Parenting, schools, bullys, homework and results - do video games affect it?

[monturner]

My current infulence is once again Rez on the Dreamcast. A superb console in it's own right, with a plethora of quality titles that IMHO put some of the PS2's to shame. Originallity was pretty much standard with this console, Rez, Ooga Booga, even the tried and tested game genres were remoulded and thanks to the like of Zero Gunner 2 & Ikaruga completely raised the bar on visually stunning titles that once again IMHO has not yet been bettered.

This could be why when I heard of a small handheld console with the same Windows CE OS, and a shedloads more ram than the 16meg that the Dreamcast exploited so well appeared on the market I had to find out more.

I am now the proud owner of a brand new baby boy. He was already named Gizmondo and some of the other school children are forever taking the micky out of his name, his looks and how he has no friends. What they are forgetting (or in some cases, just don't realise due to rubbishing something they have not even read about let alone seen or used) is that his friends are big, their just getting themselves sorted before catching up with their new buddy. Microsft Game Studios, Ubisoft, EA are just the three that spring to mind at this moment as I type.

Now, Gizmondo is an outsider. He looks different, he doesn't have as many buttons as the bully's in the playground at school. PSP is one of the bigger bullys, but he appears to have some strange disorder that affects the brain of those who know (and in some cases love him). They seem to lose all politeness towards the other children in the playground and enforce their will on anyone even if it's not the right time or place to do so. NDS, can be a bully also, but after numerous pta meetings, it's generally been seen that he is just sticking to what he knows best and utilising the 20 years experience of stayin a child and not getting a real job (lets be honest, a ninty will remain one - games back catalogue n all).

Now currently, the children are teasing young Gizmondo about his unsightly lump on his back for the purpose of keeping this simple, we shall call this a camera okay?) Anyway, the camera is at standard VGA resolution of 640x480 (or 0.3 mega pixel for the pedantic among you) and through this eye to the world Gizmondo can take pictures for multimedia messenging as well as placing the gamer into his world. A world of entertainment, a world where you can sit on a bus, photograph someone and place them into the gameworld your immersed in. Another thing that Gizmondo managed, was not only allow me to place myself into a game via the camera, but also allow me to steer my way around a maze. Sounds a little flat say the bully's, but their just wondering how they ever forgot to include one originally and will no doubt grab more money off of the school children to impliment one (making their pocket (sorry did I say pocket! heh heh) handheld a huge slavering beast) of a handheld that needs assembling.

As a new parent however, i'm a little concerned for the safety of Gizmondo. Thankfully though, we can utilise the inbuilt GPS system to track and locate the little tyke should he run off on me whilst in the park. "Thats inhumane!" shout some of the parents of the bullys, but in all honesty I can choose to set this up or leave it switched off. Anyway, why would anyone be playing with Gizmondo in the park? Simple, because utilising his GPS facilities and implimenting them into, oh shall we say A GAME for example, what would that be like eh? What would it be like to interact with real people, who are real distances away from you, in your neighbourhood, in your park, challenging YOUR TURF? Think about it ...

Mind you, as yound as he is, and as old as I am (33 ... no comments children), he is going to be a godsend for me also. Bless his little GPS heart. He will be telling me precisely where to go (feel free PSP & NDS fanboys to take this as an oppertunity to interject here - but please, please, please make it amusing ) ... because soon he will have taught himself in car navigation. Yes, he's been staying after class with Mr Tom Tom and learnt all the tricks he had to offer (right up to chapter 5.0 I believe).

Mind you, as any parent knows, entertaining your little nipper can be difficult at the best of times, but at least I try. Yes, when he's back from Mr Tom Tom's we sit down together and watch the latest episode of Friends with him. Oh he enjoys that, you should see his little screen light up and the choice. Thankfully with the current memory (SD-Cards) at 2gig, and the 4 gig cards on the way, well he can have as much entertainment to watch as he can carry. But sometimes though, he'll just want to listen to his favorite music. Thankfully he got himself one of those neat little IPod beating Windows Media players also. So when he's finished watching TV, he's then put to bed and listens to music until he falls asleep.

So ... Bully's ... This is the end of my little tale, it's not gone into too much detail about processor speed, or colours, or the cutting edge Nvidia 3D graphics engine ... It has been written to entertain, educate and generate a response. Because if I can generate a response with this, wait until you get your hands on one of them (Michael Jackson need not apply).

[hermes]

what ...

[SoccerDude28]

All this long rant is spam

EDIT: I know of this pretty cheerleader called the Nintendo DS who is much more fun to hang out with. Nintendo DS likes being tickled. And she is slick and slim. She even has a weird sense of humor. Cheerleader or the gizmondo nerd with glasses???

[manny_c44]

Gee wiz, I can't believe I had such a harsh outlook on Gizmondo! What a great post! I'm going to go pick one up right after work! I'm not sure if it's the cutting edge graphics, or the prospect of free baby sitting courtesy of Gizmondo that I love so much!

THANK YOU GIZMONDO!

I know the start will be shaky, but I forsee Gizmondo easily joinging Islam and Christianity in the ranks of top religions...I mean

How could it not??!

[hermes]

yea - some kind of spam anyway..... just weird....

[monturner]

No sense of humour?

*edited* ... there it is!!!! ... thank duck fer that ! thats all it needed .. *end edit*

[Spaff]

P.S The Gizmondo is a terrbile piece of shit.

still thats pretty interesting 'viral marketing' there ¬

The end.

[monturner]

P.S The Gizmondo is a terrbile piece of shit.

still thats pretty interesting 'viral marketing' there ¬ The end.

damn that was amusing, i like your use of the word "terrbile", unusual yet oddly fitting (I know there are spulling mishtakes in my original piece) ...

[Nick]

I'm going out to buy a school!

[Chris]

I saw the Gizmondo at E3 and I still have no idea why everyone on Thumbs is so violently against it... This guy's post reads like something Spaff would write and still everyone verbally fucks him in the ass. If it's viral marketing it's by far the least offensive example of it I've ever seen on our forums.

[Spaff]

oh man you caught me out typing a word wrong, oh boy am I burned!

but seriously you like Gizmono? I am surprised.

[manny_c44]

It's the attempt at viral marketing that gets the backlash not gizmondo.

I've never actual seen a real one but it seems normal enough (besides for all of the tacky shit they slap on to it--), the really wierd part for me is this. (Taken from Gamespot);

"The Gizmondo will launch at two different price points on August 11: $229 and $399. If you choose the $229 price, you'll be asked to view at least three ads per day...When you first power up the device, you'll encounter a brief introductory screen where you'll be asked about your ad preferences, in addition to your likes and dislikes. And from then on, Tiger will try to send you targeted advertising."

Pretty bizarre.

[Spaff]

I feel bad for anyone that thinks highly of it, it's really really pointless.

[David]

I pronounced it Jizmondo for comic effect at the E3. I thought you should know.

[Nick]

$399!? Christ.

[Dingo Chavez]

What the hell is a Gizmondo?

[Kolzig]

Looks nice.

[manny_c44]

I think those buttons are getting out of hand:

"Which button is jump?"

"Hit the 'two rivers run gently' button, not the hieroglyph button."

[netmonkey]

For some reason, this thread reminded me of this: http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=100

[Spaff]

Those buttons remind me of Peter Venkmans psychic tests in the first Ghostbusters... heh.

[Roderick]

Just thinking about that scene again makes me laugh. Why is Bill Murray a comic genius?

[Salka]

Erm, you named your kid Gizmondo? Or something?

I am now the proud owner of a brand new baby boy. He was already named Gizmondo and some of the other school children are forever taking the micky out of his name, his looks and how he has no friends. What they are forgetting (or in some cases, just don't realise due to rubbishing something they have not even read about let alone seen or used) is that his friends are big, their just getting themselves sorted before catching up with their new buddy. Microsft Game Studios, Ubisoft, EA are just the three that spring to mind at this moment as I type.

If he's a baby boy, why is he in school? Is it like playschool? Aren't the other kids a little too young to take the mick out of somebody for their name? A lot of questions spring to mind. I am suspicious. I don't think he's really in school at all, is he?

Now, Gizmondo is an outsider. He looks different, he doesn't have as many buttons as the bully's in the playground at school. PSP is one of the bigger bullys, but he appears to have some strange disorder that affects the brain of those who know (and in some cases love him). They seem to lose all politeness towards the other children in the playground and enforce their will on anyone even if it's not the right time or place to do so.

PSP never knew his mother. He's actually very very smart, he's just hanging with a dodgy crowd. I think you're being really insensitive. You do realise that Gizmondo isn't the little innocent you took him for? He had PSP in the bathroom the other day calling him 'stupid! fucking stupid! you stupid twat!' over and over?

NDS, can be a bully also, but after numerous pta meetings, it's generally been seen that he is just sticking to what he knows best and utilising the 20 years experience of stayin a child and not getting a real job (lets be honest, a ninty will remain one - games back catalogue n all).

Is NDS in the same class or year as Gizmondo? Isn't he only a baby? Surely babies don't get real jobs? Hang on, he's TWENTY? And picking on babies? You realise you can get him done for Paedophilia?

Now currently, the children are teasing young Gizmondo about his unsightly lump on his back for the purpose of keeping this simple, we shall call this a camera okay?) [/quote

You can get surgery on that, unless it actually IS a camera in which case, jesus, did you know you can get bluetooth teeth that can store up to 512mb of information now? If he has one of those installed, think how many photos he can store in his mouth?

Anyway, the camera is at standard VGA resolution of 640x480 (or 0.3 mega pixel for the pedantic among you) and through this eye to the world Gizmondo can take pictures for multimedia messenging as well as placing the gamer into his world.

...Gamers have sex with your baby son? Jeez, PSP and NDS are the least of your worries.

A world of entertainment, a world where you can sit on a bus,

!!! WHOA!!!!

photograph someone and place them into the gameworld your immersed in. Another thing that Gizmondo managed, was not only allow me to place myself into a game via the camera, but also allow me to steer my way around a maze.

Wow jesus omg.

Sounds a little flat say the bully's, but their just wondering how they ever forgot to include one originally

A maze? Or a bus?

and will no doubt grab more money off of the school children to impliment one (making their pocket (sorry did I say pocket! heh heh) handheld a huge slavering beast) of a handheld that needs assembling.

Just make him a packed lunch, they won't steal that. School food is unhealthy anyway.

As a new parent however, i'm a little concerned for the safety of Gizmondo. Thankfully though, we can utilise the inbuilt GPS system to track and locate the little tyke should he run off on me whilst in the park.

Is this built into the bluetooth device in his mouth, or is it an anal receptor?

"Thats inhumane!" shout some of the parents of the bullys, but in all honesty I can choose to set this up or leave it switched off.

PSP and NDS think it's inhumane to put a tracking device on a handheld? Did they say this? I don't think so.

Anyway, why would anyone be playing with Gizmondo in the park? Simple, because utilising his GPS facilities and implimenting them into, oh shall we say A GAME for example, what would that be like eh? What would it be like to interact with real people, who are real distances away from you, in your neighbourhood, in your park, challenging YOUR TURF? Think about it ...

I cannot imagine what interacting with real people must be like.

Mind you, as yound as he is, and as old as I am (33 ... no comments children), he is going to be a godsend for me also. Bless his little GPS heart. He will be telling me precisely where to go (feel free PSP & NDS fanboys to take this as an oppertunity to interject here - but please, please, please make it amusing ) ... because soon he will have taught himself in car navigation. Yes, he's been staying after class with Mr Tom Tom and learnt all the tricks he had to offer (right up to chapter 5.0 I believe).

Are you sure your baby son isn't a robot?

Mind you, as any parent knows, entertaining your little nipper can be difficult at the best of times, but at least I try. Yes, when he's back from Mr Tom Tom's we sit down together and watch the latest episode of Friends with him. Oh he enjoys that, you should see his little screen light up and the choice.

I can't figure out if it's a baby, a teenager, a robot, or a bunch of gadgets sellotaped together. With economy sellotape. What are you talking about?

Thankfully with the current memory (SD-Cards) at 2gig, and the 4 gig cards on the way, well he can have as much entertainment to watch as he can carry. But sometimes though, he'll just want to listen to his favorite music. Thankfully he got himself one of those neat little IPod beating Windows Media players also. So when he's finished watching TV, he's then put to bed and listens to music until he falls asleep.

Windows Media Player beats an iPod? Even though one is a piece of software and one is a piece of hardware?

So ... Bully's ... This is the end of my little tale, it's not gone into too much detail about processor speed, or colours, or the cutting edge Nvidia 3D graphics engine ... It has been written to entertain, educate and generate a response. Because if I can generate a response with this, wait until you get your hands on one of them (Michael Jackson need not apply).

Are you calling me a bully? Or a paedophile? What are you trying to say?

[Salka]

Oh by the way, your son isn't actually so different. There's a piece of hardware that looks exactly the same as him in PC World at the moment, except without Gizmondo written on the front. It has the same button setup and shape, colour, etc. Your son should not be bullied for being different, if anything he should be bullied for looking hilariously like a handheld.

[loonyboi]

I think those buttons are getting out of hand:

"Which button is jump?"

"Hit the 'two rivers run gently' button, not the hieroglyph button."

Yeah, I made fun of it for those insane Zodiac icons. They changed the buttons in the shipping version to be less insane.

http://gizmondo.com/unit/feature.asp?no=9

[Spaff]

I wish Gizmondo would go away, I would totaly bully it in school.