I have been playing games ever since I was a kid and I struggled for many years with people who thought online games were brainless and action games made you chaotic. I considered this an opportunity to present some knowledge into what gaming really can involve – passion, camaraderie and experiences you can’t get in real life. ~ Ben Dressler

Let’s face the facts, the gamer lifestyle is one thing that not a lot of people have an understanding of /AFK The Movie looks at the life of a video gamer asked to give up the one thing he’s ever enjoyed: World of Warcraft.

To the people who don’t play video games, that is called quitting. For hard-core gamers and MMORPG players around the world, that’s referred to as “Euthanasia.”

The film examines what life is like stepping away from the computer keyboard, to cut off the sole thing you adore doing, simply because you realize that it controls all that you do. But, what is the little difference between loving video games and being addicted with them? Does it make a difference and should we even care?

The subject matter of /AFK The Movie covers World of Warcraft and also online gaming. But you do not need to know the difference between Horde and Alliance to connect with the movie. We’re all addicted to something, be it cell phones, websites, video games, or sweets (or even a dangerous combination of all 4). Step “away from your cellular phone” for 1 day and find out how you respond. Is a cellphone that much different than a video game? Exactly why is one an addiction and the other one is simply a habit?

I spoke with Ben Dressler, the moviemaker who made /AFK come to life.

What was the process like creating the movie, and from his point of view, what message was it wanting to relay to gamers and those telling so-called “addicts” they must stop:

JHS: What inspired you to make the script? Did you feel like you liked to write something which could speak “for all WOW players?”

2 things. First of all, the feeling that no person had ever done this in the past. I believe it is truly unusual that you have a concept that’s kind of unique and not actually out there. When I first saw Memento I was so blown away that after a long time of filmmaking, someone could still come up with something so inventive. And even though we were not the first to combine real live action and video game video clips, I don’t know of any movie who achieved it to the extent that we did.

Second, I wanted to have a stand for video gaming. I have been playing games since I was a child and I struggled for many years with individuals who thought online games were brainless and action games made you violent. I considered this an opportunity to show some insight into what gaming can really cover – passion, companionship and experiences you cannot get in real life.

JHS: In your own point of view, why do people desire to put down the “gamer” lifestyle?

I actually believe that they just don’t know much better. The main character in /AFK says at some point: It is not just me sitting in front of a coloured window.” But that is precisely what individuals see every time they see someone “game.” They don’t see what you think, feel or even experience while you play. I have had a lot of individuals that observed me play WoW and believed it was really boring. But when I let them play for an hour or more, they would buy the game themselves. Thankfully, people who have gaming experience will grow into important positions such as journalism or politics. So eventually that inclination to look down on gamers will diminish from society, I’m very optimistic on that.

JHS: You mentioned you basically had no budget because you could not make some money from the film, What kind of restrictions did that put on you as a moviemaker?

Since I knew there would not be a budget from the beginning, I could focus on writing a script that would deal with not many characters as well as locations. We had five days of shooting for a 25 minute film with a very small crew. And since I didn’t want to rush the actors very much, there was short amount of time left for the camera and lighting unit. We also couldn’t afford to buy plenty of props so we needed to work with everything we got in our homes. The room of the main character is actually made of geek stuff from ten people combined.

It basically came down to pulling lots of favors and utilizing to the very best what was already there. I do think if you choose to work with that restriction, it will easily lead to new, creative ways of telling your story. Although I recently read that German filmmakers particularly get into Hollywood mainly because they can make low-cost movies that look like expensive movies. Well, that is flattering, isn’t it?

JHS: What would you tell individuals who deal with people asking them to “quit video games.”

It’s really hard to give a general answer to that one because it depends on the situations. Normally I would recommend to try and make those people know very well what gaming means to you. Determine why they believe games are stupid and show that you understand them also and take their concerns seriously. Do not just plunge to retaliation mode. When I was in college, I used to talk to my parents about the games I was looking forward to play and what I found enjoyable about them. Usually I could get them to relate to that in some way.

JHS: According to the insufficient success of a few major motion pictures, it seams very challenging to take the concept of a video game and turn it into a movie – with few films making an effort to “get into” the life of BEING a gamer. What was your experience in this regard?

I think there are two kinds of game movies… Adaptations and Sci-Fi movies. Adaptations are nearly always awful OR just solid action movies with the game’s name in the title… And so yeah, there’s hardly any films about real gamers – to be honest I cannot name a single one. And I am somewhat in wonder about that!

But it’s hard, and I do think that the people who make it need to know video games as completely as films….My point is that to truly learn from Video Games as a medium, filmmakers have to understand how a game tells its story, what can be translated and what things can not.

JHS: What does WOW provide that hardly any other game on the face of the earth offers?

In all honesty – there are a couple of games on earth I have not played yet! However, I think that WoW did and does an incredible job at making hardcore gaming available to lots of individuals. Way back in EverQuest days, MMORPGs were a very exclusive genre that even most gamers did not know or care about. These days you will raid with people who wouldn’t even look at themselves a genuine gamer. And yeah, maybe that is a bit of pioneer work that no other game can repeat again.

Love playing video games, but concern about your future? Well, you shouldn’t because today you can be paid thousands of dollars for playing video games.

In the next few paragraphs, we will explore new ideas and thoughts that may help you achieve your goal and decide what is best for you.

Just freshly I came across another online course that claimed to show people how to make a living just playing games all day.

As a devoted gamer I was definitely interested, so I restraintered out the course and thought I’d share my experiences with you.

The honestly trade?

Ask yourself a few simple questions to determine if you fully understand the concepts that we have went over so far.

first, this course is 100% legit. It teaches you the ‘actual world’ strategies to become a video game tester. The types of equipment that have the ability to get you effective with top firms such as storm and EA.

The eCourse can be found at the Become a film game tester website and comes packaged as a downloadable PDF eBook grandeur recount. It won’t give you any kind of academy grandeur qualifications, yet it will give you the figures you want to move in the right tendency and locked manually a locate playing games for a living.

Here is a remit outline of what the course contains:

Part 1

This is just a central introduction to the complete course. It openings out by bountiful the myths you might have heard fleeting aaround about game taxing, then answers some frequently asked questions about the job.

Part 2

This segment explains what game testers actually do, and what the job entails. Again, this part generally serves to get you up to haste and understanding the inclusive manner of game tough.

Part 3

This is where the “become a game tester” course jerks to take off, viewing you right what you have to do to become a game tester. It explains everything from qualifications ( what seminary degrees are proposeed ), to the specially skills you chief to advance (which are necessary if you have never been to seminary).

Part 4

This part of the course explains that having experience in the video game diligence is one of the can outset to a president outset in receiving a job as a video game tester. It then shows and describes to you 7 great habits that you can get experience specifically connected to game difficult.

Part 5

The “become a game tester” course finishes viewing you just how to find and request for a game tough locate. It trulyly lays out in delegate all the steps so that you can give manually the best viable gamble of hall a tough job in no time.

general the Become a Game Tester eCourse does a great job of viewing you how to become a game tester. Yet, there are a few small effects to hint.

initially, the stuffed thing is fairly dumpy. But still, it’s packed stuffed of constant datarmation with curved about no stuffing, so you will want to read everything a few period to make definite you didn’t ignore something.

And secondly, if there’s one genuine harmful to this course, it’s that it actually does involve you to put in some sweat. The course gives you the erudition and skills to channel you in the right path, but it’s up to you to take action.

To sum up my “become a video game tester review”: It comes with a 60 day money back assure and all in all still, if you are disposed to put in the exertion to get one of the best jobs acurved then I vastly commend you restrain out Become a Game tester eCourse

If you have found our database of information on this subject useful, read some of our other topics as well.

#5. Games Were Simpler Back In The Day

Video games have unquestionably become more ambitious and impressive in recent years. When you look at the likes of The Last Of Us, it’s impossible to overstate just how far video games have come since people were playing Pong forty-odd years ago. But for all the innovations within the medium, and for all the new fangled ideas and increasingly elaborate control schemes, there’s something to be said for how much more straight forward things were in the games we played as kids.

Gaming today can be difficult for people without the muscle memory that comes from years of dedicated gaming. Give your mum or dad a PS4 controller and if they’re anything like mine they’ll spend half the time playing the game looking down, attempting in vain to remember where all the buttons are. Use the left analog stick to walk, hold X to jog, or tap X to sprint. L2 is aim and R2 is shoot, but R1 becomes shoot if you’re driving because in a car R2 is the accelerator. R3 (that’s when you click in the right analog stick) let’s you look behind you, and to open the menu you need to hold down the touch pad. And that’s just part of the control scheme for Grand Theft Auto 5, one of the best selling games of all time.

Even for seasoned veterans the increasing complexity of games can become a turn off. Super Mario World is still as intuitive as it was back in 1990 because the inherently simple design and pick up and play nature of the game made it timeless. You can give a kid who’s never played a Mario game the controller and within seconds they’ll have worked out how to play. This simplicity is an attractive concept, which is almost certainly part of the reason that retro games like Shovel Knight and Axiom Verge are so popular today. The simpler a game is to play, the more inclusive and immediate the fun. Retro gaming has that in spades, and that’s the reason I’m still playing Super Mario World twenty-six years after release.

#4. Retro Games Have Better Music

As gaming production values have increased over the years, we’ve seen the medium change in many ways. We made the jump to 3D, we now have voice acting, and elaborate cut-scenes tell complicated stories that rival those seen in television or on the big screen. Games today feature fully orchestrated scores or soundtracks featuring popular music that are every bit as impressive as what we’d see in other mediums, but it feels like we’ve lost something along the way, too.

I can still hum the theme music to Treasure Island Dizzy on the Commodore 64. I was playing that game nearly thirty years ago and I haven’t played it since then (and I’ve still never beaten it, damn it) but I can still remember the theme music that plays in the background in its entirety. I played games last week and I couldn’t even tell you if they had music at all.

Because of the simplicity of early games, and without voice acting to tell a story, the music had to be good. Other than a few crummy sound effects, the music of the game was the only aural stimulation that the games provided. There are still great game soundtracks today, but they seem few and far between when compared to the games of my youth. Mega Man, Castlevania, the early Final Fantasy games, and iconic titles like Zelda, Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog – these all featured highly memorable tunes that stick with us long after the last time we played them. I still remember how the music for Commodore 64 classic Prince Clumsy changes when you save the princess at the end of the game like I was playing it yesterday. We can’t really say that about Shadow of Mordor, can we?

#3. Games Used to Work Right Out of the Box

One thing that games from yesteryear unquestionably did better than the games of today is that they, well, worked. You’d think that it should be a pretty fundamental aspect of any product released to the market, but it’s truly staggering how many games in 2016 ship broken, requiring either days or weeks of server tweaks to get the multiplayer working, or enormous day one patches to fix all of the bugs that made it onto the disc. Today, if you don’t have a decent Internet connection in your home, some games are genuinely unplayable, and many others severely hampered.

Street Fighter V released earlier this year, with Capcom promising that the single player Arcade Mode, a staple of the series, would be available to download in July. What if you don’t have an Internet connection? Well, then you’ve got half a game. That’s not a problem we faced when Street Fighter II released on the SNES in 1991. Back then, we had no Internet acting as a safety net for developers. Games had to work right out of the box.

Going back and playing Global Gladiators today is as simple as popping the cartridge into your Genesis and turning on the power. It works now as it did then; exactly as it should, and without any fuss. This is one of the many great things about retro gaming; if you’ve got the game and the hardware you’re pretty much good to go. You don’t need to download drivers, or updates, or patches. You put in the game, and then you play. Just like you should.

#2. Games Used to Be More of a Challenge

Today, anybody who keeps up to date with the latest trends in gaming will likely know of Dark Souls and Bloodborne, and the reputation these games have for punishing difficulty. Gamers flocked to the Souls series in droves, excited to play a title that challenged them and refused to hold their hands. There’s no extended tutorial sections. There’s little in the way of help. You can’t pause. And every enemy can make mincemeat out of you unless you learn their attack patterns and act accordingly. It’s exciting for a game to provide us with an uphill struggle like this, but then, I’m old enough to remember a time when every game was like this. And worse.

Modern games have a tendency to spell things out to the player, often to an almost insulting degree. Popping a disc into a PS4 in 2016 means waiting for the install, then the day one patch, and then when you finally get a controller in your hand you spend the next two hours being walked through the early stages of the game like a kid on his first day of school. Everybody likes a bit of help now and again, but there’s something to be said for just being thrown in at the deep end and being told to sink or swim.

#1. Nostalgia

Nostalgia might seem like a cop out answer; after all, looking back on the past with rose tinted spectacles is often what fans of anything retro are criticized with. It’s easy to dismiss nostalgia as a way of justifying the opinion that everything was just much better in your day, but the truth is that nostalgia is an immensely powerful agent and it shouldn’t be ignored.

Today, we watch rubbish movies and bemoan the use of obvious CGI, but we’ll happily sit through Raiders of the Lost Ark and not bother mentioning that the melting Nazi at the end looks like he’s made out of plasticine. We listen to the appalling pop music of our youths with a reflective smile on our faces while turning our noses up at Justin Bieber’s latest video. And we’ll talk about Final Fantasy VII as though it were second coming of Christ, completely ignoring all of the flaws in the game that we’d hang a modern game out to dry for. Nostalgia is a strong enough influence to make us believe that Sonic the Hedgehog was actually ever good. Now, that’s serious.

The reason a lot of us like playing old games is simply because of the feeling we get playing them. I’ve played hundreds, if not thousands of games in my time as a gamer. And I’m smart enough to know that in that time video games have improved in almost every way. But that doesn’t change the fact that if I load up Street Fighter II I remember the days of playing it during the school summer holidays with all my friends. I remember the day I completed Toejam and Earl with my brother every time I hear the first few bars of its ridiculously funky theme music. And I remember the giddy thrills we got when we first got the fatalities working on Mortal Kombat II.

Playing old games, just as with watching old movies or listening to old albums, transports us to a time in the past that we like to remember. Whether it’s memories of old friends, loved ones, people we may see every day or might have lost touch with, every old game we load up is a window to the past and that’s special. The latest Call of Duty is never going to compete with that.

“If educational video games are well executed, they can provide a strong framework for inquiry and project-based learning”, says Alan Gershenfeld, co-founder and president of E-Line Media, a publisher of computer and video games and a Founding Industry Fellow at Arizona State University’s Center for Games and Impact. “Games are also uniquely suited to fostering the skills necessary for navigating a complex, interconnected, rapidly changing 21st century,” he adds.

According to Isabela Granic and her fellow researchers at Radboud University in the Netherlands, attaching labels such as “good”, “bad”, “violent”, or “prosocial” largely overlooks the complex picture surrounding the new generation of video games now available. Players are drawn to the video games they prefer and the benefits or drawbacks to how they interact with these games are largely shaped by their motivation for playing.

Granic also highlighted the possibility that video games are effective tools for learning resilience in the face of failure. By learning to cope with ongoing failures in games, she suggests that children build emotional resilience they can rely upon in their everyday lives.

Mean while, Daphne Bavelier, a neuroscientist at the University of Rochester, New York, says “We need to be far more nuanced when we talk about the effects of video games.”

Bavelier and her friend published a research in 2003, where they used a series of visual puzzles to demonstrate that individuals who played action games at least 4 days per week for a minimum of 1 hour per day were better than non-gamers at rapidly processing complex information, estimating numbers of objects, controlling where their attention was focused spatially, and switching rapidly between tasks.

Play action-based games and you could make accurate decisions 25% faster – According to scientists from the University of Rochester, they have conducted research where participants aged 18 to 25 were split into two groups. One group played 50 hours of the action-packed first-person shooter games “Call of Duty 2″ and “Unreal Tournament,” and the other group played 50 hours of the simulator game “The Sims 2.” The action game players made decisions 25% faster in a task unrelated to playing video games, without sacrificing accuracy.

Lastly but not least, Surgeons can improved their laparoscopic skills by playing video games – doctors who spent one month playing either Wii Tennis, Wii Table Tennis, or a balloon warfare game (called High Altitude Battle) performed better in simulated tasks designed to test eye-hand coordination and movement precision, according to the study published in the Journal PLOS One.

Note: laparoscopic is a procedure in which a thin tube with a camera is inserted into the abdomen to see organs on a screen, instead of cutting patients wide open.

That’s a great finding. Everyone should try playing video games whenever they had a chance.

Mothers Day comes in May of every year. You don’t have to wait until the last minute to prepare what you will do for your Mother. Do you have that perfect gift for mom just waiting for the special day to arrive?

If not, don’t despair! There is still time and we have some great ideas for you.  If you want to say thank you to your mom and show her just how special she is and how much she really means to you, then you need a gift from the heart…because she deserves something special.

One thing you will want to do is think about your mother and her likes. There are many creative items and home décor accents to be found, and you can find a great selection of unique mother’s day gifts that most any mother would enjoy.

Virtually any handmade or unique item will make an ideal choice because it is specially handcrafted and unique. You won’t find decorative pieces like these in your local department store. Another reason why these items are great for Mother’s Day is because they all make great gifts.

The Internet is a great place to find online items for Mother’s Day. There are decorative furnishings as well as useful items that any mom will love to have in her home.

When you shop online you can find night lights, decorative waste cans, painted mailboxes, metal wall art, other contemporary wall décor, bathroom decorations, animal themed gifts of all kinds, outdoor décor, whimsical accents and many more fun items that your mother will love.

Some of my favorite items that work as great Mother’s Day gifts are:

o The Birdhouse Gourd

o Ceramic Heart – Love

o Funky Flower Clock

o Pink Heart Wall Clock

o Purse Clock

o Retro Toaster Kitchen Clock

These are just a few samples of the great items you can find for Mother’s Day. The Internet is a great place to shop for fun, unique and interesting Mom’s Day gifts.

Professions in World of Warcraft can be a very fun and profitable aspect of the game. They can help you bring in hundreds of gold a day! A successful gamer can often turn their profession into a practical virtual business and become an integral part in the game world’s economy, in effect building a brand name in the virtual world.

There are several professions to choose from, each of which offers their own individual benefits.

For example Tailoring can produce much sought after cloth upgrades. They are always players in the game advertising for a tailor. However one of the biggest money makers for a tailor is an essential item for every character in the game. Bags! A player can’t carry their loot without a bag to put it in. With each player having five bag slots, that means that each player is a potential customer five times over! In addition to that, a bag can bring in, depending on its size, anywhere from 3g (3 gold) for the smallest up to 450g (450 gold) for the largest!

Another popular profession is Blacksmithing. Blacksmithing can produce various weapons and armor. These, in later stages of the game, become some of the most powerful currently in the game! Furthermore later in game as your skill level increase you can choose to specialize into one of two fields. These are Weaponsmith and Armorsmith. Each of these able to produce incredible items that are well sought after, and well paid for!

A profession that everyone from the lowest to highest level players wants to do business with is an Enchanter! Enchanting can offer two avenues of high income in the game. The first is the obvious, selling of enchants to players. These enchants offer stat-increasing benefits to player items and clothing. No matter what the level of the player, they are always seeking an enchanter, and are often willing to pay good money for the service! A second, and often overlooked money making side to enchanting is Disenchanting. This allows an enchanter to destroy an enchanted item and gather enchanting materials from it. Often these materials are often worth more than the original item, and without these materials an enchanter can’t perform enchants! So a smart enchanter can disenchant and sell the materials in the auction house for huge profits!

One often overlooked profession is Engineering. It offers a wide variety of gadgets and items that can add significant benefits to players! These can be rifle scopes, field repair bots, bombs, training dummies, to even jumper cables that can be used to revive dead players! There is a whole slew of great things available to a Engineer to use of sell! Like Blacksmithing there are two specializations available in the Engineering field. These are Gnome Engineering and Goblin Engineering, each of these offering field specific items that are in great demand.

Alchemy can also be a great money maker! There are always players in need of special potions. These potions range from healing and mana restoring potions to specialized potions such as fire resistance and detect undead. There are also potions that offer special stat enhancing benefits to players. Many of the potions you produce will be in demand in the auction house.

A profession that was recently introduced in the game in Jewelcrafting. Jewelcrafting produces jewels which can be socketed in armor to add special stats to the armor. These jewels can have a wide variety of effects. These jewels can also go for a large sum on gold in the auction house. A friend of mine routinely sells her jewels for 50 gold a piece!

Leatherworking is similar to tailoring in some regards. It produces leather armor items that can be worn by certain classes in the game. Leatherworkers can also produce special armor add-ons to increase the armor rating of items. Like other professions there are specializations in this profession. These are Elemental Leatherworking, Dragonscale Leatherworking, and Tribal Leatherworking. Each of these specializations offer benefits to specific classes in the game ranging from minor melee class, to spell casting classes. Anyone of these items will bring in a nice profit in the auction house!

Other big-money producing professions are the gathering professions. These are Skinning, Herbalism, and Mining. Each of these gathering skills fills a niche in the in-game economy by providing the essential ingredients for other professions. Professions that depend on these skills for materials are Alchemy, which depends on Herbalism; Leatherworking, which depends on Skinning; and Blacksmithing, Engineering, and Jewelcrafting which depends on Mining.

If you have always had an imaginative side that likes to come to life, there is no better place to turn than the internet. Through free online games, you can embrace your desire to live out your fantasies, and you can essentially become anyone you want by taking on the roles of different characters. Maybe you have always dreamt of being a hero, like a knight in shining armor, or possibly it has always been a far fetched fantasy of yours to be a secret agent who takes on daring tasks and challenging obstacles to save the lives of innocent civilians. Regardless of who or what it is you want to become, free online RPG games are for you!

RPG games are evolving like crazy and they are becoming one of the hottest gaming genres for people to immerse themselves in on the internet. People love taking on realistic roles that put them in the shoes of someone, or something else. With improved graphics and thousands of games to play, for free, you can bring your wildest gaming fantasies to life with just a few clicks of the mouse! The 7 Deadly Sins Game will let you bring out your inner bad boy. The goal of this intriguing RPG game is to commit all of the seven deadly sins within a given time frame. In one fortnight, you must take on the role of Ed and challenge your skills to come out on top! If sinning isn’t exactly up your alley, a game like A Smashing Day Out Game might just do the trick. In this game, you take the lead and make choices that will create an entire story for you. This game is simple, family friendly, and takes RPG to new heights.

If education is on your to do list, you might want to take a break from indulging in RPG games to play some fun, free, and educational typing games that will sharpen your skills. With tons of games online that embrace fun storylines that incorporate timed typing tests into the scheme of things, you can improve your keyboard skills while simultaneously having fun. This category of free games online is great for kids who are just learning computer skills, or adults who want to brush up on their key strokes. Games like the Alphattack Game make it easy to get lost for hours in typing games! Saving the world with timed typing skills is just another task in the every day life of an avid online gamer!

I, as I’m sure like most of you, grew up on computer games. The green haze of Safari Hunt on the Master System being the only thing keeping me company on many a lonely night. I wondered, even at a young age, where on earth all of this came from. It certainly wasn’t Sidcup. Growing up, I was an avid reader of Sega Power despite its bias towards the Mega Drive (which I didn’t own until I was 15) and every now and then there’d be an article or featurette on Tokyo, considered by many to be the birthplace of video games (although some Americans may disagree… ).

The articles would feature a blur of neon lights, hundreds upon hundreds of arcade machines and thousands of Japanese youths playing games we barely recognised. To a nine-year old boy this place looked like heaven.

Finally, twenty-three years later, I managed to visit with my good companion Dave. Tokyo is all you’d expect it to be, with treasure troves in every corner it’s impossible not to walk around, mouth agape, mumbling “Oh my god.” The place considered to be the hub of Tokyo’s geek culture is Akhibara (known fondly as Akiba to Tokyoites). The Lonely Planet guide I have suggested an afternoon there…

Dave and I spent a whole day there, and if time wasn’t a factor I could have spent many more days immersed in its awesomeness.

The first thing that struck me about Akiba (bar the lights, so many lights… ) was how accessible it was and how much of it there is, all at your fingertips. There is a shop in the train station for heaven’s sake! The shops are all five-storey wonderlands. And my do they like their trading/battle cards. When you say “Japanese trading cards” in the UK what do you immediately think of? Pokemon right? Wrong! I counted over ten shops on one street in Akiba dedicated to selling all manner of trading cards. Did I have a clue what they were all about? Not in the slightest! Some of these cards, individually, retailed for near £100. I spotted some English language cards, simply with a few words on like “skip a turn” or something you might see on a Monopoly card, and they were over 40,000 yen (£200).

Before the hardcore shopping started we had to try some of these arcade machines and boy did they deliver! One problem, everything is in Kanji. Provided you can fluke your way through the menu screens there is a lot of fun to be had.

Dave found this cool Square Enix blast em up game but bad menu decisions led to him going through a ten minute tutorial. Not bad for 100 yen though (60p). Regardless of the game, everything is 100 yen a go. Remember those dance mat games? They love those here, but there’s no mat, no no, there’s either a touch screen which you have to smash with your hands or around ten buttons, which you smash with your hands. The hand-eye coordination of some these guys was breathtaking. I tell a lie, there was a dancing game but the kid was dancing on both sets of squares, nailing what two people would struggle with.

Japan’s love affair with the RPG has never been so prominent as it is here. Putting aside the ridiculous money in battle cards, 50% of the games in the arcade were RPGs, or at least action games with a strong RPG bias. Though games like the earlier Final Fantasy or Phantasy Star games were considered to be strong, neither range sold that well in the UK and only a small portion of the Japanese market was ever translated into English. It’s only over the last ten years or so that Nintendo and Square have bothered to treat the western gamer to the entire Final Fantasy series. If this type of arcade sounds too overwhelming, head to Super Potato (brilliant brilliant name) for lots of old school arcade machines including early versions of Street Fighter 2 and Golden Axe. So now to the shopping. In my head I imagined rows upon rows of 8-bit, 16-bit games, consoles, bargain bins full of “classics” and you know what? It didn’t disappoint.

What you will need to get over quickly is the fact that only the handheld stuff is region-free, everything else is Japan only.

You also need to get stuck in, as casual game-spine perusing is rendered impossible by everything being in Kanji. You cannot move for all the Famicom (NES) and Super Famicom (SNES) gear, I mean, it is everywhere! You can pick up a second hand Famicom for around 4000 yen (£20) or a Super Famicom for a little more than that. Which seems completely worth it as you can get arcade/platform games that were never released here (as well as the streams and streams of RPGs which you’ll never decipher). Here came my next revelation, the comparative paucity of Sega options. I saw around four Mega Drives for sale in all of Akiba and they retailed for 10,000 yen (£50) and the one Master System I saw was 20,000 yen (£100 – second hand, first version, boxed) with the games being nearly 3000 yen. My dream of picking up lots of MS booty died there and then… I’ll discuss Sega’s ups and downs in another feature but their lack of impact in the home entertainment sector on home turf could be explained by their focus on arcade machines which was very apparent in Akiba.

I could go on and on but the same applies as for any other adventure you take, Akiba is what you make it. Whether your preference is to raid bargain bins for Famicom games or to hang around the streets drinking canned vending machine coffee whilst staring at scantily clad Japanese girls in maid cafes, Akhibara is a must for any video game aficionado.

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Like most people out there, video gaming is a privilege and a hobby, not a profession. This was all fine and dandy in the world of retro gaming, but what about now in the world of online multiplayer gaming? As a casual gamer, you have no interest in getting destroyed online when going against guys who game 18 hours per day. You just want to go online and get you fair share of kills and headshots.

So before you go out and drop out of school or quit your job, custom modded controllers are just the solution to even the playing field with these hardcore gamers. Modded controllers quickly and easily convert your single-shot and semi-automatic weapons to fire like that of a fully-automatic weapon. Guns that would require a separate trigger pull for each bullet fired now are able to continually rapid fire by simply holding down the trigger.

Modded PS3 Controllers

Like most casual gamers out there, you’ve most likely gone out and Googled controller mods to determine out what all the hype is about. No doubt you’ve then stepped into a complicated world of different types of mods and modes and add-ons that was just way too complicated for you to wrap your head around. Well rest assured, we’re about to clear up this whole complicated world and get you back to gaming and most importantly winning, fast.

When talking about controller mods, it all comes down to the rapid fire. Gamers want to be able to destroy the competition by holding down the trigger and emptying an entire magazine into an unsuspecting enemy. With a high quality rapid fire controller mod, you will be able to take on those enemies armed with an Uzi style sub-machine gun even if you’re only sporting an M1911 pistol.

How Do I Know Which PS3 Rapid Fire Controller is Right for Me.

Features to look for in a high quality PS3 controller mod include ease of installation, simplicity of operation and a high degree of compatibility with current and future game titles. The number of modes a PS3 controller mod offers is not necessarily important because many vendors over state mode numbers to begin with but what is important are the following modes:

Dual Rapid Fire

When you simply want to mash all enemies, this mode allows for dual rapid fire for your Akimbo or dual wielding guns.

Sniper Double Tap

Executes a double-tap when using your sniper rifles. Meaning you can put 2 rounds on target lightning fast and without muzzle flip

Jitter Rapid Fire

Designed specifically for burst-fire weapons such as the M16 or FAMAS to convert them to fully-automatic weapons with one pull of the trigger.

Fast Reload

Quite simply decreases the amount of time it takes to reload a weapon magazine by upwards of 50%.

Dropshot Rapid Fire

When in this mode, simply press and hold the trigger to drop to the prone position while maintaining rapid fire. Releasing the trigger returns user to standing.

User Programmable

Allows the user to customize the shots fired per second giving you complete control.

How it Works

When you get to the heart of the matter, it is actually quite simple, PS3 modded controllers have the ability to fire weapons faster than you or anyone else’s trigger finger can fire that same weapon. The beauty of high quality rapid fire mods is that you still get to use the same controller and button configuration you’ve grown used to and love.

Conclusion

And there you have it, you are ready to venture into the world of PS3 rapid fire controller mods armed with the knowledge to make a purchase to best suit your needs. Keep in mind, PS3 modded controllers are completely legal and in use by 100s of thousands of gamers so don’t get left behind.

Video games have been condemned by almost every parent and every news organization around the world, claims like they increase violence in children, waste time, results in poor eyesight and so many other claims. Some of these claims maybe true, but this does not negate the fact that there are a lot of benefits behind playing video games. First before I get into the benefits, let me first state the age range that play video games and see what sort of issues these people could encounter and how video games could help resolve them. From what I’ve seen from my own experiences and listening to others, the age group that play video games could start from 9 years until late 40’s. This is a very large age group, and each group have their own issues and problems, from addictions (smoking, drugs and alcohol) to stress from day to day activities which I believe is a default in most age groups. Well, after some research I have found that a very easy and cheap cure compared to drugs are video games. According to research performed in several universities, video games could help reduce stress, improve weight loss and social status, I will do a quick synopsis about each benefit.

Stress and depression have been known these days to be “illness of the century”, where prescription pills have reached market sales in 2008 of almost $ 11 billion ( http://www.wikinvest.com ) and I wouldn’t be surprised if this sales volume at least doubled until 2012, but unfortunately I don’t have this volume. Of course some cases are only treatable with prescription drugs, but I’m sure that a lot of cases could be resolved with just video games. Studies have shown that video games have the same effect as anti-depressant drugs on the part of the brain that produces dopamine, which is responsible for the mood shift that occurs after ingesting anti-depressant drugs. Now, you get the same result and without the addictive side effects of these drugs. Being absorbed in a game can distract your mind from all pain and discomfort which can then help your brain build up a tolerance to the pain much easier; hospitals are beginning to encourage children to play video games after having a painful injury.

Looking at video games consoles like the Nintendo Wii and the Microsoft Xbox 360, they have taken video games to a new level, were the user will not stay on the couch and look like the lazy stereotype gamer; but it has engaged the user to get up, move and jump around in order to win and to be able to play. These consoles have become very popular, and the demand for more active games has been increasing daily. Now, a lot of the games for these consoles are targeting work out routines and deviating from the typical “game over” style games, it’s a work out that could be done daily and a motivator to individuals who have a time constraint to work out in the gym or sporting club.

Some people face some issues in making new friends, and some lack the social skill to become part of a group. But in the vast world of online gaming, these issues are no longer there. You could join any network, and instantly play online with your friends and new ones. You don’t have to be good looking or charming, you just need to know how to play and the rest will follow. From my own experiences, I have made friends through gaming networks all over the world, people I would have never met except online and would have never had the connection that we have to day unless we were playing these games. The concept is not being online, but before we say a word to each other, we already have something in common that we like playing this exact game; so you already have a minor foundation in your friendship.

Finally, due to the word limit I could not talk about all the other benefits that result from playing video games, but I’m sure that people will start to realize the importance of these games in a child’s upbringing and if controlled could improve your life significantly.