Browsing posts in the ‘Gaming’ category
Sims Home Building
My brother recently moved into his new and first home! He’s been busy fixing it up and doing everything the right way, so to celebrate, I created a replica of his home on Sims 2, because I love making homes in Sims.
The hardest part was building the modular stairs because the stairs that come with the game are the straight kind. You have to do some mod work to get around it and it took some research and patience. It’s not perfect, there are floors that can’t be built on, as you can see on the top floor, but….oh well. There are loft areas in the house now! hah.
This took me about…6 hours total. Time flies @_@.
Here are some, and you can see more if you click.
The front
The side
The family and dining room. Or was it living…I get those two messed up. What’s the difference anyway? I gave my brother a nice mahjong table, a bookcase because he likes to read, a piano, a silly violin in the corner (in case, you know, you want to smash something), and I actually like the couch. The dining table is long with a long runner rug because he said he was looking for a rug at Ikea.
The kitchen, viewed from the living room. I’ve always liked pots hanging from the ceiling. The wood is the darkest Sims had without being black. The closets on the left are supposed to be large cabinets but they don’t really have big cabinets in Sims so I improvised. The TV has plants in the back because that’s how he said he wanted to do it @_@. Make more room for a bigger tv.
This is the top floor, the master is on the right. Just a couple design ideas. The umbrella is the focus on my design. And the disco light ball. Also got him a big plasma tv on the wall. The closet has clothing strewn around the floor. The kids rooms have appropriate beds, like the coffin bed at the top left.
Click “more” for more pictures
Parents’ fear of violent video games
I saw this on the yahoo mainpage and it caught my eye. Particularly because I’ve done research on this very subject. I found out recently that in order to graduate from a university, the title “university” means that you know how to do research. That’s why at UCI, we have to take an upper division writing course that makes you do a research paper. The class I took was People in Society, which is practically any social issue you can think of.
The thing that parents are fearing more for their kids, is the violence in the video games they play. No doubt being heightened by the sensationalize media takes on school shootings. In the bigs ones, like Columbine, and Virginia Tech, the shooters had a history of gaming, and being male, gaming has to do with killing something. They’re not rushing home to play Barbie fashion dress up, or Cooking Mama, or Hello Kitty Island Adventure.
The demographic research on this is, however, that video gaming and violent titles are played nation-wide, but school shootings are not. They are still more prevalent where gun culture is high and places were kids are pressured to blend in with everyone else.
Here is the link to download my paper if you want to read through it. It’s 15 pages in APA format. It’s not all just about school shootings, actually. The paper is about the effects of violent video games on adolescents…how submersed kids can be, how influenced they become…even good effects. Since it’s in APA format, and a research paper, there aren’t any opinions in it. APA format was pretty hard -__-”.
As for kids still being able to buy violent games, it’s like getting into an R rated movie. I forgot if I posted about this in my blog, but I was as EB games one day, and I overheard a grandma and her grandson at the counter.
Grandma: We want uh….a Grand Theft Auto 4? <looks at grandson to make sure she said it right.
Salesman: Oh yeah, lemme get that……okay, just to make sure, the ESRB rating states warnings for blood, intense violence, partial nudity, strong language, strong sexual content, use of alcohol, use of drugs. Is this okay?
Grandma: <looking back down on her grandson> Is this it?
Grandson: <nods up and down with bright eyes>
Grandma: <shrugs> okay, yes.
Yeah, that was pretty easy. Here I was, standing there, almost smirking at the kid’s situation because he surely was going to get a little lecture for wanting to play a game that boasted partial NUDITY and had the word “sex” in there somewhere. But the grandma didn’t even seem fazed by all of that. This was right after I had finished my second draft of my paper too, and I was a bit shocked.
Maybe the only way to solve this is to make sure people show proof that they are mentally stable to be able to play violent video games. In fact, we should all show proof we’re mentally stable all the time. Make it a patch and stick it on our heads.
There’s nothing to fear! I’m mentally stable!