March 21, 2008
Bring Your Video Game Skills...to the NY Public Library!
This afternoon, not only can you take out a book on perfecting your tennis backhand, you can work on your Wii Tennis backhand at the New York Public Library's Humanities and Social Sciences Library (the big one on Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street in Manhattan).
The grand Astor Hall will be filled with Wii, Xbox 360, and Playstation 3 stations for its Game On @ The Library! program today at 4:00 p.m.--nothing like a Good Friday afternoon to rock out on Guitar Hero! And the NYPL system offers Nintendo Wii and Playstation 3 programming for kids, teens and adults at 18 branches and offers Xbox 360 gaming for teens and adults at 5 branches.
The NYPL's Assistant Coordinator of Young Adult Services, Jack Martin, explained, "Gaming at the library can bridge the gaps between children, teens and adults, bringing them together as families and friends under one space, or through dialog created through the users' individual game playing.” See if your local branch offers gaming.
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I hope it works. Just drawing in kids to the library might spark some interest in exploring the rest of it.
Reverse psychology huh? I don't think it'll work too well...many of our city's kids are pretty fucking dumb and uninterested in knowing anything.
I spent plenty of time playing video games, but Guitar Hero seems like one of the dumbest games ever. You're not actually playing a guitar or making music! All you're doing is pressing buttons to coincide with some colors scrolling by on your TV. How boring.
"many of our city's kids are pretty fucking dumb and uninterested in knowing anything."
That's not entirely true. I'm sure they're interested in what Britney's wearing and how much crap P. Diddy has in his crib and how to make meth and where Paris is going to flash her crotch next.
Spoken like someone who hasn't played Guitar Hero...
#4
You're right. I stand corrected--let's change that to "knowing anything with regards to the arts (including literature, science, philosophy, mathematics, engineering, yada yada)."
i think it's 'skillz,' yo.
i got "next"!
"All you're doing is pressing buttons to coincide with some colors scrolling by on your TV."
To a degree, that's essentially ALL video games.
You're right, I haven't played Guitar Hero. I've stood next to people who were playing it, but I've never played it myself. I have played actual guitars, plus a banjo or two, but Guitar Hero seems like that game Simon, the wheel-shaped battery-operated thing with four big colorful buttons that light up:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_(game)
If I were doing that graphic, I would have put the PS3 in the middle.
I would line up the other 2 to follow the perspective of the vaults (you may have to flip the xbox..egh!).
Then a nice and subtle outer glow to separate them from the background. And if you really want to go crazy, do a perspective blur.
I'm a genius.
MFer - doing what you see was a big enough pain already.
Good God, what the fuck were they thinking?
The library is supposed to be a place where we gather the best of our culture, where we're supposed to aim higher than the ephemera of the commercial culture that we have to swim in every day.
If kids want to go to the library, they're entirely capable of taking the initiative and doing it on their own.
This is patronizing bullshit.
Gentrifier, you might want to sit down before you hear this: the Donnell branch in Rockefeller Center actually lets patrons check outvideo games.
How's that for your tax dollars at work?