Valentine Day Spacial Games

If you've logged into your favorite online world recently, you might have noticed a change or two: a strange floral smell in the air, an unusual feeling, a few...extra hearts around the place. Yes, it's Valentine's time again, and from pastoral phenomenon Farmville to the soaring spires of Warcraft's world, Cupid's well and truly here. Check out some of the lovely events happening in an online world near you. Farmville Valentine's Day is going to be a busy time down on the farm. Farmville developer Zynga has rolled out an astonishing variety of Valentine-themed goodies over the last few weeks: everything from giant flowers to candy stores to pink elephants. Backing that up is a new quest line, which'll set you to work gathering Valentine messages from your friends and make you substantially richer and more experienced along the way. Or if you prefer more creative outlets for your talents, there's a Valentine-themed farm decoration contest that'll give you the chance to win the admiration of the Farmville community -- not to mention a small fortune in Farmville cash. Head over to the official forums for the skinny. World of Warcraft The world's biggest online role-playing game is kicking off what might well turn out to be the world's biggest Valentine's party. Dubbed "Love is in the Air," it rolls out daily quests, one-off achievements, and a special boss, Apothecary Hummel, who you'll find in Shadowfang Keep. Check out WOWHead for the gory details. DC Universe Online Superheroes and heroines need love, too. Sony's latest online game might be barely a month old, but it's already getting down with the Valentine's celebrations. Players can enter the cherub shadow realm via fountains that have appeared around Metropolis, shoot love arrows at other citizens, and tackle a new boss fight against none other than the Goddess of Love herself. If that's leaving you wondering "Why so serious?", check out the game's new appearance items: a harlequin clown suit and a cherub disguise. The citizens of Metropolis will never be able to look at you with a straight face again. Zuma Blitz Thought there wasn't much scope for Valentine-themed fun in this ball-shooting romp? How about a double heart-shaped board for the week? Not only is it seasonally appropriate, its layout ought to be conducive to some good scores. Frontierville Much like Farmville, Frontierville's Wild West settlements have caught the love bug, pardner. You should already have seen the "Hearts and Flowers" mission appear; you have until the end of the month to complete its goals, which involve putting a spark back into your love live with plenty of flowers, gifts, and other rootin' tootin' shenanigans. Lord of the Rings Online Though Frodo, Gandalf, and the rest of the crew never seemed to have much time for love, there's plenty of it in this Tolkien-licensed online world. But you'll have to find it on your own. Snap a Valentine-themed screenshot, enter it into the official contest, and you could win a Mount Doom-sized pile of hobbitbucks. Beardy John Rhys-Davies lookalikes need not apply...we hope. Cityville Zynga's newest -- and, by some measures, biggest -- social game is doing Valentine's Day in a big way. Hit the red heart on the side of the screen, and in no time you'll be creating and sending custom cards to all your friends. Yes, just like in kindergarten. Collect enough of your own -- you social butterfly, you -- and you'll unlock a set of exclusive decorations.

Winter Games

The host nation completely dominated the ski events aswell as ice skating events, leaving other participatingcountries way behind in the medal tally.
Arch-rivals Pakistan finished second in the Games whileBangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Maldives failed to even opentheir accounts during both the events.
In women''s Alpine King Slalom Skiing, India''s PreetiDimri won the gold medal while Amina Wali from Pakistan wonsilver. Vandana Devi from the host country clinched the bronzemedal.
Indian skiers also dominated the Cross country skiingcompetition in both men and women events. However, they wereaccorded grades as only two countries contested for thehonour.
India''s Bhubneshwari Devi won the gold medal whilecountrymates Phuntchuk and Yasmeen Attrwon had to be contentwith silver and bronze respectively.
In men''s 15 Km cross country skiing, India''s Nadeem Iqbalgrabbed the first spot leaving behind Karsilampoon and HemantKumar, who finished second and third respectively.
In women''s 10-km cross country, the first position wascaptured by Bhavaneshwari followed by Yasmin Akhtar andMehjabeen, who won silver and bronze medals respectively.
The ski events were yesterday cancelled due to heavysnowfall here. However, the area today experienced brightsunshine bringing cheers on the faces of organisers andplayers.
Later, the Games were officially declared closed byUttarakhand Sports Minister Khajan Das and Tourism MinisterMadan Kaushik.
Speaking on the occasion, Kaushik congratulated allpeople involved with the winter sports for successfulcompletion of the Games. Das also announced to set up anice-rink in Auli on the lines of Doon ice-rink.
The state Chief minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ''Nishank'' hadearlier opened the ice skating events in Dehradun and SkiEvents in Auli. Both the openings were colourful and eminentsufi singer Kailsh Kher and various Uttarakhand dancersshowcased their talent.

Online Games

Online Gaming Safety For Your Kids

With Nintendo WII and Xbox 360 now released, when could be the best time to take responsibility for making sure that your kids stay safe while engrossed with online gaming but now, right? With the emergence of online gaming's popularity, gone are the days when your kid could stay in your living room playing all by himself or maybe with you. Now, the Internet made it easy for your kid to play with anyone around the world. And that means being exposed to just about ANYONE's bad behavior.
So just how do you make sure your kid doesn't get harmed while playing an interactive game? The following tips can be of great help:

1. Internet Safety Training

Look for your local government's efforts to make kids safe while using the Internet. Usually, these programs, which are implemented by police departments and schools, include online gaming safety lessons. One example of these programs is Teenangels. These are teens who are FBI-trained about Internet privacy, safety and security. After training, Teenangels help develop programs and help them implement to other teens and parents in their community.

2. Inform Your Kids About The Safety Features Of Their Gaming Systems.

Xbox 360 has a safety feature that allows one to report offensive or abusive players. Also, a voice masking feature is also available to avoid other online players to prey on kids, who can easily be known by their voice. These will help kids from succumbing to online harassment.

3. Teach Your Kids Safety Basics.

One basic way to stay safe when playing online games is to not reveal any information to strangers. Tell kids not to tell anyone who has been playing with them any important details about them. And always remind them that they can turn to you if anything or anyone bothers them in any situation, which includes while playing online games.
Make sure that they understand the consequences of their actions if they reveal anything about them to online strangers. Also, don't forget to make them realize that a stranger who would want to meet with them will most probably not do them any good.
Those tips and being updated with other safety measures that the online gaming system creators want to make their players learn should alarm us enough in keeping our kids safe. But a responsible parent should never just rely on any measure, always be on the lookout for your kid's safety.