Most of the times people tend to have this idea that computer games are not healthy especially for a child. Well nowadays there are some computer games that are actually quite useful for children.

I will start by saying a few words about “secret builders”. I’ve heard about this game a few days ago, and it seems a pretty good way to improve a child’s concentration and imagination. By exploring this world you can see that is made up of adventures, games and even friends to whom you can talk to. This game gives a child the opportunity of creating his own world just the way he wants, so he can spend an entire day on a quest, where he has to save somebody and where he can win money.

Another computer game for children is the modern Tetris game called Brilliant Blocks. This is one of the oldest and first invented computer games (Tetris) and this “Brilliant Blocks” game makes the child to think very fast on matching colors or numbers. So this game will improve a child’s memory, attention and rapidity.

“Bubble trouble” is a very funny computer game. And this is because you have to pop bubbles and get to the next level. All you have to do is pop a bubble which will split into two and so on, until the bubbles disappear. Sometimes in the game there will appear some collectible coins or prizes that you have to collect and also if a bubble touches you that means you have lost points. But it still remains a funny game.

“Fishy” is another funny simple game. All you have to do is eat smaller fish and grow big .And also you have to take care that other bigger fish don’t eat you. It is a very simple game to play and quite amusing taking into consideration the idea of eating fish and trying not to be eaten by others.

“Blooming gardens” is another educational computer game for children which I believe it’s quite simple and good. All you have to do is take care of your garden. The flowers will grow very fast and you need to arrange them in rows of five or so. It’s quite good for a child’s concentration.

“Nurse Suzy” is a relaxing item hidden game, a good educational computer game for children and all you have to do is help nurse Suzy bring order at the hospital where she works and help her find her own things. This little game is good for accommodation and concentration.

All the games having been presented above are in my opinion educational computer games for children and even if sometimes these games do not seem that important I believe that the evolution of a child’s imagination, concentration etc is very important, and these games might actually help.

The Return of the King is the final part, the desperate acts of Gandalf, Frodo, Aragorn and their companion who want to destroy the evil plans of the evil Sauron. The previous edition Lord of the Rings : The Two Towers included sequences based both on the movie The Fellowship of the Ring and on its continuation. The Return of The King begins in a similar mode, presenting the culminating battle from Helm’s Deep from the movie The Two Towers.

In order to be sure you made an impression for the beginning, the first level automatically begins when you load the game for the first time, after a short intro scene which presents the arrival of Gandalf at sunrise along with the riders from Rohan. The defense was almost crushed, the balance being on Sauron’s forces side, but the perfectly synchronized arrival of Gandalf turns around the force ratio, the balance being now on the good side, making Sauron’s troops to retreat.

This first level shows very good the chaos and the frantically rhythm of the battle from The Two Towers, and you will discover then that all the other levels from The Return of The King are following the same rhythm, being very entertaining and spectacular.

Once you have won the battle from Helm’s Deep, you are able to open a screen from which you can access different bonus elements of the game, as you unlock them. In the beginning, the game consists in three sets of levels which are modeled depending on the different paths chosen by Gandalf, Aragorn and Frodo, the ring carrier, in The Return of The King. The path of the wizard and the hobbit are shorter than the path of the king chosen by Aragorn, but in order to finish this journey you will have to finish first the other two challenges. This structure reflects very well the fact how these characters are forced to go on different paths in The Return of The King, but also underlines the efforts made by each one which are for a common goal: destroying the ring, and along with it, eliminating Sauron, his general Saruman, and their terrifying armies.

As you may expect, The Return of the King goes a lot on the action and the elements from the movie with the same name. The story of the game is very related to the movie, so if you have no knowledge of the movie, if you haven’t seen it yet, it will be hard for you to follow the game, although along the game some things are being clarified.

;The Return of The King includes a great variety of characters with which you can play. If you will choose the path of the king, you will be able to choose between Aragorn, Legolas or Gimli. You will play with Gandalf if you choose the path of the wizard, and the hobbit path if you want to play with Frodo and his friend Samwise. Even if you have played the similar game

The Two Towers, you can expect for all these characters to have different sets of moves. The speed and the style of the attacks is different, but each attack is powerful and in good use.

Mytheon is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Play Game (MMORPG), totally free, developed by Petroglyph Games, which will be released this year. The game will be distributed under the banner of True Games.

Inspired by the Greek mythology, Mytheon will have as a plot, a war between gods and fate representatives. Controlling human destiny, fate representatives decide that the rule of gods must end on Earth and be replaced by a new chapter in the life of mortals. Since gods do not agree to surrender the control, a real war begins between them and humans. Having the fate representatives help with their magical stones, humans have to defeat gods to demonstrate that they can control their own destiny.  Players can hold more stones, called “Power Stone”, which allows the release of mythical creatures or even allow the produce various “spells”. Mytheon will have three different classes, Warcaster, Eidolon and Elementalist, each will have different abilities or control over the stones.

PoisonVille is a free online computer game, developed by Bigpoint, which will be released this summer, originally in German language. Action will take place in Poison Ville, a city marked by many battles between rival gangs. As you probably guessed already, the game is a MMOG, players must choose their camp and begin the street war. Gamers will have plenty of weapons available, which can be exchanged, they will have clothes, also cool cars because driving seems to be an important part of the game. A rank improvement system will give the possibility to the players to become more skilled and to increase their number of “knowledge”.

Maintaining proportions, at first glance, PoisonVille seems to be as All Points Bulletin (APB), a game waited by fans for some time.
Forsaken World is another free computer game, from Massively Multiplayer Online Role Play Game (MMORPG) category, which will be launched by Perfect World Entertainment. Originally announced in China, Forsaken World will debut soon also on U.S. servers. The game is a fantasy Role Play Game (RPG), which combines Asian with the western culture. The game will have five races (Stonemen, Elves, Dwarfs, Humans, Kindred) and a total of eight classes (Warrior, Protector, Assassin, Marksman, Mage, Priest, Vampire and Bard). Players will be able to make their own objects with the help of 11 occupations, such as Merchant, Collector, Arcanist, Botanist, Armorsmith, Bladesmith, Tamer, Alchemist, etc.

Perfect World Entertainment is an American subsidiary of Perfect World, known for titles such as Jade Dynasty, Torchlight or Perfect World International.

World Of Tanks is a free massively multiplayer online game that will be launched this year in autumn. The game is dedicated to monitored fighting and gamers will have the opportunity to choose from 150 tanks, produced by USA, Russia and Germany. Even if the action takes place during the World War II, tanks in the game would be models produced between 1940-1953. So, on the battlefield we will have both stars of WW2 but also tanks build for the War from Korea.

In World of Tanks, players will be part of the online battles that supports up to 30 gamers in a team, being announced several game modes. Each team will need both of teamwork and a balance between light and heavy machinery. Players will have its own garage, where models can be improved once with the advancement in rank.

It is very true that men generally spend more time playing computer games than girls, but this doesn’t mean that girls don’t know how to play a computer game or that girls don’t have their own games.

A good example is Miss Bimbo. I myself played it and I must say that it feels good to live a virtual life where you can be whoever you want to be and where you can get dressed however you want or date whoever you want without others judging you. Of course this does not mean that a Bimbo Virtual Life is that easy. You still must work, eat, drink, take medicine when you get sick, you must buy stuff for the place where you live, you must take care of your pet( that is if you have one) but you can also go out, find a boyfriend, go dancing, shopping etc, and this is only one example among the numerous girl games that exist.

The computer games for girls are not as numerous as those for men. This is the reason why some girls sometimes play computer games for boys, such as RPG ( TheCrims-The life of a criminal) or Need for Speed or Counter Strike etc.

The difference between computer games for girls and computer games for boys is that those for boys are more complex and this is the reason why these games are more addictive. Boys will always play more computer games than girls, because girls also get bored relatively fast ,after only one game.

Computer games for girls mostly refer to little girls and teenagers but rarely to young women or old women. Little girls get involved fast in this virtual world because they can do whatever they want with their Barbie doll, and their little dog can walk on water and fly gaining points so for them these games usually offers them a world of fairy tales, of fairies and fairy dust, of princesses and magic. Computer games for girls offer them the possibility to enter a world that they only dream about.

Computer games for girls help little girls develop their imagination, their sense of beauty and gives them the possibility of not feeling lonely or just playing which is something vital for childhood period.

Taking into account the great amount of computer games that exist nowadays we could say that there aren’t so many computer games for girls, but that really doesn’t matter much, because girls are not so into the virtual gaming world and also they do play less computer games than boys.

Still, we can say for sure that in the near future computer game industry will probably have a separate branch for computer games for girls because nowadays there are more and more girls and teenage girls which use them in comparison to the number of girls and teenagers that played computer games in the past.

It is still unknown why men play more computer games than women. And nowadays especially older men play computer games.

When older man plays computer games all day long might mean that he might have been sometimes in his past, a man with a very agitated life, a very exhausting job, and now, being retired, needs to do something with his life and imagination. Because I suppose that is not easy to work an entire life and then just stay and do nothing. So men need to do something with their time.

Another reason why older men play computer games every day could be that they need to relax during breaks. At home, at work, in   the bus or while drinking their coffe. A computer game can easily distract one’s attention from his daily worries or problems. So, men need to relax in order to continue with their work and fulfill their responsibilities.

As human beings, not only as men, we appreciate and miss most of the memories of our long lost childhood. Who wouldn’t just love to turn back in time, to be a child again, to have no responsibilities, no problems, just to play and play and play some more. By playing computer games older man can go back in time, to the period of time in which they were children. This is their way of not being old anymore, at least for a short period of time.

It is well known that men sometimes have certain issues when they get older. And playing computer games may be the result of not being pleased with the idea of getting older and trying to forget about it or even escape it.
Older men can sometimes play computer games because maybe they need to be distracted from some things such as problems, thoughts, inner conflicts.

Sometimes, I believe that the reason why older man play computer games all day long is because they feel lonely. They do not have whom to talk to because it is harder to be understood by young people, by the new generation, and by playing computer games, by entering a virtual world, older men can forget about all this and not feel lonely anymore.

Being lonely, wanting to relax, looking for an extra occupation, not having whom to talk to, all these are reasons why an older man plays computer games all day long. This might be a good or a bad thing, depending on the man. But as long as they have a limit and know when to stop and still keep in touch with the external world this might be a good thing for an older man who needs to do something in his spare time. Playing computer games (all day long) can have its advantages and disadvantages without taking into consideration the age or the game type. Important is to know when to stop.

In the previous article we talked about computer gaming in children’s life and we have seen the advantages and disadvantages that this games have. In this article we will see how adults treat computer games and if these games have the same effect on adults as they have on children.

As surprising as this might seem, gaming is something very important not only for children but also for adults,for their psychic balance.We are not talking of course about the sort of games we used to play as children but other kind of games,such as online games.Pew Internet & American Life has made a research about this topic and the result was that the number of American people who have over 18 and play computer games has increased, so 53% of the American adults play computer games while one of five Americans play games such as World of Warcraft every day.

80% of the people with ages between 18 and 20 play video games and 60% of those who are between 30 and 49, and 40% of those who are between 50 and 64, also play computer games.

My brother for example (age 28) still plays a lot of computer games,although he has a job, friends,and a lot on his mind.But he still makes time every day to play computer games and this doesn’t stop him from being a very serious and reliable person,so for those of you who might think that adults who play computer games have a problem,well you are wrong.I suppose that adult computer gaming is not as dangerous as youth computer gaming.Adults (or at least most of them) know when to stop and most of them play during the break at work or half an hour at home before going to sleep just as a relaxing method.

Adult computer gaming has increased because of the very fast life style that most of the adults have.Adults sometimes need a little break and something do distract their mind.And most of the times this distraction is a computer game.

Specialists advice adults who are married and already have children, not to exaggerate with computer games,and sometimes maybe even try to include their families in this plays.Of course, it is well known the father-son relationship and its importance,so if it is possible why not improve it through an online football match or an online puzzle?

Of course outdoor activities should still lead the competition real-virtual games,but if not possible computer games can and I’m sure they will do a great job at relaxing every each of us.

Adult online gaming is nowadays something very normal,so if one day you see your husband being a warrior or a matrix figure,don’t worry he will be just fine.And if you as a husband see one day your wife being a very important designer or a very good online cook,don’t worry either,she will also be just fine.Adult online gaming is or at least should be just a way to relax and nothing more than that.

Can any of you remember the “hide and seek” time? Or maybe the “tic-tac-toe” period? Because I for one sure remember the times when I would just not get tired of playing outside with my friends (real friends, not virtual) when games were fun, simple, and non-violent.

Children of today live in a “computer gaming world” which whether we like it or not, has both its advantages and disadvantages .Before starting to say anything about the advantages and the disadvantages presented by this “computer gaming world” I must mention that these games are not only played by children but very often these games are played by grown ups. So the question we need to ask ourselves is whether these games destroy our children youth or maybe whether they resurrect ours.

There are several types of computer games. Every area of our world has a game in a virtual world. And in this “computer gaming world” our real life becomes nicer, easier, lighter but on the other hand can also become worst than the reality one may live in, harder, darker. It depends on every each of us to learn how and especially how much to use these virtual games.

One main advantage of these games is that they improve one’s IT skills. For example children in general (who are known to be very perceptive of everything new) learn easier how to use a computer by playing computer games.

A second advantage is that while children play computer games  (which is mainly an indoor activity) parents don’t have the concern of always asking themselves where their children are knowing them safe in front of the computer, and they don’t have to stop their work to go check on the children.

A third advantage of computer games is that it doesn’t take such a long time  (for example you can make a car race in 5 minutes while an outdoor bicycle race would require at least 15 minutes and another 2-3 friends) and also because children can play it when they are sick and have to stay in or when the weather is bad.
A first disadvantage that I really want and need to talk about is the ADHD.

(Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder).

Having this syndrome a child will not be able to concentrate for a long period of time, will have problems in remembering things, and will not be able to learn as much as it will be expected of him to learn.This syndrome will also create a gap between the child suffering of it and the other children who don’t.

A second disadvantage is the solitude that a child can get into while spending too much time in the „computer gaming world”. A child might get to like more his virtual friends than his real friends and might even not make the difference between what is real and what is virtual.

The third and in my opinion the most important disadvantage of computer gaming is the violence that children can learn from computer gaming and the fact that their social behavior may be very easily destroyed.In order to avoid these things, specialists suggest parents to make a computer program that their child must respect (for example, computer games only 2 hours per day) and to try and create more family activities for the child to be a part of and to be encouraged to socialize with other children by real means not via a computer game in a „computer gaming world”.

In the next article we will see how adults deal with computer games and the „computer gaming world”

Hitman 2: Silent Assassin

There is no doubt about the theme of the game Hitman 2: Silent Assassin. If you take a single look over the bold and well dressed guy from the cover, sinister like death and armed with a pistol in each hand, then you will realize what the game is about.

The original Hitman: Codename 47 presents impressive technical elements, but it had a serious number of problems. Some players could pass over the control problems and the extremely high difficulty level of the game and could enjoy the power of the very violent concept – play the role of a paid assassin created by genetic engineering and you will have to eliminate as silently as possible some preset targets. The game has offered a great action. The next version has the same ideas and takes them even further, correcting mistakes and deficiencies existing in the first version, becoming a remarkable shooting game.

The ones who have not played the first Hitman game, are provided with enough data about the Hitman 2 game even from the beginning of it, even more than they need in the beginning. The game begins with this enigmatic guy known only by the 47 code name, not as a paid assassin but as a gardener. He quit on violent methods and now is serving as a gardener for a Sicilian church. But when the great abbot father is kidnapped, 47 has no other option than to get dressed again in the black suit and to unpack the arsenal. He contacts the old employer in order to find the priest, but he will have to meet some missions for him until he will receive some information about his friend.

The game contains about 20 missions which you will play one after another. Although details and thelocation of each mission are different, most of them have common themes, like the entrance, eliminating the target, and then the extraction. The way you meet your objectives depends totally on you, either you sneak on them, or you use the brute force, and most of the missions are realized so the solutions can be intuitive.

One of the greatest differences between Hitman 2 and its predecessor is the fact that for different reasons, making an entrance using brute force is better, a frontal attach being most of the times very efficient, especially if you take your opponents by surprise.
You will have access to different moves and types of weapons, as you may expect from such a character. There will be tense situations. The enemy guardians will constantly follow you and even will face you if they consider you are acting strange.

The game manages to teach and explain to the gamers the character control ways even from the beginning – the old employer of 47 wants to check if he’s got “rusty” and will offer him a re-education course about that.

Hitman 2 certainly looks great, on any platform, even if they say that it looks best on a top generation personal computer. Although the game looks like its predecessor when speaking about the design, the presentation and graphic part are way more improved. Certainly you can say that Hitman 2 sounds as impressive at it looks. Voices are great, the help screams of the innocents are amazing, the orchestration is very well realized and it perfectly fits inside the game.

A strategy game could be a parlor game or a video game. The aim is to achieve a known goal: to increase domination of space, the defeat of one or more enemies on a playing field, helping to increase an entity, etc. The focus is not on the player’s dexterity, but the action plan (tactics or strategy).

We tend to call strategy game any game that requires a little thinking. In fact, when talking about a strategy game, it is more about computer war games or simulation games.

I will present below 3 upcoming strategy games, because those strategy computer games that already exist, do not require any presentation.

End of Nations – is a real time multiplayer strategy game developed by Petroglyph Games which will be released at Trion Worlds next year. End of Nations will put players in command of vast armies, they must build their own headquarters and also to produce a series of vehicles and weapons. The experience gained and research will play important roles, and the machines built will become increasingly effective.

Players could choose between taking part in single player campaigns or to join other players online, being able to play co-op or against other gamers or huge maps. The game is placed in the near future in XXI century, following two powers to fight for supremacy: Order of Nations and Revolutionaries. Each mission accomplished or battle won, will bring points to players, called Commander Points; points acquisition will offer the opportunity to extend the headquarters and also to build new units.

Petroglyph Games, the developer of End of Nations, is a studio located in Las Vegas who developed titles like Universe at War: Earth Assault and Star Wars: Empire at War.

Patrician 4 – is a new strategy computer game, announced by Kalypso Media and Gamimg Minds Studios GmbH, which will be launched in autumn, 2010. The game will take place in the Middle Ages, and the players will have to being their career as merchants in the Baltic Sea.

Starting from simple sellers, players will have the opportunity to become true merchants of the whole Europe. Supply and demand, and the ability to search and open trade routes, will help to increase players in the merchants’ hierarchy. Patrician 4 cities will be developed once with the players, small villages having the opportunity to become true capitals of commerce. The progress will be influenced by diseases, weather, political argues, piracy and charges levied by the authorities. Competition will consist eight NPC merchants but I do not know details about a possible multiplayer because there wasn’t any detail about such thing. Even so, it looks like a great game!

Order of War: Challenge – is a strategy computer game online, which will be released by Wargaming/net this month.

The action takes place in Order of War universe, title released in autumn, 2009. Challenge will have 6 playing modes, over 12 maps and hundred of ground and air units. The 12 maps will represent different areas of struggle, starting and ending with the classic urban combat data in vacant areas. As in the Order of War, the three combat forces will be U.S., USSR and Germany. The game will also have an online co-op mode (survival), in which 4 gamers will be able to defend various strategic objectives.

And because it will appear very soon, you should know the minimum requirements before you consider it.
System Minimum Requirements:
Windows XP SP2/Vista SP1/Windows7
CPU: 3.0 GHz, DUO 2.0 GHz
2 GB RAM
Video: 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 7600/Radeon HD2400
DirectX 9.0c
HDD: 10 GB free space

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas San Andreas is an island which contains three cities. You will begin the game on one of them, named Los Santos, based somehow on Los Angeles, consisting into a select residential area and some ghettos. San Fierro, another city is based on San Francisco, reproducing the hilly areas and the fog. The third city in the game is Las Venturas which seems to be a copy of Las   Vegas of the 90s presenting a range of casinos and a far desert landscape. San Andreas gives you the impression of a new sensation, width, maneuvering space, being a lot bigger compared to Vice City.

The first thing you have to do is regain the city of Los Santos. The gangs, from which you are part of, the families from Grove Street, have fallen in the past few years and their influence has decreased dramatically. So, you together with three ex leaders, Big Smoke, Ryder and Sweet, are going along the streets in order to regain the areas which were won by a rival gang, Ballas.Exactly when you are beginning to feel the taste of these fights between gangsters, the situation changes radically and you will end up in the situation in which you will have to leave Los Santos. You will go into a country area outside the city, where neighborhood fights will keep you busy for a while.

As in the previous versions, the game has a pretty linear structure. In the first phase you will be banned from Los Santos, but not for a very long time. As we are used from the previous versions, you will have to complete missions for a pretty big variety of characters. These missions are similar with the ones you had the chance to play in previous editions of the game, but as you advance, the missions get a lot crazier. You will end up heisting a great casino, to steal army equipment, to deal with a lot more mafia, and many others. And so, the missions from this version of the game are a lot more palpitating than on the previous versions.

Along the great range of new elements are numbered the possibilities to ride a bicycle, to accelerate walking, etc. Also the fighting has been improved. You can realize more movement combinations with which to beat your opponents. Your character can swim and if he is in a good shape, can make great jumps and climb on higher buildings.

There are many statistics present in the game. The first ones are about the character you are playing, who you will have to keep in shape. These are related to respect which you will have to earn by completing missions, energy, muscle mass, sex appeal, fat. There are also skills which if they are improven, will help you to complete the missions faster. Skills like riding the bike, driving, swimming, fighting, and different levels of handling and firing a weapon.

Graphic speaking, all that you can say is that the GTA Series has taken care of it all the time. For example, Vice City has managed very well to create a Miami atmosphere, associated with a 80s feeling. San Andreas had to maintain this habit so it came with unique landscapes, both for the cities and for their peripheries.