Tuesday 26 February 2013

Childrens games


One site at I have been looking at is the site that teaches children French: www.poissonrouge.com I think it is really fun, not that I am a child or anything bu there is one level where you can paint your own picture in the style of  Jackson Pollock. There is a lot of different marks that you can use and they are all different sizes and rotations. The picture to the right is from that site. I find it really fun, I think I could spend all day on it making different pieces of art to be honest. It teaches kids really what kind of marks that Mr Pollock used in his art and could inspire them to make their own painting out of all the different options hat are available. There are lots of different arty things to do on this part of the site. This is a game on Poisson rouge, going by the name, It’s obvious that it teaches children how to talk french. This one is an Escher game, basically all you do is hover over the different hexagons and they turn into what looks like a painting from Escher. It is only black and white bu it could make kids want to do their own drawing like Escher. There is another one that lets you change the colours on the picture that Andy warhol made of Marilyn Monroe. I think that this is fun because you can make the all look really bright, ad the fact that there is a lot of them it means that you can edit a lot of them and make them all look different. There are a lot of different games on this site. I don't find hem fun but that's probably because they're not for 17 year old girls. There is another game hat teaches you the alphabet, and when you hover over a certain letter, a word in french appears on the screen. For example, When you hover over e, a star pops up, and the french word for star (I'm only basing this off the game) is star, "étoile"  I think that these games on this site are educational because  it teaches children French and it teaches them about French artists and so on.  There are lots of different activities, there is one of a clock where you can move the hands and underneath, It tells you which time you have set on the clock. The downside to this site is that  It does not spell out the proper time that you have set, it just shows the digital version of the time. if children were going to learn it properly then it would have to be spelt out properly for example “nine o’clock” or “half past nine” You can set the clock to lots of different looks, there is one with roman numerals which can teach them the roman numbers which is rather educational and could help them understand those type of clocks.

Monday 25 February 2013

Manhunt 2 - Banned in the UK

Manhunt 2 Wii Box Art FINAL.jpg
Manhunt 2 was banned in the UK because it had excessive violence, after it was banned they had modified it and released that version The video game Manhunt 2 was rejected for its "unrelenting focus on stalking and brutal slaying", the British Board of Film Classification said.  -- this was initially refused classification as well, but was allowed to be sold after an appeal.Manhunt is a stealth based game made by rock star games (they also made the Grand Theft Auto series of games) The basic game play of Manhunt 2 is similar to the original Manhunt insofar as it is a stealth-based psychological horror game played from a third-person perspective, which also incorporates gun play, and brawling. This affects the game industry because of all the violence that is in it, it also affects you the player because it is rather gorey (well from what I've heard, I haven't played it) The controversy surrounding Manhunt 2 began two days after its announcement, before any footage or information on the game had been released. The initial topic of discussion was the fact that the first game had been inaccurately connected to a murder in the UK. The United States Federal Trade Commission has recently found by its own stings on stores that despite the "Mature" rating on video games, they are still sold 42% of the time to kids under 17, this is bad because it could change their personality, it is a long shot but it could still happen to kids nowadays, They could take the way that people act in that for real. When a game gets banned in a certain country, this has a big impact on the game industry because it gives them a bad name -- people will start wondering why and stop buying it, it also takes a chunk of the world away from buying it, which is a whole lot of money that the industry has lost. Manhunt 2 was met with mixed to good reviews. GameSpot said the game's "not as shocking as you'd expect, but Manhunt 2 still satisfies your primal instincts.  It means the Manhunt sequel cannot be legally supplied anywhere in the UK. The parents of a Leicester schoolboy who blamed the original game for the murder of their 14-year-old son said they were "absolutely elated".  How can this problem be overcome? Well personally, I would higher the age restriction to 18.. Even if this doesn't change weather or not children play it is up to their parents but after reading about the 14 year old boy and his parents, I think that pretty much tells the story to parents that kids shouldn't be playing it. Manhunt's maker Rockstar North has always insisted its games are geared towards mature audiences and are marketed responsibly, Children shouldn't be taking actions from the game and using them towards other people in real life, what is in the game should really stay in the game. If they are not mature enough to buy it then they are definitely not mature enough to play it.