Life Imitates Art - ENDER'S GAME

In August 1977, Orson Scott Card's novelette ENDER'S GAME was published in ANALOG SCIENCE FICTION AND FACT and it caught the imagination of the sci fi world with its tale of very young, extremely smart, children trained to play war games for an upcoming battle with an alien species called the Formics.

Finally, more than 30 years after the story was released and a host of expanded and sequel novels were published (XENOCIDE, SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD, CHILDREN OF THE MIND, FIRST MEETINGS IN THE ENDERVERSE), Orson Scott Card has given Chair Entertainment Group the exclusive license to create games based on the books.

They plan to offer the games on all next-generation console, hand-held and PC platforms. With Card's help, Chair Entertainment will begin development later this year on a game inspired by the Battle Room, the mainstay of ENDER'S GAME. The first version is expected for release via downloadable platforms.

In the meantime, while we wait for a chance to train at Battle School to see for ourselves how we'd stack up against a bunch of precocious kids, Director Wolfgang Petersen (TROY) is currently working on a film version of the book series with Orson Scott Card writing the screenplay, hopefully insuring a movie that stays faithful to the books. (Can you say 'tie-ins'?)

Be All You Can Be - Play America's Army

Meet Paxton Galvanek, online gamer and hero: In November 2007, the twenty-eight year-old helped save two North Carolina accident victims from an out of control SUV that had rolled over about 5 times. As the first one on the scene, in fact, having watched as the accident happened, he managed to run across the highway, safely remove both people from the smoking SUV and properly assessed and treated their wounds, which included bruises, scrapes, head trauma and the loss of two fingers.

So what type of medical background did Galvanek have? None - unless you count hours playing the computer game America's Army. As a medic in the game, players must sit through extensive medical training sessions based on real-life classes - Galvanek managed to pay enough attention throughout and learn enough that he was able to 'triage' the patients on the scene, helping to first control the heavy bleeding caused by the missing fingers, and then go on to check out any other injuries while waiting for additional help which, ironically, came in the form of an Army medic.

Just goes to show that some online gaming and certain types of characters can really pay off in real life... According to the US Army, this is the 2nd time someone has been able to use the online medic training to help save lives in an emergency.

So even if you don't feel any need to join the real Army or to play war, but wouldn't mind having a bit of useful emergency medical training, check out the game for yourself at www.americasarmy.com Play and learn something valuable at the same time!

World of Warcraft Hits 10 Million

Congrats to Blizzard on hitting its newest gaming milestone: 10 million players worldwide. According to their website, approx 2.5 million of those players are from North America with the bulk of the remainder in Asia. That's a LOT of internet traffic!

Guess this means they're here to stay for a little while, eh? Wonder who pushed them over the big 1-0? William Shatner? Verne Troyer? or someone else who hasn't done a commercial for them yet... LOL