In a recent Canadian study, researchers found that in therapy stroke victims were responding well to the virtual reality games. The motions associated with the Wii games helped fine tune the patients motor skills and helped them regain dexterity and motion. Using a small group for the initial research, the Canadian researchers used games such as Cooking Mania and Tennis. In an adjacent study, stroke suffers were given non-virtual therapy such as stacking wooden blocks.

The study found that those in the video game group recovered their range of motion much quicker than their counterparts. Similar studies have been performed in the Toronto area that has given the same results.

Other areas of medicine have been incorporating the use of video games and virtual reality into their treatment plans. What doctors have found is that these games are showing higher success rates than the standard treatments alone. While no one is quite sure why these treatments have been so successful, the “fun” element should not be discarded. It has been shown in many other studies that happiness is one of the best treatments for sickness.

eCanada

This month Gray Gamers has chosen Doctors without Borders, and we’ll be directing payment to Haiti relief.

Scientists conducted a survey of some 7,000 players who were logged on to a game called EverQuest II. And they discovered some interesting things. First off, the average age of the gamers surveyed was 31. And that playing time tended to increase with age. Which is also where the sex differences come in. The female gamers actually logged more time online: an average of 29 hours a week, versus 25 for the males, with the top players putting in 57 hours a week on the girl’s side, and 51 for the guys. What’s more, it looks like women are more likely to lie about how much they really play. The researchers found that the gals tended to lowball how long they spend glued to the screen.

You are looking at what is probably the most expensive Wii ever. There are three in the world, one is owned by Queen Elizabeth II.

From Plugged In:

It’s the Nintendo Wii Supreme. It took six months to make, and is built from over 5.5 pounds of 22-carat gold. Its front buttons are inlaid with 78 0.25-carat flawless, conflict-free diamonds, making almost 20 carats in total. It’s the work of Liverpool, England craftsman Stuart Hughes, and it costs — are you sitting down? — 299,995.00 pounds, or just about $484,000.

I just want a black one.

2010 may be the year of the best Wii games ever. Click on the pictures to see what the author is saying.

Microsoft is challenging the PC download platform Steam with a PC game download site of it’s own through Windows Live.

Speaking of Steam, they’ve started their holiday game sale early.
And there are some great deals in the casual game section

Putting games in front of users has resulted in a billion dollar industry of consumers buying ‘virtual goods’ for their games. The explosion took off on Facebook, where gamers don’t have to go to dedicated game sites, the games come to them. PC World

Most of us are on limited budgets, right? So instead of grand best of end of year lists, here is my favorites list from 2009. Jan get’s to pick her favorites, and so do you.

PC Games

Favorite 2009: Pop Cap Zuma Deluxe. I don’t have just one reason.

Runner up:
This surprises me, not my preferred genre.
I really like this time management game.

I ‘really like’ means that I play often and play through more than once. This game cheers me up and I’d get the sequel in a squeek.
Airport Mania.

Wii

Favorite 2009: Wii Sports Resort.

Runner Up: Wii Sports Resort.

I think Ravin Rabbit’s: Go Home would be my favorite, since the first three in the series get me babbling in joy and collapsing in laughter, but I don’t have it yet. It can wait until I get my own Wii. A black one.

If I can get Jan out of surfing around the web for game sales, I’ll ask her to weigh in on her favorites.
And if Mike pokes his head in, I’d like to know what his favs for 2009 were.

In keeping with my promise to Iwin, this months Gray Gamers Charity centres around wild fires in California.

I’ve chosen The San Diego Humane Society, this month. Our fur friends need help when fire destroys their owners homes.

Charity Navigator has some excellent tips for people who want to respond to disasters with a donation and a special page for people who want to help Californians displaced by wild fires.

Someone suggested I try Airport Mania, so I did it as a favour to them. They did me a favour.

Put out by South Winds, this little gem breaks the time management game mold with an excellent interface, good graphics and a few surprises. It isn’t big game company formulaic.

The game came out in 2008 and has remained in the top ten time management games.
I haven’t seen a bad review for Airport Mania First Flight, it’s just different enough to remain engaging.

The game is not just time management, there is strategy involved and I think that’s one of the things that hooked me. You go to a friendly flight school tutorial to learn to be an air traffic controller, and you’re off. 

The object of the game is to land planes, load, unload, fuel and do maintenance and send them on their way. The quicker the turn around time at each airport the more points you get. Points help you upgrade, and that is part of the key to the draw of Airport Mania. New runways, gates, defoggers, VIP parking, inflight movies and food you as airport manager install to help the planes happy  draw you deeper into play.

The graphics are great, and although I’m not inclined to use the word cute, the soundtrack, the planes and the scenery at each airport level have style. As the airport manager you can also get points by getting the planes landing and taking off earlier,  which gets upgrades and rather than be annoying, it’s really fun. Tee upgrades you choose matter, and increases the strategic intrigue.

It is one of the most friendly games I’ve played, if you have never tried a time management game this one is a great starter.  How you manage your environment adds interesting complexity to the game. Don’t let the cartoonish cute planes fool you, this game isn’t just child’s play. What you buy or don’t buy to upgrade your airports adds to the strategic element of what a premise that seems simple., keeping planes happy and your airport running smoothly.  As the capacity of  my airports grew I found myself even more challenged.

Again, it’s little things (called easter eggs in game talk)  in each level background like a balloon or zeppelin or chatter from a building that can make you smile. Every once in awhile while you’re busy managing your traffic, along comes a plane needing special attention such Air Force One, a plane with a medical transplant or with a pregnant lady needing to land now. Part of the strategy of keeping the planes happy is not just landing and take off on time or ahead of schedule. If you get swamped with operation management, giving your guests some food or a movie can put smiles and green bars back while you scramble to untangle the potential mess.

You can go back and play a level you feel you didn’t do well one, which suits my temperament.
If a standard or master score isn’t good enough, aiming for expert will keep you happily engaged.
There is a trophy room which has some unusual awards and medals to shoot for, and has already had  me heading back to improve my strategy.
There are 8 different kinds of planes and they each have their own temperament.
There are 8 airports, 84 levels and I keep seeing something about paper airplanes.

As an added strategy, co-ordinating planes of the same colours to the same gates to create chain combos earns a more points.

Casual games are supposed to be fun, and if you are a hard core gamer waiting for Assassins Creed 2 to come out, well this isn’t your game.  If you like  casual well executed game play,  crisp graphics and a few extra this or that in the environment to capture your attention and you like to play to self-challenge, give Airport Mania First Flight a try. Some games in a hectic industry stand up to time and a crowded field, this is one of them.

If South Winds comes out with an Airport Mania sequel, I’m in.

Good bang for your buck.

Tips and Tricks: Reflexive Arcade has  the spoilers on how to win all the 21 awards.

Windows OS:  2000,  XP,  Vista
Memory: 256 MB DirectX: 7.0 or later
CPU: P 1.0GHz Video: 16MB Video Card
Mac
Mobile: IPhone, IPod touch

“Life, like all other games, becomes fun when one realizes that it’s just a game.”  — Nerijus Stasiulis

“It’s all fun and games, until someone looses an eye…than it’s fun and games you can’t see anymore.” — James Hetfield

I’m not sure who that first guy is (since he’s almost impossible to track down via Google™), but, as the lead singer of Metallica, our man James is well-known enough to, well… know what he’s talking about.

There’s nothing worse then loving to do something with a passion, but having to do it blindly, with no instruction, direction or explanation – basically “fun and games you can’t see!” Well, this is my first entry into what I plan will be a regular bi-weekly forum of reviews, opinions, and “hokum” relating to gaming, as interests the Gray Gamer in all of us. The tile of my column is a play on words, as I, myself, am in a wheelchair (I live with multiple sclerosis). And just so we’re clear, I won’t go on quoting statistics about how many of us Gamers live with illness or disability. No, what I will do is provide information that is relevant to Gamers of ALL styles and breeds, who have in common only the true love of gaming!

Whether you are a newbie or a hardcore gamer, I hope to “open your eyes” to all that gaming has to offer you. So – sit back, relax, grab a snack, and tape up your “Nintendo Thumbs” ’cause…

Here we go!

And as we say in game lingo:

PLAY AGAIN <Y/N?>

… is this the Gamer’s “Chair of the future” ?

Sigh. I am lousy at ordering, I break into a cold sweat. But I did it, I let Jan handle ordering usually, but I really wanted to review this game. I grabbed it moments after it went online and have been happily playing since.

No CD a month later so I asked Jan to check with the company. She did, but sent the issue ticket to GrayGamers instead of answering their questions.  I been lax at checking the site email account,’ cause, um, I’ve been playing.

It’s hard getting stuff from the US, PopCap couldn’t find the order when Jan wrote – and I just found the ticket asking for the information she forwarded to me and forgot to tell me. I so don’t do numbers, I do words; but the company is polite and helpful and hopefully this will get resolved.

The up side – I’m beating Jan, which is such a rare occurrence, she is quite the gamer and competitive.

Once again, PopCap has a PC game winner with Zuma’s Revenge. I want the disk to get here in case I have another computer crash. (I’ve had two in the past six months)

 The coding on the the original Zuma is so good, I’ve been able to load it on Windows 98, XP and Vista, no problem - which is a testament to the game developers and coders.

Yay! The CD arrived today almost a month to the day it was ordered, for something from the US being posted to Canada, not too shabby. Thanks PopCap.

While I don’t think I’ll ever beat Jackie Strickland, a 67 year old grandmother from Alabama whose ace time is 5 seconds on one of the levels, I’m working on it. And the world’s top Zuma player is Rick Fortin from Quebec – one province over from me. Gray gamers rock!

Zuma fans are not likely to be disappointed with the sequel and it’s great to see a game company treat a sequel and it’s customers with solid respect.
Zuma game developers rock!  This was worth the wait.

 Zuma’s Revenge takes the happy little original Aztec shooter frog to an island. With improved graphics, funny whimsical verbal asides, a relaxing caribean music score, the famous Pop Cap sound engineers careful  sounds,  an  addition of a few sarcastic Tiki enemies and  extra challenge levels, it took me 15 hours to work my way through the adventure  mode. I’m still not done.
That’s the great thing about Zuma, and now Zuma’sRevenge,  these are games you keep coming back to. To be honest, I think the graphics in Zuma’s Revenge exceed Luxor.

I’m currently working on the Iron Frog challenge which does not give the player easy chains of same coloured balls. You work for every point.

In Zuma’s Revenge, unlike Zuma, your amphibean is not static on every level. When you get two columns of balls coming at you, there are boards where you can pop him over to another lily pad. There is also a level with a slider, so you can slid him cross screen to score your points.

Zuma and Zuma’s Revenge are both relaxing and challenging, depending on what you are setting out to accomplish. If you are working on beating your own scores or ace time, it’s a challenge.  Hmm. Relaxing challenge works for me. 

In Zuma’s Revenge the intrepid frog sails off to an island to confront the Tiki gods. The island has 6 zones which increase in difficulty with engrossing absorption. The graphics are lovely, and you can read about the art work here.  Zone 1 is Island welcome (each zone has 10 boards), 2  is Wish you were here, 3 is Visit fabulous lost city, 4 is Greetings from the coast, 5 is Wish you were here, and 6 is a graphic delight: Greetings from the lost volcano temple. One you complete a zone, a post card pops up to mark your play when you return.

There are new power ups in Zuma’s Revenge. (Hint: use them).  Filling up the power bar by firing matches stops adding balls to the cue. You snooze you lose, as in Zuma, the balls snake toward the death mask  and you lose a life.

Zuma had four power ups. A slow down ball, a back up ball, an explosion ball and an accuracy ball.
Zuma’s Revenge keeps those four and adds a laser coming out of your frog’s eyes (Hint: Shoot power up balls) a glowing nuke ball which eliminates the ball colour you shoot at, and a fun tri-shot where your frog shoots three iron balls to destroy the surrounding balls you aim at.

Each of the adventure levels end with a Boss Battle, where a Tiki god who has been taunting you fires back. I won’t give anything away, at least one is a laugh out loud war, and you get as many chances as you need.

Another hint. When you get to the end of  the adventure mode and credits start to roll, don’t click out.

In the first Zuma you only see the credits if you put your cursor on the sign, and play the notes in sequence three times. (theme: Close Encounters of the Third Kind)  A space ship comes down and rolls credits. 
The developers of Zuma’s Revenge have not lost their comical bent.

You have to unlock your challenge modes in Zuma’s Revenge. Each one has an ace time to beat in 3 minutes, as you beat ace time more challenge modes are unlocked. Again I was surprised, Pop Cap gives more challenge modes than you initially see, which is quite generous to us Zuma addicts. (Hint: There are 70!) Thanks Pop Cap! 

Iron Frog is a one try and you’re dead gauntlet of colour, speed, tactics and accuracy. It supposedly has 10 levels of play, I wouldn’t know about that, because I’m stuck on level two.

Heroic Frog is a more difficult replay of adventure mode. Haven’t gotten there yet either.

hehe, writing this I want to go play.

The graphics really are excellent, there are new back end features such as 3D particle and widescreen support, and the same smooth play Zuma is known for.  Heck, for me the graphics are art, even picky gamers could be  be delighted, especially with the volcano temple.
 
If you have someplace to go and start playing - watch the clock - tempus fugit with this gem.  Even the game load bar makes me smile, having gone in and out a few times I notice the script isn’t the same every time. 

If you haven’t tried Zuma, I recommend heading over to a game site and downloading a hour free play. 
Pop Cap  has released this game in 8 languages which is going to build a huge fan base, as well the download and CD release was simultaneous which is something many casual gamers appreciate.
This isn’t a game that needs the ad and sales department pushing it. Fans and newbies will do the work for them.
Give Zuma’s Revenge a free try. Zuma’s Revenge will have a familiar feel to Zuma fans, and I think that is what makes this new one as enduring as the first one.

Zuma’s Revenge official site

System requirements:
OS:  XP/Vista
Memory: 256 minimum, 768 MB recommended
Ram: 700 MHz minimum, 1 GHz recommended
Direct X: 8.1 minimum, latest recommended
Available for Mac

Price: 
$19.95/US  for download
download & CD: $27.90/US
Zuma download pack: Zuma & Zuma’s Revenge $29.95/US

Top bang for your buck.

Ribbit. Zuma fans, weigh in. Blast or bust? 
Comments are open.

Sony dropped the price of it’s top of the line Playstation down to 300 dollars/US this year and the XBox went down to 300/US.

As of June Nintendo sold 52.6 million Wii’s,  XBox was second at 31 million.

As consumers gear up for year end purchases,  Nintendo has cut the price of a Wii by 50 bucks, bring the price to 200/US.

Business Week

The price won’t be dropping in Australia, retailers plan to add some software bundles to Wii purchases.

Black Wii remotes and Nunchuks will be available for the fall/winter season; given sales have flattened, and the black accessories are out in North America, I wonder if the black Wii (only available in Asia) may hit our market sooner or later.
I want a black Wii, and have been holding off. White is easier to dust, but black matches my decor.

Beyond the fan excitement generated by the first remastering of the entire Beatles catalog in more than 20 years, sales also will benefit from the massive marketing push behind MTV Networks’ video game “The Beatles: Rock Band,” also released Wednesday. Sources said the game is backed by a $20 million-$25 million advertising campaign, which includes the value of advertising on TV networks owned by MTV parent Viacom. That will provide consumers with a timely refresher course on their favorite Beatles songs — and perhaps prompt many of them to pick up a newly minted remaster.

EMI is banking on the legendary band to be a strong seller through the holidays. The label shipped 4 million copies worldwide on the street date, including 1.9 million in the U.S. The catalog relaunch will get its own $1 million-$2 million TV advertising campaign, which will include spots on such key cable networks as ESPN, TNT, TBS, TV Land, USA Network and MSNBC. Sources said that the primary spend will be at MTV’s fellow Viacom sibling Nickelodeon as part of an effort to turn the network’s young, game-playing audience into Beatles fans.

Play Station3, XBox, Wii

The Beatles: Rock Band – wiki
Official site