My Game of the Year 2010

                                                                           


As the year draws to an end, December is a time to reflect on the events of the past year. 2010 has seen many great game releases like Bayonetta, Red Dead Redemption, Super Mario Galaxy 2 amongst others. With the recession hitting worldwide, it has been widely predicted that the video games industry would be hit hard, as it is one of the many luxuries which people would have to cut. But it has grown stronger and signs are that it will continue to grow into 2011. With some many excellent games released this year, it is hard to pick a game of the year. As mainly an Xbox gamer, my game of the year has to be Mass Effect 2.

While it may have come out right at the beginning of the year, no game has given me as much fun as Mass Effect 2 has this year. With big releases like Call of Duty: Black Ops, Assassins Creed: Brotherhood and Fallout: New Vegas, which i have all thoroughly enjoyed, coming out throughout the year there was only one game which i have spent months on. The second installment of the Mass Effect franchise incorporated everything from great storytelling to excellent third person action. With the many different story outcomes and decisions which will affect how the game plays out, it has got me to come back to it over and over again to see what would happen if a certain event was played out differently and how badass Shepherd is if you decided to take the renegade route throughout the game. The action was vastly improved from the first game, with the gameplay becoming more action orientated like the Gears of War franchise using a similar cover system. This feature plus the levelling up system made this the perfect combination. With the release of further DLCs with additional characters and the excellent ' Lair of the Shadow Broker' content which included a reunion with an old friend from the first game, the whole Mass Effect 2 gaming experience has made it my Game of the Year for 2010 and make the recently announced Mass Effect 3 my most anticipated game for 2011.

Video Game addiction - Paronama

On 6/12/2010, BBC aired a Paronama special on video game addiction. It highlighted the problem of Video Game addiction amongst young adults in the UK. They were able to interview a couple of people who were "suffering" from it, with one spending at least 20 hours on Call of Duty everyday. Although the content in the show caught my attention, the further it went on, the more i realised it was information which i already had previous knowledge of. The two main games which were highlighted in the show were World of Warcraft and Call of Duty and both were shown in a very negative light, with one of the interviewees even comparing WoW to a "disease" which he wouldnt want to inflict on others. The next part of the show, saw the presenter head to Korea, where there have been many cases of video game addiction leading to death, with one case being highlighted where a couple had left their child to starve while they were down at their local internet cafe. The presenter then quizzed a member of UKIE (The Association for UK Interactive Entertainment) on whether the industry was doing enough to help with addiction, whilst also highlighting that their site had no information on helping with any addiction problems. The programme not only did not do the Video Games industry any favours, but gave parents more of a reason to worry about the potential effects that games could have on their children. With recent controversies like Medal of Honor and the naming of the enemy forces and the ever lingering problem of the amount of violence and explicit content in games, it seems like the video games medium is made out to be an evil which needs to be stopped, instead of choosing to focus on the amount of good that video games have produced.


I am not trying to downplay the seriousness or existence of video games addiction, i believe that it is a problem and that it can be very damaging to someone's health, but is it really much worse than someone who sits by the television for the same amount of hours?