Stacy Ukishima – Games Online Elective

This was the first time that I have ever played a game online. Actually, I never really got into the gaming craze that began in the mid-80s with PacMan and Space Invaders, although many of my friends were obsessed! I think that this lack of enthusiasm for gaming is twofold in my case – first, I am not the most coordinated individual (it takes all my concentration to open a child safety-proofed drawer!), and secondly, I have limited time and would rather spend it doing something other than playing games. However, I do love board games, and always vote to play Taboo, Pictionary, Trivial Pursuit, or Mad Gab whenever I get together with friends.

Activity: I first visited Yahoo’s site – http://www.vogclub.com/, where I registered (using my husband’s email account unbeknownst to him!). I choose to try a word game entitled “Spelldown.” First, I briefly read the directions for game play, and then I proceeded to play several rounds. My low score was 12, when I gave up because I simply could not think of a five-letter word from the letters provided. My high score was a 116, with the two words “chins” and “mows” – apparently in that round the words did not have to be related to each other to qualify for points! This game was marginally fun as it reminded me of Scrabble, but I can’t imagine getting caught up in playing as many of my friends can (Tetris is very popular among my girlfriends; my husband prefers shooting games).

I then tried another game on this site, Bookworm, but stopped after a bunch of pop-ups kept interrupting me. Yahoo! Games offered tons of gaming categories, including card games, board & tile games, arcade & other games, word games, fantasy sports and pick’em games and international games.

Finally, I went to another site for comparison. This site, http://www.vogclub.com/

was a bit more difficult to navigate. First, I had to choose a nickname and then a password, which was mailed to my (husband’s!) account, so unless I set up a dummy account, I can be assured that I will receive tons of junk mail. Then, after finding out my password, I tried to play checkers, but it wasn’t that simple. I had to install the gaming software prior to playing. After clicking on “checkers” I was asked to supply my password, which the site rejected (they are the ones who provided the password!). After about 15 minutes, my patience ran out and I decided that for my purposes, Yahoo! Games would be a sufficient site to play games in the future.