Culture and Society


According to Patrick Masell, recently the media has bombarded Americans with images and stories concerning a popular and morally corrupt video game called “Grand Theft Auto.”

GTA 3 and its sequel GTA: Vice City has sparked record sales as well as protests and news reports across the globe. Most of these reports and protests question the game’s graphic content and the effects it may have on its audience, especially teenagers.

However, GTA was not the first series of video games to create such a stir in this country. “Mortal Kombat” a fighting game known for its amount of blood and gore deaths, hit arcades in 1992 and home consoles the next year.

The question of how graphic violence in video games influences this nation’s youth have been debated for over a decade. Violent video games have few, if any, adverse effects on the vast majority of its audience and those who are negatively influenced often are unstable to begin with.

Two features of video games fuel renewed interest by researchers, public policy makers, and the general public. First, the active role required by video games is a double-edged sword.

It helps educational video games be excellent teaching tools for motivational and learning process reasons. But, it also may make violent video games even more hazardous than violent television or cinema.

Second, the arrival of a new generation of ultraviolent video games beginning in the early 1990s and continuing unabated to the present resulted in large numbers of children and youths actively participating in entertainment violence that went way beyond anything available to them on television or in movies.

Recent video games reward players for killing innocent bystanders, police, and prostitutes, using a wide range of weapons including guns, knives, flame throwers, swords, baseball bats, cars, hands, and feet.

Some include cut scenes (i.e., brief movie clips supposedly designed to move the story forward) of strippers. In some, the player assumes the role of hero, whereas in others the player is a criminal.

All of these actually will help to promote violence behaviour among the children but censoring or banning video games will not solve or even help a problem that is much more deeply rooted.

Parents should play a major role in coping with this matter. Parental neglect is possibly the largest factor in juvenile delinquency. Ironically, the same parents who favor censorship of video games probably don’t even realize the games their children are playing are meant for adults to begin with.

There is something labeled on every game box called an ESRB rating. Acting like a rating system for movies, it determines the age group that a particular game is appropriate for. The GTA series is M or mature, suitable for people seventeen or over.

Yet that doesn’t stop parents from buying it for their underage kids. In fact, there are many instances where a teenager will be refused from buying a certain game.

Their parents are brought in to confront the store manager and the manger explains the rating system, but the parent buys the game nonetheless. So basically both parents and game creator should be blame as they did not think twice before doing something.

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Perhaps the most unforgettable video game character ever created is Mario, of the Super Mario Bros. series featured on Nintendo consoles for the last twenty-five years.

Mario is now considered a pop culture mainstay because of his rich history of being the main character in Mario games. I began playing Super Mario games when I was very young.

The first installment was released a few years before I was born, actually, but I was given my first console, along with the original “Super Mario Bros.” when I was four.

I really loved playing this game; in fact, I enjoyed it so much that I still dig out the old Nintendo Entertainment System every once in awhile just in order to play it. Even some of my friends like to play Super Mario games, even though we are all older now.

The original game has a very simple concept, really. There are eight levels, and three stages to each level, with a final castle stage in which Mario, the main character, must jump over his enemy, Bowser, in order to open a bridge so that Bowser will fall into a pit of lava.

In each castle (up until the final one), Mario is greeted by Toad, and told each time that the princess who he is trying to rescue is not located in the castle which he just conquered.

The storyline of each of the first few Super Mario games is very basic, but still enjoyable and fun even though it is not very complex. Each level in the first game is basic, as well.

The backdrop doesn’t really change; sometimes Mario, a plumber, climbs down a pipe and has to complete a stage underground, or in the water. At other times, the usual backdrop is set to black, so as to put the setting at night.

The other characters in the game are mainly Mario’s enemies. The most common enemy is Goomba, a tiny, brown creature that can’t really do much except walk into Mario. Next, there are the Koopas, some of which walk and others that fly around.

In addition to these, there are fish that attach Mario and also flying fish in a few select stages. Oddball enemies include Lakitu, who flies around in a cloud above Mario attempting to drop spiked balls on top of Mario.

Also, the hammer brothers appear a few times in the game, as well, throwing hammers at Mario. Mario is a classic game that has been and will continue to be enjoyed for years to come.

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Shooting games are a subgenre of action game because shooting game make up the majority of action games, it is a fairly wide subgenre.

It includes many subgenres that have the commonality of focusing on the actions of the avatar using some sort of weapon. Usually this weapon is a gun or some other long-range weapon.

Most shooting games are played as solo ventures, several offer the players the opportunity to control a squad of characters, usually directly controlling one, and giving orders to computer-controlled allies.

Games which feature non-player characters fighting alongside the player, but which are not directly controllable (either by switching player control or issuing orders to the character) are not considered squad-based games.

Most people usually love shooting games that emphasize more on killing part where the blood flies everywhere after a person being killed. An example of this type of game is Quake III Arena; The Dallas-based Company has perhaps the most advanced game software on the market.

The detail in Quake III Arena is stunning as it make the game look more real and it emphasize more features of the character and blood of the victim. By using the mouse, you can look around 360 degrees, which immediately makes you feel inside the gorgeous picture you’re looking at.

Able to go in any direction by pressing the arrow buttons on the keyboard; you instinctively start navigating this strange new universe, learning its laws of physics, mastering its peculiar rules and logic.

When you jump from a launching pad located in outer space, it’s exhilarating to hurtle through the airless void. Besides that, another popular shooting game is Grand Theft Auto.

This game gives the same impact as the previous one, when killing somebody; blood is clearly seen on the ground. Some people might become vicious and step on the dead body and blood will splash out of it.

This is an example of a violent shooting game but guess what? People love these types of game, no matter how it is rated as long as it is related to blood people will buy it.

Because of this matter, some people might take the game seriously and commit suicide if there are not able to finish or complete the game. In Hudson, a mother found her son’s body in a rocking chair in front of his computer.

His head was slumped to one side still facing a screen of the shooting game that she said had become his obsession. She then places the blame for his death squarely on the game and its maker Sony Online Entertainment.

She believes that by adding all this violence and blood in the game, it is more or less has influence his child to commit suicide. This is maybe because he was to frequent in watching blood that cause him to make that decision.

All in all, violence game is still violence even without the blood but still blood is one of the factors that makes ones game become popular. Without blood people considered a shooting game as not real and this will make it hard to sell.

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The cold months have arrived. This means that the most celebrated season is nearing us, the Christmas season! This also means expenses. We all know that we spend a lot of money buying gifts to give our friends and loved ones and food to serve on Christmas Eve. With all these recession that is happening around the globe, how can we keep up with our usual routine during the Christmas season? It is plain too easy, do not incur any expenses! Just kidding. We cannot totally avoid incurring any expense during this times especially when this is the only time that the whole family gets together. Like a reunion. So, what we can do is minimize our expenses. But how? With all these all time high prices of prime commodities.

It is simple; we lessen our expenses on gifts. Why? Because it is not a necessity in celebrating Christmas. So, here are a few tricks that might be useful to your Christmas shopping escapades.

First up, you have to define how much money you are willing to spend in buying gifts and Christmas items.

Since it is still some hundred days to go before Christmas, I think it will be helpful if you start shopping Christmas gifts and items now. While the demand is still low and the supply is abundant. You not only relieved yourself with the prices, but you also saved yourself from the long queue over the cash counters.

If you have a lot of people to give gifts to, the best place to buy their gifts will be at the bazaars, where the price is low but the quality is good. Also, only in bazaars where you can haggle on the prices of the things you are to buy. Never be ashamed to do some haggling, everybody does it. You can have a great chance of having a much bigger discount if you buy more, so when you go to bazaars, be ready with your list of things to buy.

If you are not into bazaars because sometimes it is so exhausting to be in one. You may opt to go to malls that have their items on sale. Usually, they are having sales during the end of month.

If you really do not have that much money to spend, you can still share gifts by using your creativity. Maybe you can improvise gifts. Remember it is the thought that counts. You can even recycle gifts, I mean if you have received a lot of gifts of the same type, why not use it as a gift to somebody else. But please, be sure that when you recycle gifts, it has no implication that it was given to you. Like embroidered name on towels, imprinted name on mugs etc.

After a long and tiresome day of shopping gifts for others, do not forget to reward yourself. You can buy yourself a gift to yourself. Or treat yourself a good buffet lunch and relax yourself from the stress that Christmas shopping has given you.

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You might wonder why methamphetamine use would be considered a social issue. It is society that suffers in so many ways when this terribly hazardous drug infiltrates a community. As with alcohol and other drugs, methamphetamine knows no respect of persons and anyone or any family member can be at risk of becoming addicted to this man made drug sometimes when they try it only once.

The rich and the poor alike can be susceptible to this drug and its life altering and threatening addiction. It has grown in its use to include the entire country and it is found in the smallest of towns to the largest of cities. It can be found on the streets of the meanest neighborhoods or even in the homes of doctors or lawyers. The consequences of becoming addicted to this drug and never pretty and are often fatal. Intervention is usually necessary if a person addicted to methamphetamine has a prayer of recovering.

The production of methamphetamine itself is extremely dangerous. Many people have dies in the attempt of making this powerful drug that is sniffed, smoked, or injected. There is a very strategic cooking process involved with highly explosive materials and this has caused those trying to make it to be severely burned or blown up all together. Even the fumes from this toxic concoction are hazardous. It has been found being made in homes where children are present and have already been exposed to the deadly drug.

The use of methamphetamine causes a person to have an extreme euphoric reaction that can last for hours on end with only one use. When they use it several times or more, some users will stay awake for days on end without any sleep or food at all. When a person becomes severely addicted it can cause hallucinations and extreme paranoia. They will often pick their skin because they feel like there are miniscule invisible bugs crawling on them. Sometimes it is the toxins in the drug itself that can cause sores to form on different parts of the body. Long time methamphetamine users often end up losing their teeth because of the toxins in the drug.

Methamphetamine is usually cheaper to use than cocaine and this is how many addicts first end up trying the drug. It does not have to be smuggled into the country like cocaine because it is made right here in the good old United States. The Methamphetamine labs are being found everywhere and destroyed, but users and sellers continue to make new ones. Methamphetamine has become one of, if not the biggest drug problem in many areas of our country. It has truly become a plague on our land. It ahs already damaged so many lives and the potential for it to destroy even more will remain until someone finds a way to stop this drug from being produced and sold.

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