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Online Games: Beat the Addiction
By Neil Reesor
July 13, 2002
During my first month and a half as a Community Access Program worker, I have noticed a trend in the sites that children access in the computer lab. When the computers are not being used for Hotmail and MSN Messenger, quite often kids will play on-line games. Not only are they content to sit in one spot for an entire hour at a time; they are often so completely and utterly captivated by these games that you rarely hear a peep out of them. The silence serves as a refreshing break from the ordinary, despite the fact that I work in a library environment.
To condemn any form of electronic entertainment would be very hypocritical of me; after all I owe a good portion of my misspent youth to various platform and computer games. If I had only spent half this time on something more productive, like correspondence courses for instance, I would almost certainly be referred to as Neil Reesor, ESQ., or Neil Reesor, M.D. or something equally prestigious by now. No use crying over spilled milk. With much trepidation, I present to you one of the best (read: the worst) places to spend your time online.
Everyone and their cousin has grown up watching Saturday morning cartoons. Animated comedies have been a staple in the childhood of every person born since the end of the Second World War. It was only a natural progression for the powers that be at Fox Television to expand upon the favourite shows of their young impressionable viewership. The end result of the long hours of market research is the FoxKids website, and the greater of the two evils, FoxKids Games, available online at www.foxkids.com/games/.
All you need is the latest version of Shockwave Player and you have 40 games at you fingertips. If you are not sure if you have a recent enough version, there will be a notice once you attempt to play the game. These games are crawling with snappy animations and sounds; everything you need to get hooked and never want to leave the site. While these games are designed for children, they can get pretty challenging nonetheless. Each game has its difficulty and loading time displayed for all to see before you can actually go and play any of the games. I personally recommend Junkyard Jump (possibly for the Pong-like preview game), Turbo Luge Max, and Sk8 Pipe. No hockey game though... Come on Fox, what up with that?
I would search out more collections of games online for you, but maybe at another time. I have beaten my online game addiction and it has been under control for almost a year. Until next time, if anyone needs me, I'll be playing Wacky Sack...
Neil Reesor is a Community Access Program (CAP) member operating from the Ingersoll branch of the Oxford County Library. As a member of the CAP Web Team, Neil specializes in the design and updating of non-profit organization web sites hosted on the Oxford County Library web site.
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