Thunder

Do you like playing computer games? Do you like playing/composing music?  If the answer to these two questions is ‘yes’ then xbox have got a competition that is just right for you, check out their website:

Forget music for movies – that’s so last-century. Music for games is the next creative frontier. Lead the revolution by creating the ultimate Xbox game trailer soundtrack.

Our judges will pick their favourites, then the public will get to vote for the best of the best right here on Xbox.com. If you win, you’ll make gaming history with the chance to lay down your track with one of the Universal Music team. (Worldwide fame and adoring fans are sure to follow – but don’t hold us to that.)

Don’t miss this exclusive chance to share your soundtrack with the world. You have until 31 May 2007.

Last year I was chatting to Karl Royle from Wolverhampton University about gaming and he mentioned a project he was involved in ‘e-games league‘.  After chatting to a couple of local headteachers they agreed to pilot the scheme this year with students in year 10.

Last week I was able to get in to Thomas Adams school to have a look at an e-games lesson, the students were motivated and engaged in their ICT activities.  At the end of the lesson they played Fantastic Four on the xbox against each other.  More information can be found on the e-games blog on the ‘what is it?‘ page.
After chatting to the teacher after the lesson we decided to get the students to set up their own blogs to record their work as they progress through the course.  If you have a spare couple of minutes could you visit on the the clan blogs and leave a comment on their logo:

• Die Hard Horse Lovers
• Game Over
• Hellz Angels
• J2R
• Mestevious2
• Spurs

I was reading Ewans post about computer games and girls earlier this afternoon, which quoted a BBC report that said that only 40% of girls play PC or console games compared to 90% of boys. I wonder if it actually matters that only 40% of girls play PC or console games, what are they doing instead - it might be better than playing games Maybe that is why girls are getting better exam results than boys? What would the figures be for boys/girls playing football or rugby, or what about teenage boys/girls reading books?

Just looking at the top 10 games for the Xbox 360:

1. Prey
2. Lord of the Rings - The battle for Middle Earth II
3. Chromehounds
4. Hitman: Blood Money
5. Over G Fighters
6. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter
7. Rockstar Games Presents: Table Tennis
8. Project Gotham Racing 3
9. Dynasty Warriors 5
10. Lara Croft Tomb Raider - Legend

How many of those titles would appeal to girls? Is that the issue, the industry needs to make more games that might appeal to a wider audience, for example SIMS?

I have now come across a post on Gizmodo which talks about Sony releasing a pink PSP and a pink PS2. I wonder if the fact that the device is pink will make more girls play them or is it just a good advertising gimic, what do you think?

Last week I decided to pay the £40 subscription for Xbox Live, which allows me to play multiplayer games across the net against other Xbox 360 owners.  It is a very social and highly collaborative activity, definitely what game playing is all about.

This afternoon I played UNO with 2 chaps from Germany and I thought what a great opportunity to listen and talk to people who speak German to develop your own German.  What do you reckon Joe or Ewan, something we could do something about?

Update: Tonight, again while playing UNO, I was playing against a couple of French speakers who were telling each other what colours to play as they didn’t think the 2 English speakers would understand them.  How cool it would have been to have been able to respond to them, I guess I was lucky I knew the French for red, blue, yellow and green so I was able to change the colour to stop them winning Would you class their actions as unsportsmanlike or just using their initiative?

I have just read on the BBC News site that:

Microsoft is to offer a consumer version of professional tools used to develop videogames for the Xbox 360.

The tools will be available in trial form from 20 August and there is a £55 annual subscription.

How cool is that, it will be very interested to see how it compares to the software we are using in Shropshire schools (GameMaker and MissionMaker).  I will download it on August 20th and keep you informed of my progress.

I just came across this blog while reading an xbox 360 forum, what an interesting idea. Anyway, after setting my own 360 voice up I surfed around a little.

I came across the blogger talking about changing the voice so your gender made a difference, he also mentioned that he would like to look at other new features like internationalization (is that a word?). So maybe this could be an MFL project - I guess I could talk to Ewan, Rhiannon (at SJT) and Neil (at Thomas Adams).