Gaming Addiction - Worse than crack?

Gaming addiction. One of the bigger problems in the gaming society, although apparently not as big as having gold farmers in WOW (total sarcasm there). Parents have been sending their kids to shrinks for help, praying that their kid will be all normal again and stop playing WOW or Perfect World or anything else that people are playing. I don't know much, but I don't think that there has been much progress.

Gaming addiction is unique in its own way, as it is purely a mental addiction. In some ways it is like sex addiction. You just have the impulse to do it. But, unlike sex addiction, and the addiction of drugs like crack cocaine, gaming addiction is so much harder to cure simply because games are so accessible now. Think about it. It is so easy to get ahold of a computer nowadays. If your parents lock up your computer with a password, break it. I've done it before. When I was 14, I was playing this MMO called Fairyland. I think it is still running now. It got so bad that my dad locked up my computer with a password. After lasting a grand total of 2 days of this cold turkey, I dug up the manual for my computer, and learned how to disable the password by removing a certain chip from the inside of the computer. Basically I took something out of the motherboard. I then proceeded to seal the computer with my OWN password, and took to playing the game in the wee hours of the morning. I would sleep at 10pm and wake up at 3 in the morning, to level my Pie Aibo and Flame Tiger and Gem Crawler and god knows what pet I had at that time. But I digress. If breaking the password does not work, the world does not help by having lan cafes all over the place. Right now, if I did not wish to use this computer, all I would have to do would be to leave my house, and turn right. And after a few hundred feet, voila! A computer to use for a mere 3 dollars an hour.

Gaming addiction is severely underrated these days. It's not as if people are living their lives ok by playing WOW every second they have to spare. Some can do it. But not many. Unfortunately, all the addicts that are playing think that they are mentally disciplined enough to live a fairly normal life and play the game at the same time. By that time, you have lost the battle.

The first step to curing gaming addiction is to realize that you are an addict. You have to realize that your gaming habit controls you, not the other way around. And then, you have to summon the discipline to stop gaming. It is not as easy as it sounds, obviously, but it is easier once you realize that you are an addict, and want to quit. Finding another healthier hobby helps. I cured my addiction by picking up basketball. I still play in on a daily basis. But unlike gaming, basketball actually helps me. I'm in terrific shape, at least compared to when I was staring at a computer screen all day long. I lost a lot of weight, and converted it into muscle. Now, I eat anything I want, and I still remain healthy. Last time I measured, I was about six feet three inches, and weighed about 70 kilos, or about 170 pounds.

Before I wrap up this blog post, I want to tell you guys a true story. This is a story about an acquaintence of mine. He was a very talented man. He graduated from the National University of Singapore, with a degree in sciences. That might not have been a big deal, but it was enough to ensure that he would at least live fairly comfortably. However, he fell in love with gaming, and opened up a Lan cafe. He could not keep it afloat without charging extremely low prices for it, and instead of abandoning his venture, he chose to stick with it. Why? Because he could play video games all day if he kept that job. As the Lan cafe lost more and more money, he started to borrow money from his girlfriend. It was really sad to see how fast and how far he dropped, just so he could play his games. He is only about forty now, but his hair is all white. His girlfriend used to be extremely pretty, but in just a few short years she seems to have aged about 2 decades, and looks at least 10 years older than she is right now. She also put on a lot of weight, which I think was caused by an eating disorder from the stress. I know that by reading the blog, most people think that I am a wet blanket. I like to point out what is wrong with the gaming world. That's true. I'm not a big supporter of what games like WOW have done to several good people that I have known, and thousands that I do not. But I think that if you are playing these games, you should at least know what is happening around you. It is like if you're playing the stock market, and you refuse to hear about everyone that has crashed and burned. You only want to hear the success stories. Well, here's a statistic to chew on. One year from now, 90% of the people investing in the stock market will leave it, never to return. And they will be replaced by another bunch of fools, and the cycle will repeat itself.

Ok, last story. A baby in Korea died of suffocation because her parents left her alone in the house for a couple of hours to play WOW at a nearby internet cafe. The couple came back to find their daughter dead. This could have all been prevented if they had been controlled and hadn't lost themselves in the game.

Valkyria Chronicles - Playing this game will leave you bleeding at the mouth...Intellectually

Yeah the heroes are the ones at the bottom

Before I begin, I would like to state that there is a link at the bottom of the page where you can go and buy Valkyria Chronicles. Please use it if you wish to purchase the game online. Thank You.

Valkyria Chronicles is a strategy game that is developed by Sega, which needs no introduction. As most of you know Sega is a pioneer in the gaming world, with several established franchises under its belt, such as Virtual Fighter and Crazy Taxi, and most notable of all being the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. In spite of all this, I will risk a limb and state that Valkyria Chronicles is arguably the best game released by the company in the past five years.

Valkyria Chronicles is not just a strategy game, it is a unique one. There is not a single strategy game out there, even if I include games in which I must really stretch my interpretation of the word "strategy" (Pokemon and Final Fantasy come to mind) that offers the combination of Real Time Role Playing and strategy that Valkyria Chronicles does.

The plot of Valkyria Chronicles is a play on World War 2, with some rather minor changes. In summary, two great powers are at war with each other, the Empire and the Alliance. The reason for the war is that both powers are running out of a precious mineral, known as ragnite, which does everything from power tanks to being processed as medication. Sandwiched in between is the nation of Gallia, which has maintained its neutrality throughout the conflict. However, Gallia has rich reserves of ragnite underneath its soil. This proves too tempting for the Empire, who invades the country. This leads the Gallia to call up its militia in order to counter the Empire's invasion. Among the enlistees are Welkin Gunther and Alicia Melchiott, the two protagonists in the game.


This is GALLIA!!!

The gameplay in Valkyria Chronicles is rather simple. Overall, the game is turn-based, with a fixed number of Command Points, or CP given to you during each turn. The CP function is one of the things that makes Valkyria Chronicles unique. While in other turn-based strategy games you may only move one unit a turn or each unit only once per turn, Valkyria Chronicles gives you the option of moving the same unit twice, or three times, or four times, or if you're really bored or just love that particular unit, as many times as you can afford! For example, let's say that you have 7 CP. You can choose to move the same unit 7 times, one unit 4 times and another 3 times, 1 unit 3 times and 2 units twice and so on and so forth. Most units take only one CP to move, and tanks only take two, so the fact that you usually have about 10 CP a turn is extremely useful. If you have too many CPs, you can save them up for the next turn to unleash an onslaught of brutal attacks. This is extremely refreshing, as with the right strategy a small strike force of maybe 2 or 3 soldiers can eliminate a much larger attack force.

However, every coin has two sides, and Valkyria Chronicles controls the freedom with which you can maneuver your troops with two things, ammo and stamina. The more you use a single soldier, the lesser the distance he can move at one go. This makes sense, as humans get tired, and can't be expected to be equally efficient throughout. The ammo concept is old, but also another good addition. While some soldiers have unlimited ammo for one kind of weapon, they usually are limited to only one use of the more powerful weapons, such as grenades and mortars. This effectively prevents you from simply rushing headlong into an enemy base and clearing the entire camp.





Both of these guys can cause major pain.







In case you are suicidal enough to try the above (charging headlong into an enemy base), please note that Valkyria Chronicles is not like other strategy games. The enemies will fire at you if you simply walk by them, and if you are within their range, they will counterattack. As you are usually hopelessly outnumbered, the general strategy is to use long range attacks to take out the bigger and stronger enemies, and then send in your stronger units to clean up the base. Blitzkrieg and guerilla warfare are the two ways you will be playing this game. Striking hard and fast and then disappearing.

In terms of selection of units, Valkyria Chronicles gives a rather disappointing spread. There are only six classes of soldiers to choose your team with, but the enemy also suffers from this deficiency, so everything is fair. Scouts are as the name says, scouts. They can cover great distances by foot, but generally lack firepower, although they are great for sneaking up close and killing unsuspecting enemies. Shocktroopers are your main offensive footsoldiers. They are armed with machine guns, and can wipe out other footsoldiers very quickly. They are a bit tougher than scouts, but not by much. The downside is lesser mobility compared to a scout, but you will probably be using these guys the most. Lancers are your anti-tank men (or women). They are armed with bazookas that can bring a world of hurt to a tank, but they aren't that great with other footsoldiers. They aren't that mobile and have limited ammo so they are generally specialists that you only call upon when there are tanks (which is fairly often). Engineers are extremely useful soldiers that can repair sandbags so your troops can use them for cover, fix your tanks, disarm mines and resupply your troops with ammo. They are as weak as or perhaps even weaker than a scout when it comes to combat though. However, you will always need one or two around to keep your troops in peak form. Snipers are sharpshooters, who shoot an extremely deadly shot that can kill most footsoldiers in one hit if the shot is well-placed. They are not very mobile, however, and will die easily if unprotected. Lastly, there are tanks, which are easily the best class. However, you only get two of them, which sucks as the enemy always has about double that. Tanks are weak to lancers, but have machine guns for troops (including lancers), mortars for more troops and to knock down sandbags and anti-tank guns for other tanks (and troops if you're feeling sadistic). They are fairly mobile, although their size can lead to
some complications in tighter spots, but they are indisputably the best class in the game.





BOOM! Headshot!






Remember what I said about Valkyria Chronicles being unique? Well, the combat system is what justifies that claim. Valkyria Chronicles starts off each turn with a view of the map, and whatever troops you have or can detect placed on it like little chess pieces. Then, when you or the computer select a unit, the game zooms down until you control the unit. From there, it is built like a third person shooter. You can direct the unit to run to a certain spot on the map, take cover, shoot an enemy, hide in the grass, and all kinds of other things. You can only attack an enemy once during each turn, although you are free to move and take cover or hide after that.

Now, my first major gripe with this game. Cover. The idea is great. In fact, I would almost say that it absolutely had to be included. However, the designers made the game in such a way that it is impossible to hit an enemy in the head (effectively killing all but the most hardy) while he is crouching behind cover or hiding in grass. Thus, I found myself chucking grenades or just rolling my tank in to knock over sandbags to expose my enemies, when it would have been much more productive to pick them off from far with my snipers. To be fair, this goes your way as well, and I crouched my troops behind sandbags every chance I got.





You know that there is going to be a big clash real soon.







The graphics are good in this game. The game tries to present itself like a comic, so everything looks like it has been freshly drawn, complete with shading and outlines. This leads to plenty of examples of onomatopoeia (or sound words) in the game. Guns go rat-a-tat-a-tat when you fire at an enemy, tanks go rrrrrr and grenades go BLAM. Still, this is overall a strength.

The audio in Valkyria Chronicles is good. The voice acting can get cheesy at times, but most english voice actors sound cheesy to me anyway. The soundtrack fitted the missions well, giving a sense of urgency, and the sounds of the weapons firing sounded fairly realistic to me. Again, this is a strength.

The plot of Valkyria Chronicles was good overall. There were enough plot twists to keep me interested, and I grew attached to several of the characters. While I have seen better, I have no complaints about the plot in general.

Valkyria Chronicles does not have a multiplayer mode, which is perhaps the greatest flaw in the game. Have you known a great strategy game without a multiplayer mode? Ladies and Gentlemen, here it is. Due to the game being exclusively single-player, there is little one can do with the game other than play it again after you have completed the campaign. There is a hard mode available, but that still does not bring as much excitement to the game as you would expect.

Overall, Valkyria Chronicles is a great game to have, but it's lack of a multiplayer function hurts its playability to quite a large extent. Still, the fact that I recommend that it be bought and not rented is a testament to how highly I think of this game. I guarantee that it will give you at least 50 hours of entertainment, will challenge you greatly, and leave you satisfied with the value you got for your money.