Playing videogames could actually be good for your eyesight - at least if you have trouble seeing in the first place.

London - It is a discovery unlikely to be popular with parents who tell their children the very opposite.

Playing videogames could actually be good for your eyesight – at least if you have trouble seeing in the first place.

Just ten hours of gaming over four weeks dramatically improved the vision of young men and women who as babies were almost blind. After 40 hours of playing, they were able to read two extra lines on an eye chart, a study found.

The simple but effective therapy was devised by Daphne Maurer, of McMaster University in Canada, whose work was inspired by previous studies which showed that playing action games improved vision in adults whose eyesight was already good.

Those with healthy eyes are believed to benefit from playing due to the brain forming new connections or dormant cells waking up. It could mean just a few hours a week playing games such as the type which simulate sports on the Wii console helps boost eyesight. The adults in Professor Maurer study, aged between 19 and 31, were born with cataracts in both eyes and as babies could see light but not detail. Although their cataracts were removed, their vision did not return to normal.

In the experiment, they played a game in which they took on the role of a solider shooting the enemy or a gunman firing at aliens.

After 40 hours, as well as being able to see further down the eye chart, the volunteers were better at distinguishing the direction of a movement and at telling faces apart.

Presenting her findings to the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference, Professor Maurer said: “Videogames have got a lot going for them in terms of them being an optimal visual therapy.”

Her other studies suggest that the first ten years of life “hardwire” the part of the brain critical to decoding visual information. If it doesn’t receive enough information, due to cataracts for example, it struggles to make up the loss.

The game helped with this because it forced the brain to work hard, by making it process information on the line of fire and “threats” on the periphery. Less dynamic games such as Tetris would not have the same effect. - Daily Mail

Alienware will give away over R250 000 worth of hardware at the Do Gaming 2012 Championships, while Logitech will be giving away R50 000 in cash.

Alienware will be giving away X51 Alienware desktops at the Do Gaming 2012 Championships worth over a quarter of a million rand, while Logitech will be giving away R50 000 in cash in the Starcraft 2 finals held at the Championships.

Gavin Slevin, Dell Retail Manager, says the X51 range is Alienware's latest offering, designed to lower the barrier for gamers wanting to play on Alienware products.

“Alienware is a premium gaming product, but we're looking to grow our footprint and make the brand more accessible to a broader base of gamers,” he says.

As a result, the X51 machine will have an entry-level recommended retail price (RRP) starting at R9 999.

Furthermore, Alienware's X51 machine will be highly customisable, allowing gamers to change the processor, graphics card, amount of memory and hard drive capacity as required.

“We're excited to sponsor the Do Gaming League and give away machines at the Championships. At rAge last year we sponsored Alienware laptops on the Telkom Do Gaming stand, allowing gamers to play Battlefield 3 on Alienware hardware before the game had launched internationally,” he says.

Along with the X51, which comes with a keyboard and mouse, Dell will be adding screens to the desktops, which will be given away to players in the Battlefield 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Call of Duty 4 competitions at the Championships.

“Sponsoring the Do Gaming League gives us greater exposure to a broader base of gamers and most importantly, it's about giving more gamers the chance to play on Alienware machines,” he says.

Logitech Supports Gaming Community:

John Smyth, Logitech Senior Retail Account Manager, says the company is excited to get on board with local gamers and the League.

“We want to support the gaming community and feel the DGL (http://www.dogamingleague.co.za) was the perfect platform to do so,” he says. “We're very excited about this year's league and are looking forward to some fantastic competition.”

Logitech are releasing some exciting products into the market for gamers, such as the G-series gaming mice (G300, G400) as well as the G-series headsets (G35 and G930) and G-series keyboards. With the Logitech Unifying receiver - a small USB device - gamers can pair six different devices together and customise and control them through Logitech's Unifying 200 Software, which can be downloaded at the Logitech website (http://www.logitech.com/en-us/349/6127). Pairing can change as gamers require. See more about the Unifying Receiver here (http://www.logitech.com/en-us/66/6079).

With this software, gamers can assign mic mute controls to the mouse buttons, DPI adjustments to keyboard G-keys, or even multi-key macros on the headset, and so on. They all integrate together very well.

A useful feature is the DPI Shift function for the mice. It allows gamers to set a button on their G-Series keyboard or a G-series mouse to change the DPI while that key is pressed down. This has benefits for sniping or speeding up certain sections of games. Check out more at details at this blog post (http://blog.logitech.com/2011/11/01/making-our-gaming-products-work-better-together/).

“Gamers need customisation and detailed products that integrate with a slick interface. Logitech is looking to produce great products that gamers can really use to make their gaming experience even better,” Smyth says.

Although the first leg of the DGL 2012 is underway, gamers can still register for Leg 2 here. The DGL runs over three legs during the year and culminates in the Do Gaming Championships at the end of the year, where the best of the best are invited to compete for fantastic prizes. With Logitech's R50,000 sponsorship to the Starcraft 2 DGL, the competition will only get better. - Do Gaming

Twenty new games will be available for the Playstation Vita, including well-known titles as a new episode of the Uncharted series and an offshoot of Wipeout.

Berlin - Sony's Playstation Vita hits the market on February 22, replacing the veteran PSP and offering a host of new games ranging from treasure hunts in the jungle to futuristic car races and crazy golf.

Twenty new games will be available for the Vita, including such well-known titles as a new episode of the Uncharted series and an offshoot of the futuristic racing series Wipeout.

The fourth episode in the Uncharted series is called Golden Abyss and follows Nathan Drake, a descendant of English adventurer Sir Francis Drake, as he goes to the jungles of Central America on the trail of the Spanish conquistadors of four hundred years ago. There he finds the remains of lost civilisations and tangles with lots of pirates, mercenaries and assorted other villains. The action takes place before the other episodes in the series and so can be followed even by beginners.

Compared with other episodes in the series the gameplay has hardly changed: Drake climbs, fights and shoots his way through a range of elaborate sequences. But the new features of the Vita are utilised so Drake's actions can be performed using the touchscreen. During balancing acts at dizzying heights the motion sensors come into play. “Uncharted: Golden Abyss” will cost around 50 euros (about R500).

Fast-paced racing action awaits players of Wipeout 2048. For its Vita premiere the game comes with a new control: the hover cars can be completely controlled by the motion sensors. Speed is controlled using the Vita's touchpad and weapons are fired using voice commands. If players don't want to use the new controls they can revert to a joystick and buttons. Online multi-player races are also possible. The game costs around 40 euros.

Also available for the Vita will be ModNation Racers: Road Trip. This game concentrates on fun, colourful graphics and a feature already available on the Playstation 3 version of the game: a track editor. This allows players to design their own racing tracks and cars which can be uploaded and exchanged in the online players' community. Playstation 3 routes also will work on the Vita so there is plenty of material already available.

Thanks to integrated Facebook and Twitter functions, best times, screenshots and other content can be exchanged with friends. However, multiplayers games are not possible with ModNation Racers: Road Trip. The game retails for around 40 euros.

If after the stress of the race-track a player seeks a relaxing time on the greens, Everybody's Golf is the best bet. However, one shouldn't expect a sober and realistic golf simulation game - after various power-ups players can hit shots that have the impact of a meteorite.

That said, the game does offer everything a golfer would know and expect: various courses, a range of golf clubs, changing weather conditions and challenging opponents. With a movement of the handheld console players can see around the course and the touchpad helps with navigation around the greens. In addition to single player mode, multiplayer mode is available online. Everybody's Golf costs 40 euros and comes like Uncharted, Wipeout and ModNation Racers from Sony Computer Entertainment.

In addition to Sony, other companies are bringing out games in time for the launch of the Vita. One such game is Shinobido 2 - Revenge of Zen from Namco Bandai. Set in feudal Japan, the protagonist is a ninja caught in the middle of a bloody civil war. The game will cost about 50 euros. - Sapa-dpa

I Love Lucy, from maker Entertainment Games, enters the videogame space in early March as an episodic series available on Facebook and RetroWorld.com.

Raleigh, North Carolina - Although, technically speaking, Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance and William Frawley never left small screens thanks to 60 years of I Love Lucy, in TV reruns, the gang is back for their first interactive adventure in Retro World.

I Love Lucy, from maker Entertainment Games, enters the videogame space in early March as an episodic series available on Facebook and RetroWorld.com with mobile and tablet versions to follow.

The black-and-white game will blend footage from one of the most popular TV comedies of all time with new character interaction, exploration, puzzles and mini-games.

The first installment expands on the classic “Job Switching” episode in which the girls, Lucy Ricardo (Ball) and Ethel Mertz (Vance), go to work while their husbands Ricky (Ricardo) and Fred (Frawley) stay home and take care of the house. In the game, the players control Lucy and Ricky.

“The experience is uniquely designed to feel like you're playing in an actual 'I Love Lucy' episode,” said Gene Mauro, President of Entertainment Games.

“In some scenes, players will control Lucy as she struggles comically to stay employed alongside Ethel in the chocolate factory; in other scenes, players become Ricky as he coaches Fred and labors to learn the ropes of basic housekeeping.”

Entertainment Games has worked closely with producers Desilu, Too, LLC and CBS Consumer Products Inc., which control rights to products from the classic TV show that first aired from 1951 - 1957, on the game, turning the program's comedy into casual games designed to appeal to the boomer generation.

According to Bruce Bronn, owner of Unforgettable Enterprises, Inc., which represents Desilu/CBS, the show remains popular today with nearly 1 million Facebook likes and mainstream consumer awareness.

“Recent research data obtained by CBS shows 'Lucy' still enjoys an 88 percent awareness factor with 96 percent favorable appeal among the key female 18-54 age group and a 92 percent awareness with 95 percent favorable appeal for females 25-54,” said Bronn.

Since launching its initial game in November 2011, the company has attracted over 60,000 players to its games like the '60s era spy game “Owl Files” and the '60s era comedy Kat The Brat. Mauro said Retro World gamers are currently attracting mostly women with over 50 percent in the 40-plus age group.

The game makers have been using Facebook to test core gameplay in preparation for the I Love Lucy launch, which will mark the initial marketing push for the casual gaming company.

“They have an original idea, and think that iconic branded entertainment will have a lot of appeal, especially among the older Facebook users who remember brands like I Love Lucy,' said Michael Pachter, videogame analyst, Wedbush Morgan Securities. “The unique nature of Entertainment Games' focus on nostalgia could build them a sizeable audience.”

New I Love Lucy game episodes will be released every few months. Once they finish the first episode, players gain access to a Lucille Ball avatar that they can use to explore the rest of the game world. Ball joins fellow Hollywood icons like Dick Clark, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and John Belushi who already have avatars in the virtual game world.

Mauro said that from “Retro World's” initial inception, the company envisioned working with media companies to bring iconic forms of entertainment already ingrained in people's memories to life through this game platform.

Unlike Zynga, which has 227 million monthly active users across all age groups playing its casual games like CityVille and Hidden Chronicles, Entertainment Games is focusing on the 150 million members of the baby boomer generation who are active on Facebook.

Entertainment Games plans to launch an additional four game franchises this year based on classic CBS TV shows from the '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s. Pachter believes that if Entertainment Games can get other big retro licenses like CBS' The Brady Bunch it can build a pretty interesting business.

For now, I Love Lucy fans will have more than just re-runs on Netflix or TVLand to enjoy. - Reuters

In this unapologetically nerdy dive into the world of Star Wars, you don’t play as Luke Skywalker, writes Rob Waugh.

”Massively multiplayer” online games - huge worlds full of other players - are precision machines designed to grip us mercilessly. Keeping up with the Joneses in their thousands is utterly addictive, and I felt a chill as I found myself thinking “Wow, this is really good” about Star Wars: The Old Republic (PC) HHHHH.

Right away I knew what was in store for me: months, if not years, of unceasing gameplay.

In this unapologetically nerdy dive into the world of Star Wars, you don’t play as Luke Skywalker - it’s set prior to the films’ story - but there are lots of light sabres and exotic planets to draw you in.

You get to be a heroic Jedi or a boo-hiss Sith, choosing from the usual range of characters - such as warriors and wizards - but with light sabres and The Force instead of swords and spells. It’s superb, but Jedi players will feel like galactic Boy Scouts having to be good all the time.

But as a Sith apprentice under Darth Vader, it’s exhilarating the first time you get to hiss: “Death is a way of life.”

The spells and abilities are just like World Of Warcraft, as is the cycle of battling enemies, looting them and training.

Yet it adds panache Warcraft never bothered with. The faintly sinister lab-rat environment is familiar too from Warcraft, but this game is so dazzling and epic, you almost can’t see the walls of the maze you’re in. Almost. - Mail on Sunday

Electronic Arts has released the much-anticipated Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning video game.

Electronic Arts on Tuesday released a much-anticipated “Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning” video game created by an all-star team put together by World Series champion pitcher Curt Schilling.

The title is the first video game from 38 Studios, which Schilling started in 2010 after finishing a baseball career that included World Series championships with the Philadelphia Phillies, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Boston Red Sox.

“I could not be more proud of all of the heart, passion and talent the team has poured into creating the first title in the world of Amalur,” Schilling said in a release.

“This is the beginning of a long and fantastic journey,” he continued.

“We are deeply committed to the (role-playing game) community and plan to continue to serve up a lot more story-based and action-packed content in the near and long term.”

The roster of talent for the Amalur team featured bestselling author RA Salvatore; comic book star Todd McFarlane and veteran game designer Ken Rolston.

Game makers created a dazzling fantasy realm where players shape heroic destinies with magic, swordplay and more in a title praised by reviewers for combining rich storyline action with “visceral action combat.”

Players customize in-game personae in a world “filled with extraordinary landscapes, mysterious cities, colorful characters and fantastic creatures.”

Versions of 'Reckoning” tailored for play on Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 videogame consoles or on personal computers powered by Windows software were priced at $60 a copy. The game will be released in Europe on February 10.

More information was available online at reckoning.com. - AFP

Hundreds of geeks and gamers braved Sao Paulo's torrid heat play online video games at the fifth edition of Brazil's Campus Party.

Sao Paulo, Brazil -

Hundreds of geeks and gamers braved Sao Paulo's torrid heat on Tuesday to play online video games at the fifth edition of Brazil's Campus Party, an annual, week-long technology fest.

Jefferson Almeida, a 21-year-old engineering student, said he traveled from Dourados, in the center-west state of Mato Grosso do Sul, to show his work and take part in “technological conferences that are very good.”

He is one of the participants gathered in the huge Anhembi convention center in northern Sao Paulo, where from Tuesday to Saturday, 7,000 accredited web fans will have access to more than 500 hours of conferences with international experts, take part in contests or debates or take up courses.

On long tables crammed with laptops and huge screens, visitors, most of them aged between 18 to 29, sought to distribute their work and get informed about market needs.

“To learn from success stories also helps you get good results,” said Erica Brasil, a 32-year-old business consultant on social networks.

It was her first appearance at Campus Party, which in the past she has monitored on the Internet.

“It's good to make friends and to salute them 'off line,'“ she said with a smile.

Others were absorbed by video games, taking advantage of 20Gb (gigabit) speed to wage online warfare, test new technologies which accurately detect body movements or to play on car simulators.

One of the main attractions is Intel Extreme Masters (IEM), the world's biggest video game tournament which is making a stopover in Brazil to pick those who will qualify for the finals in Germany in March.

“For serious players, to play with a faster machine is good,” said Americo Tome, head of products at Intel Brasil, told AFP.

US maker Microchips came to unveil on the Brazilian market its new “ultra book”, a slim and powerful machine with the familiar feel of the netbook or laptop and designed to compete with the tablets.

Organisers are expecting more than 200,000 visitors.

Founded in 1997 as a gaming event, Campus Party was first held in Malaga, Spain, and has since spurred editions in Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico, Ecuador and Chile. - Sapa-AFP

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata says the company is preparing for a comeback with the Wii U.

Tokyo - Nintendo's chief is determined to get right the launch of its next game machine Wii U, set to go on sale at the end of this year in time for holiday shopping.

He acknowledged on Friday some mistakes with selling its 3DS handheld, a day after the Japanese videogame maker lowered its annual earnings forecast to a 65 billion yen ($844 million) loss, much larger than the 20 billion yen ($260 million) loss projected earlier.

Nintendo Co. President Satoru Iwata blamed the strong yen, which erases overseas earnings, as well as the arrival of smartphones and other devices that offer gaming. But he said the company was preparing for a comeback with the Wii U. - Sapa-AP

We take a look at the latest videogame releases of the week.

MARIO KART'S A RACING CERTAINTY

Nintendo 3DS

RATING:9/10

'Don't rock the boat' was the motto on Nintendo's latest evolution of its wildly popular kart racing series, whose sales figures have landed it in the Guinness Book of Records.

But, even if MK7 is intended only to bolster struggling sales of the 3DS, it's a brilliant stop-gap.

The core gameplay still stands up beautifully after 20 years - a riotous mix of drift racing and comic weaponry in equal measure.

RAYMAN ORIGINS

PS3/X360/WII

RATING: 8.5/10

This is also resurrection week for Rayman, his old 2D-self exhumed from the vaults of 1995.

But it's not quite how we remember him as a vague shape.

Instead, his platforming playground has become a gorgeous high-res world. Every frame of this 2D side-scroller is packed with lovingly drawn detail.

The gameplay feels more conventional - old-school platforming requiring precision jumps. But thanks to inventive and witty level design plus a gradual unlocking of new abilities it never gets stale. - Belfast Telegraph

Three years ago the “Toylet” was just a pipe-dream for videogame maker Sega, but now the urinal videogame has been rolled out at pubs across Japan.

Tokyo - Three years ago the “Toylet” was just a pipe-dream for developers at Japanese videogame maker Sega, but now the urinal videogame has been rolled out at pubs across the nation.

Users target their urine at a sensor inside the toilet which measures volume and speed, with software then matching that to progress in a selection of five videogames in a console mounted at the top of the urinal.

“At first, we thought it would really be only young people who would like this kind of game. But ... we're seeing this phenomenon where people are enjoying playing with it, regardless of age,” said Hirotaka Machida, the console's lead producer.

At 150,000 yen (about R16 000) for a single unit, Machida said the original plan had been to avoid the mass market, but tests in pubs and restaurants showed it had broad appeal.

An infra-red device cuts off play if gamers stray too far from the urinal, reducing the amount of mess, according to Sega, making it a hit with pub managers as well.

Toilet humour and raunchy gags are a staple of far from high-brow variety shows in Japan where Toylets were rolled out on general release.

Sega now has its sights on a global expansion plan later in the year. - Reuters