Be your own hero

Sarah Kinney is Sarah Kinney for 21 1/2 hours a day. The other 2 1/2 she’s a superhero.

When she gets home from school, the 16-year-old straight-A student from Pinellas Park, Fla., jumps on her computer, logs on to superdudes.net and transforms into SarahDusk, a fictional character of her own creation with a bio that lists “intelligence” as a featured power.

Until dinner, Kinney battles other Superdudes, choosing offensive and defensive moves, then watching as the struggle plays out in the site’s Mobius Arena. The conflict is over in seconds, and the result is either an exhilarating victory, rewarded by the image of her opponent’s head floating in a light beam, or a crushing defeat that puts her head on display.

Win or lose, Kinney finds it gratifying to supersize herself on a daily basis. And it’s about more than just the tingly feeling of logging another noggin in her “Head Shed.”

“It’s great because you can make up your own character and be whoever you want to be,” she says. “It makes you feel special, like you’re super.”

Superdudes, launched in January 2003, aims for a multi-player feel, fostering more interaction and creativity than standard websites that serve up free gaming, says Richard Rosenblatt, chief executive of the site’s Santa Monica-based parent company, Supernation LLC.

“The Internet provides so many opportunities that are just one-on-one shooter-type games,” Rosenblatt says. “This takes it one step further and lets them be part of a larger community and role-play with 700,000 other people.”

As a Superdude, you create your own identity card, a process that can take seconds or hours. Pick a cartoon-like figure as is and you’re into the battle arena in less than a minute. If you want to tweak it using the site’s design props, the project is slightly more involved. And if you’re really dedicated, you can upload a picture of yourself. That earns you an extra 5,000 points -- or, in Superdude-speak, Knuggs.

Players “train” by choosing from 10 games (more coming soon, says Rosenblatt), and when they create cards, they’re quizzed about their interests, a feature that has proved to be popular.

“We get letters all the time from younger kids saying, ‘Thank you for letting me feel that riding my bike fast is a superpower,’ ” Rosenblatt says.

Online gaming got its kick-start in the 1990s with the introduction of games such as Ultima, EverQuest and Counter-Strike, all of which appeal to older players and require software. More recently, traffic has been heavy on neopets.com, a site launched in 1999 and popular with kids. There, visitors can select personal pets, care for them and choose from more than 140 games. A big stable of free games can also be found at destinations such as addictinggames.com, pogo.com and zone.com, all appropriate for any age, and some -- Pogo’s “Bookworm,” for instance -- with educational value.

On a recent weekday, Trevor Fox, 10, logged on to the computer at his family’s home in Carlsbad to watch his Superdude (Destructo) take the battlefield. Trevor and his buddy, Sam Gardner, play video games frequently, but while Gardner focuses mostly on the games themselves -- he likes “Knugg Rally” at superdudes.net but says the site needs a bigger selection -- Fox enjoys the process of molding a superhero.

“I like deciding what powers he has and what he looks like,” Fox says. “At Neopets, you pick animals that have already been created. Here, you’re building one.”

Unlike many sites, Superdudes succeeds in offering an edgy gaming experience without resorting to blood, guns or bombs. But finding gratuitous gore on the Internet doesn’t take much effort. Visit happytreefriends.com and you’ll see an animated video with characters that beat each other senseless and rip out internal organs. Go to homestarrunner.com and you’ll find Trogdor!, where the dragon bleeds when he’s slain.

“Games played online should have some type of parental control,” says Gus Pena, a quality technician at Sony who has four kids. “Because if you don’t control it, the kids won’t.”

Pena, 33, plays online games regularly but restricts his kids to an hour of console gaming a day and won’t let them play on the Web.

“I know how addicting these games can be,” he says. “In moderation, it’s great. But I think you’re better off riding your bike or playing at the park.”

Other parents are less concerned, saying these games can be good training for life in a tech-oriented world.

“Kids are going to have to know how to operate computers in every way, shape and form,” says Pam Fox, Trevor’s mom. “The next level is programming and making these games themselves. Eventually, if they get interested enough, there are people who make a living at this.”

That’s true of Tim Monk, 35, a senior video game programmer at Sony Computer Entertainment America. While he shares Pena’s concern about kids getting enough exercise -- “I keep seeing motorized scooters,” he says. “Whatever happened to bicycles?” -- he views video gaming as a positive.

“I don’t have any scientific evidence, but I think kids who play video games rather than sitting in front of the TV will end up having a lot better motor skills and will be a heck of a lot smarter,” he says. “I’d be willing to bet that the people who grow up playing video games are going to be more successful in the next generation.”

*

Games online

Among the websites that offer free games aimed at children:

www.addictinggames.com

www.neopets.com

www.pogo.com

www.superdudes.net

www.zone.com