karl
March 7th, 2013, 12:05 PM
As a new version of the global hit SimCity is unveiled, Ed Cumming remembers happy hours lost to virtual urban planning.
By Ed Cumming7:00AM GMT 07 Mar 2013
Parents worry about Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty. They don’t want their darlings playing video games in which they pretend to steal cars or murder civilians in airports.
Ridiculous. If I was a father, I’d let them shoot, punch and steal to their little hearts’ content. True gamers know that the really frightening programs are those that take something far more precious than innocence: time. And the most dangerous of all are often those that seem simplest. Mowing down virtual soldiers didn’t make me more likely to murder anyone for real. Losing days and days to strategy games, however, quite possibly cost me a GCSE or two.
For me, the original time-sucker was SimCity 2000. I was introduced to it on a school touch-typing course, when we were allowed to play games during breaks. The only one available was SimCity, presumably because the teachers thought that “town planning” was such an unappealing prospect that we’d rush out to play football instead.
Full story here:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/video-game-previews/9914215/SimCity-the-talk-of-the-town.html
By Ed Cumming7:00AM GMT 07 Mar 2013
Parents worry about Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty. They don’t want their darlings playing video games in which they pretend to steal cars or murder civilians in airports.
Ridiculous. If I was a father, I’d let them shoot, punch and steal to their little hearts’ content. True gamers know that the really frightening programs are those that take something far more precious than innocence: time. And the most dangerous of all are often those that seem simplest. Mowing down virtual soldiers didn’t make me more likely to murder anyone for real. Losing days and days to strategy games, however, quite possibly cost me a GCSE or two.
For me, the original time-sucker was SimCity 2000. I was introduced to it on a school touch-typing course, when we were allowed to play games during breaks. The only one available was SimCity, presumably because the teachers thought that “town planning” was such an unappealing prospect that we’d rush out to play football instead.
Full story here:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/video-game-previews/9914215/SimCity-the-talk-of-the-town.html