Gaming Habits

As we discover in family life, times and technology may change but people stay the same. Although protested in younger years, most discover that turning into their parents is somewhat unavoidable. It’s not surprising then that through history people have always liked to play games. The form and function has changed over the years but that innate human desire to play together finds its expression in every generation.

Games teach us to look for patterns to improve our performance. We learn to collect, order, clean up and generally sort things out to progress through each gaming experience. This works well because we are also driven by these things in real life. We instinctively want to create order out of chaos.

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Top 5 Wii-Fit Tips

Excercise

GamePeople explores Wii-Fit.

Video gaming that gets you to exercise is exactly what you needed to get in shape for summer! Now fast forward three weeks. The balance board has a home at the side of the TV and makes a tempting ebay item, unused and unwanted. What happened in those three weeks to make the savior of your health and fitness goals turn into handy plant stand?

To understand this we must start with the first principle of why you bought Wii-Fit. Most people are not too concerned at how much they weigh, don’t care what their BMI is, or know what BMI means. In my experience most people are driven by the promise of a trim, attractive body without all the flabby bits. Yes, exercise offers the chance to be young and sexy again, but there is a cost, you actually have to do it and over an extended period of time. When starting out with exercise you have a clear idea of how you want to look and your motivation and enthusiasm is at an all time high. However, the results are slow in coming, you cannot see any changes in the mirror and the scales haven’t budged, but and the effort and pain are real and immediate.

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Miniature Mobile iPod Games

Family Gamer

First a little Family Gamer business; while clearing the office out, ready for its transformation into Ollie’s room, I discovered some Nintendo games to give away. If you fancy winning Metroid Prime on Wii (PAL) just post a ‘family gaming moment’ on my Facebook wall before the end of May. Those who follow me on twitter had some advance warning and as you will see there are some great stories already, but there is still plenty of time to get your entry in.

More interestingly for today’s article, my clearout also turned up a misplaced iPod and some unused iTunes cards – the perfect opportunity to try out some iPod games. I’ve wanted to give them s spin since I noticed that two family friendly developers (Harmonix and PopCap) announced their games on Apple’s popular music player.

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Wii-Fit and GTA for a Healthier Life

Family Gamer

The gaming landscape has changed somewhat since the last article. Grand Theft Auto (GTA) IV and Wii-Fit, two of the biggest games of the year, were released to critical acclaim and not a little media circus. Although these two share top billing they couldn’t be more different. One game is marketed squarely at the twenty something hardcore gamer whilst the other sets its sights on the family gaming market. However, scratch beneath the surface and they have something fundamental in common – the opportunity for increased well being. This is obvious for Wii-Fit but how so with GTA IV?

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Family Gamer: Play Less, Enjoy More

Family Gamer

I feel like Jerry Maguire today. After many years chasing my tail reviewing whatever game I could lay my hands on I have decided to take a break from the rat race. In the words of the man himself “Let us work less hard to [play] the [games] that we know won’t matter in the long run, and work twice as hard to [play] the ones who will.” So I’ll be here every other week for these Family Gamer articles, trying to get down in words the things that matter to me as a family gamer.

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