Causes of Violent Video Games

       Virtual gaming platforms have been around since the fifties. It is only recently that they have been designed to be more realistic and they have been gradually increasing in the level of violence. Violent games are more popular than ever. Some of the more popular games include Halo, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Battlefield, Pay Day, Far Cry, and Left for Dead. All of these games are rated MA for mature and are intended on for mature audiences due to the content. They mainly contain elements like blood and gore, intense violence, mature humor, nudity, strong language, strong sexual content, and use of drugs and alcohol. The Call of Duty franchise are video games that are first-person shooters. This means that the player takes on the roll of the shooter as if they are the one holding the weapon. These games have military-style action with plenty of blood and gore. 

Video games are becoming increasingly more violent. Sixty-eight percent of play computer or video games. A list from a game industry tracker VGChartz.com says that among the best selling games of the year, 4 of the top 5, and 6 in the top 10, contain violence. “If you counted the number of games and looked at the ratings, most are video games on the market are non-violent. But in terms of top selling, 70 to 90 percent are violent ones,” says Brad Bushman,” a professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University and one of the country’s leading experts on violence.

The cause of this increase is disputed but most seem to point to one reason, however. Companies are trying to do the next big thing. They have to keep their audiences entertained and anticipating the next, so they continue to raise the bar. “Video games are like roller coasters. They make them more and more thrilling in order to keep people coming back. You can’t have the same things being done, or no one will put their money into it,” said Cheryl Lockett a clinical social worker at the Key Program in Fall River. 

It’s a fact that video games are becoming more and more violent and it has to do with the consumers. Companies are targeting their buyers and they know how to market to them. “I think [this] has to do with the number of people and the people [who] are playing video games,” says Bushman.

Movie Review: PROMETHEUS

Prometheus is the chilling prequel to the science fiction horror film Alien created by director Ridley Scott. The movie contains an all-star cast including Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Logan Marshall-Green, and Charlize Theron. The project was shot entirely with 3-D cameras. The use of brilliant special effects and noteworthy acting are what make Prometheus an exemplary film. 

The film opens with a human-like alien drinking some sort of liquid on a foreign planet that causes his body to deteriorate. The next scene shows a group of scientists who are doing research in mountain tops and caves. Doctor Elizabeth Shaw and her boyfriend, and fellow archeologist, Charlie Holloway discover a star map that starts them on a journey to a distant moon LV-223. The expensive exoplanet expedition aboard the scientific space ship Prometheus is funded by the deceased CEO of Weyland Corporation, Peter Weyland. Their task, along with the crew of the ship, including an emotionless android named David, is to gather evidence of the human race’s makers called engineers. What starts off as a simple, peaceful mission quickly escalates into full blown chaos which no one aboard could have ever predicted.

Breathtaking and at times horrifying visual effects are used throughout Prometheus. The effects in the movie are quite stunning. The whole movie gives you a sort of pristine clean futuristic feel. The spaceship is beautifully crafted along with all of the gear and vehicles during the course of the movie. It gave me a craving of a similar future for us. When members of the crew are attacked by the alien creatures of the planet, you really get the feeling of a horrible death. The monsters are so visually mastered that you cringe in your seat at the thought of one of the things touching you, never mind the helpless scientists.

The makers of this film could not have picked a better cast. Noomi Rapace captures the typical damsel in distress to a T. She makes it so that the audience cares just enough to feel bad for her without despising her character. However, the real award goes to Charlize Theron and Michael Fassbender. Theron plays Meredith Vickers, a Weyland Corporation employee, who acts as a supervisor on the trip. Scary is not an adequate word to describe her role in this movie. She is intimidating and definitley captures the whole pawn in a bigger picture with her own ill placed agenda. Michael Fassbender is fantastic as David the android who supposedly has no emotions. The lack of his character's emotion is what makes him so frightening. 

Habitable planets: Gliese 581 g?

If there ever came a time when Earth was no longer available for habitation, it’s great to know that NASA’s got our backs. The planet Gliese 581 g is the closest match to Earth that NASA has discovered. This planet would be very convenient in any apocalyptic situation, but is it just out of reach?

Gliese 581 g is an exoplanet. An exoplanet, or an extrasolar planet, is a planet outside of our solar system. Gliese 581 g is one of six planets orbiting the star Gliese 581. The star is in the Libra constellation of the Milky Way galaxy and is considered to be in the red dwarf stage. The star is significantly smaller than our sun. It weighs in at about one third of the mass of our sun. A star goes through several stages of life, in order starting with the red giant, red dwarf, white dwarf, then the supernova stage. The supernova is the explosive death of a star. 

A potentially habitable planet means that the planet may be able to sustain life. This does not mean that the planet is suitable for the successful existence of human life, however. An atmosphere and liquid water are not just the only components that make a planet livable. 

Over the course of eleven years, scientists at NASA have been observing the nearby star with advanced technology. The Keck I Telescope uses the HIRES spectrometer to  measure a star’s radial velocity. This means that it measure its motion along the line of sight from Earth which helps to show the presence of planets. According to Mario R. Perez, a scientist at NASA Headquarters, “Keck is once again proving itself an amazing tool for scientific research.” He also says that, “Keck's long-term observations of the wobble of nearby stars enabled the detection of this multi-planetary system.”

Finding Gliese 581 has made scientists conclude that, “The fact that we were able to detect this planet so quickly and so nearby tells us that planets like this must be really common,” says says Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics He also mentions that “[their] findings offer a very compelling case for a potentially habitable planet.” Gliese is significantly larger than earth, three to four times larger, to be exact. The planet orbits Gliese 581 in thirty-seven days. Its terrain is most likely rocky, but definitely contains a surface with a strong enough gravitational pull to sustain an atmosphere.

Even with all of these findings Gliese 581 g has not been properly discovered. The planet is located at around twenty light years away. The technology is just not there for NASA to get there, never mind to properly explore it. The planets existence has not even been confirmed.