Here at PALGN we've already reported on the popularity of Nintendo's brain training games. Basically, these games help improve your mental agility, firstly testing you to see how smart you are, and then continually testing you with sets of exercises to monitor you for signs of improvement. I'm not sure how I feel about these types of games. At least when playing a more traditional video game you can blame failure on a bad control system, or an unforgiving AI. Flunk these and you're basically a dummy.
Lazy Eye
So how about claims of video games that can improve impaired vision? It turns out that the boffins from the Virtual Reality Applications Research Team (VRART) at the University of Nottingham, England, have come up with a video game that cures 'Lazy Eye'. What is Lazy Eye I hear you ask? It's not staring at a woman's cleavage too long, as the name might suggest, but rather, it's a problem where one eye is stronger than the other, a medical condition known as amblyopia.
Now the traditional cure for this affliction is wearing an eye patch for 400 hours over the course of several months. Naturally enough, twelve weeks dressed as a pirate isn't all that popular, so the good folks at VRART designed a 3D video game that can perform the same function in only one to three hours and without an eye patch in sight. You won't be seeing this video game at your local EB's anytime soon, but you never know; if the innovative designers at Nintendo get wind of the concept then Lazy Eye Avenger may be just around the corner.
One day, DS screenshots may look like this.
Gaming anaesthesia
Another study, this time out of Wheeling, West Virginia in the USA. Students at Wheeling Jesuit University have just completed a study into the analgesic properties of video games. The study results indicate that playing sports or fighting video games produces a dramatic level of pain distraction. Now I can see why this study might have been embraced by at least some of the students at WJU. "OK, we're going to get half of the class over there playing some excellent sports and fighting video games, then the rest of us are going to attach electrodes to your nipples, dial up the current and then ask whether it hurts." Sure it sounds like a typical drunken night of video gaming that got a bit out of hand, but by all accounts this was an honest to goodness genuine academic study, complete with a Professor with an amusing name. Director of Undergraduate Research, Associate Professor of Psychology, Dr Bryan Raudenbush, says the study results suggest that video games could help distract patients from painful injections or dental work.
I'm sorry but I'm just not buying this. I lose my concentration when my girlfriend walks in front of the telly when I'm playing a video game. I think I'm going to have trouble focussing on the game I'm playing when I catch a glimpse of a giant hypodermic needle out of the corner of my eye. And while this is just anecdotal evidence, I spent plenty of time with Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max last week. It really didn't matter how absorbed I was in the fight, my thumb still hurt like crazy. There were no signs of any analgesic properties while playing. Let's imagine for a second that there is some truth in this. Some of us can tend to get a little physical with the controller during the heat of battle. Is the dentist really going to be happy that we're thrashing about with arms and elbows flailing as he goes about his work? Isn't the whole 'staying still' thing kind of important? When was the last time you heard the doctor say, "OK now, I'm just going to stick this giant needle in your arm. I'd like you to thrash around like a washing machine on the spin cycle"?
Then there’s the whole 'experimenting on live people' issue. Sure, we’re only talking Americans here, so no PAL gamers are getting hurt in the process, but last time I checked, even inflicting pain on mice was frowned upon. Did they start by giving electric shocks to monkey’s playing Madden, and just work their way up to the students? How much pain did they inflict before discovering RPGs have no analgesic properties whatsoever?
Time for a new logo at the WJU campus?
Trusted online authority, Sperling's BestPlaces lists the city of Wheeling in the top three safest cities of its size in the USA. Which is all well and good; just don’t enrol in the WJU Psychology Department!
Truth is, I'm as likely to forgo traditional medical pain relief for a quick game of FIFA 2006, as I am to have open-heart surgery with hypnosis instead of general anaesthesia. If it comes to the crunch and we're all out of pain relief options, I think you'd have better luck just hitting me over the head with the Xbox and knocking me out cold.
Drive-by-shootings
Then there's the big one. Still in the US, from Columbus Ohio comes news that video games can save your life. True! An online report from NBC 4, reported that "children playing video games escaped gunfire". The implication being that the act of playing video games somehow saved their lives. No they weren't taking refuge behind the Xbox 360 power brick.
Should Microsoft rethink its warning labels?
The report goes on to say that two men were struck by gunfire and taken to hospital, and the police reported that "things could have been worse as there were children at home playing PlayStation". Possibly - and this is just conjecture on my part - what saved the kids was the fact that they were inside the house, and not out on the porch and in the direct line of fire. If we want to hand out praise, there were probably a dozen kids in the street who were also 'saved'. Johnny, forced inside to the toilet by his weak bladder, the big-boned kid from across the road who'd ducked inside for another chocolate dairy snack...you get the idea.
Still it's only fair. Video games are so often wrongly maligned. It's only right that they catch the occasional break and earn a little praise, even if it is undeserved.
Catch you next week on The Wrap.
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