As adult gamers in Australia, we all know the pitfalls of having a draconian ratings system. But, it's easy to forget that we incredibly mature-minded aged souls aren't the only ones who sit themselves in front of a screen and stare at pretty graphics for sometimes hours on end.

The folks over at Babblebaby have put together a list of what they claim are the top music games suitable for ankle biters. It's an interesting selection and should come in handy for parent-gamers, now that the horrendously long Christmas school holidays are just around the corner. [Babblebaby]

For a celebrity whose past is filled with questionable choices — nearly making out with her own brother on camera, having "Billy Bob" tattooed on her arm, making two Tomb Raider movies — Angelina Jolie has taken a shocking turn for the normal. The UN goodwill ambassador has a decent head on her shoulders, at least in terms of talking to her kids about violence and video games.

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All new parents worry about how their little angel is going to turn out. The world is full of temptation and wonder that you fear may elevate or corrupt them. They could be upstanding, particle physicist olympians who volunteer at homeless shelters, or end up living out of the back of a van scavenging for roadkill to feed their 34 illegitimate brats. (Note: those are the only two options open, according to recent census data)

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Just joining the rest of the world in pursuing the magical (giant) Chinese market, Cartoon Network has announced that it is commissioning SinoTech, a Beijing firm, to create games based on CN-owned properties as well as SinoTech IPs. The games will first be targeted at the pan-Asian site and a site localised for Taiwan, and may find their way to other localised Asian sites and an in-the-pipeline portal for mainland China:

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As study findings go this may not be rewriting any sociology textbooks - apparently, kids really like video games. Who knew?

A survey by The Pew Research Centre has 'revealed' that around ninety seven percent of American children regularly play video games (boys: 99%, girls 94%). Possibly, the other three percent are being punished for something and have had their consoles nailed to a tree.

Its not all stating the bleedin' obvious, over at Pew towers. More revealing was the broad spectrum of games that America's youth are playing.

All genres get a look in, with racing, action, puzzle games and sports being the most popular. More that two thirds of the kids surveyed played online, with games being seen as a social activity rather than the solitary pastime so often portrayed in the media.

Survey: Nearly every kid a video gamer[SF Gate]

Trading Standards officers in Plymouth, England has used all the wit and wiles at their disposal to uncover a chilling fact - Plymouth merchants are selling children violent video games, and knives. Out of 34 shops tested using 16-year-old spies, five out of nine sold the underage teens violent games, while two out of twenty-five stores tested armed the teenagers with sharpened steel. Operation leader and Fair Trading Officer Lynda Braddock was understandably disappointed.

"The statistics for knife sales are encouraging but it's still disappointing to find some shops not on board with this issue especially bearing in mind the media coverage on knife crime in recent months...And we're disappointed that the games sellers concerned don't seem to have taken their training on board or recognised the fact that these games are given a high age rating for a reason."

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The Virtual Worlds Expo took place last week in Los Angeles, and there's been bits and pieces of news from the event floating around — the wrap ups of roundtables and panels are the most interesting. Over at Free To Play, they have put together five big trends in virtual worlds, ranging from 'the war on geekiness' (oh, ouch) to one I'm most interested in, the movement from virtual world to real world instead of the other way around:

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Can video games make children smarter? This is the question the American Library Association is looking into, conducting tests in various library systems throughout the country to see if getting children into the library helps promote literacy or just results in having a bunch of kids in the library playing video games. Tucson's News-4 posted a special report today on how the project is going at the Pima County Quincy Douglas branch, where children can come and somehow gain literacy by playing Guitar Hero and "Karaoke".

I'm not all that clear on how Guitar Hero is going to promote literacy. When you think about it, the very concept of Guitar Hero is about dumbing-down an activity so every one can do it, which would make it the literary equivalent of a McDonald's picture menu, but it sure does give News-4's reporter an excellent chance to stand on camera with a guitar controller. Hit the jump for the video report, condemned there due to its auto-starting nature.

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From the "Kids are Good for Work" file. Reader Brian C. (OK, the bossman) pointed out this WTF paragraph in a story about uber-green home design. The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago is exhibiting just such a home, which features "a bicycle in the children's bedroom [that] must be pedaled for 30 minutes to charge a battery to power video games." You can see this -- God, I hope you can even ride it -- at the museum from now until Jan. 9.

The manifestations of this torture device are all delightful: Older brothers forcing younger siblings to chug away for marathon sessions of MGS4 -- "Keep going Billy! We have another 36 minutes left in this cutscene!" Timers going off and mad dashes back to the bike to supply enough juice and preserve your Lego Indiana Jones gamesave. A bike/Wii Fit combo regimen. Can you imagine being the kid who lives in the Al Gore house? "Hey, Owen got Soulcalibur IV, let's go over and create Striker and Blade from Bad Dudes ... Oh wait, I don't want to ride that fucking bike".

The story says the machine was assembled from parts you can buy at electronics store. I did some googling and found this (sans bike), and I wonder if it's the same.

Any electrical engineers in the house? How much gameplay would you get out of charging up a battery like this for 30 minutes?

Going Green a Growing Trend Among Homeowners [AP on CNN.com]
Smart Home: Green + Wired [Museum of Science and Industry]

Not sure what to make of this. Bullshit radar says "proof of nothing" because there's no reason for tech support to be looped in on a game in development. That said, two guys worked up an extremely patient, social engineering prank that had 2K Games support believing, or at least suspicious of the possibility of a hacked Grand Theft Auto IV demo on pirate sites. And in the back-and-forth, it turned up this reply from tech support:

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