer game playing and nightmare frequency,” says Michael Schredl, head of research for the Sleep Laboratory at Germany’s Central Institute of Mental Health.

The researchers were surprised to find there was no connection between nightmares and computer games or TV shows – including the police and crime shows that 14 per cent of the children said they watched regularly.

This is a very interesting finding. To be honest with you, I would have thought that TV and video games causing nightmares was logical. Don’t think that I am not happy with the finding though.

A Guy Named Wii (From the Archives)

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I never thought that someone would name their child Wii but I have been wrong before, and I am wrong now. There is, in fact, a guy named Wii and he got his name way before the Wii (console) was conceptualized. Wii Yatani is a 26-year-old graphic artist from Manhattan. No, it is not a nickname. It is in fact his birth name.

Did he have anything to do with Nintendo’s naming their gaming console? Not in the least. In fact, Nintendo probably did not know he existed until he contacted them to be their spokesperson. Even then, the company did not pay him any mind, which, I think, is just rude. If I were part of Nintendo’s PR department, I would have capitalized on the coincidence. It’s not like Wii (Yatani) would be detrimental to the company, right?

Anyhow, just imagine how the salesperson at the store reacted when she saw Wii’s name on his credit when he paid for his own Wii a couple of months ago! I would have loved to be that salesperson! Of course, Wii (the man) has gotten used to all the jokes his friends would make about his name all his life. Then again, with the advent of the Wii (the console), he has new jokes to contend with. Here’s an excerpt from the article where I discovered Yatani:

And they’ve given him the ability to introduce himself in a new way: “Now, when I meet people I say, ‘My name is Wii. I’m the original.’ ”

Yatani gets new jokes now too. His friends ask him: “Oh, Wii, are you going to go home to play with yourself?” Laughing, he said he gets that “all the time now.”

Lucky man!

Can You Learn How To Drive By Playing Video Games? (From the Archives)

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A headline at the Telegraph’s web site caught my eye a few minutes ago. It read “Boy learned to drive from video games before stealing family car–
A nine-year-old Japanese schoolboy who learnt how to drive from playing video games has used his motoring skills to steal the family car and set off on a 1.8 mile journey to visit his grandmother.”

Now I know that this kind of news will certainly cause a stir in the video gamer sector. I myself cannot help but get a little bit riled up each time the media points to video games as the cause behind various violent or errant behavior. So, I won’t even go into that. What I want to focus on right now is whether or not you can actually learn skills such as driving by simply playing video games.

There are many arcade games which function as simulators. You actually hold a steering wheel in your hands and place your feet on pedals. There are even games which have real life gear shifts. In effect, it would seem that you are actually driving. I do not know how accurate the experience is as compared to the driving simulators that researchers use but I suppose it is a pretty close thing.

Now I will go out on a limb and say that yes, you can learn these skills by playing video games. Well, at least the rudimentary skills. As for the implications of this, I will not venture into that. Any thoughts?