10:48 AM on 10.11.2008 |
|
|
How ironic. I leave boring England for exciting Japan and the most surprising bit of news all week has come from Blighty. Yes, believe it or not, Church leaders have said that videogames are actually a good thing.
Church and charity leaders spoke at an ELSPA-hosted panel where they concluded that games were a force for good in society and help children to make friends.
"We now live in a digital age where the nature of playing games has changed," suggested Martin Houghton-Brown of The Children's Society. "Children tell us supportive and loving relationships are key to a good childhood, we need to equip parents and carers to support children to stay safe when they play in the growing online world."
Lighthouse Group spokesman Mike Royal and Joseph Steinberg of the The Church Mission Society were in agreement that videogames can help build a dialog between parents and their children. In my house, the dialog was always "turn that bloody game down" followed by "I am going to murder you in your sleep, mother." I made sure she never heard that last bit.
Obviously, I don't think these chaps are quite talking about Manhunt when they speak of the good games can do, but nonetheless it's refreshing to see some progressive thinking when it comes to gaming. Good show.
Crazy alert: radical TV preacher Pat Robertson is at it again. In a new video aimed at warning the world of hidden evils, Robertson asserts that Dungeons & Dragons is a "demonic" videogame. In previous discussions throug...
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has removed a map from its servers after Muslim gamers complained (in fairness, quite politely) of offense. The problem lies in two paintings hung in a bathroom in the Favela map, containing the...
Just like videogames, religon can bring people together, inspire them to be the best person that they can be, and even help pull them out of depression, addiction, and other harmful frames of mind. Also like videogames, reli...
We just got a press release for Mass: We Pray earlier today from Paryer Works Interactive and it's so ridiculous that we doubt that this is a real thing. Seriously, just look at the Web site or watch the video above. It feel...
Videogames often get criticized by out-of-touch old cranks for causing violence and encouraging aggressive behavior, so it's very interesting indeed to see that one man, who could rightly be regarded as an expert on serenity ...
My friend Matthew recently joined the Eastern Orthodox Church, and being the worst kind of lazy pseudo-intellectual, I usually prefer asking him questions about it rather than doing any of my own research. As interesting as o...
I have to hand it to Centauri Productions, developers of Memento Mori, a new adventure game for the PC. Obscure (and often unremarkable) PC games are a dime a dozen, but they managed to catch my attention, owing mostly to the...
We got our first whiff of the controversy surrounding PS2 game Hanuman: Boy Warrior back in April, when the word on the street was that the game featured a denigrating depiction of a beloved Hindu monkey god and that the Univ...
Who is Lord Hanuman? Well, in case you aren't familiar with the name, he's a monkey god held beloved by followers of Hindu. In the ancient Sanskrit epic the Ramayana, Hanuman leads a monkey army to fight a demon king. Sounds ...
Well, I hope it's not an April Fool's Joke. There's a Nintendo Power cover to win you doubters over.This Silent Hill game is not a remake or a port, but a re-imaging of the first game. Uh-oh. Maybe it's not so bad, though. Go...