Wednesday, April 16th – UK videogames publisher Codemasters® today announced a unique campaign to help communities by supporting a council’s innovative community warden scheme, which sees Wii™ consoles being taken into schools in a bid to tackle anti-social behaviour among youngsters.

Codemasters is providing North East Lincolnshire Council’s community warden scheme with copies of its latest Wii™ title, Emergency Mayhem™ – released in the UK on Friday, April 18. In the game, young players must take on the role of a fireman, police officer or paramedic as they dash around ‘Crisis City’ rescuing residents, apprehending criminals and putting out fires.

The Council’s wardens are set to take Emergency Mayhem into the community when visiting children in schools, as part of their Wii™ program. This scheme sees the council tackling anti-social behaviour and engaging youngsters about community issues, while also letting them play the Wii™. This helps them learn about team-building and working together to overcome challenges.

“We thought Emergency Mayhem was the perfect game for North East Lincolnshire to use in its warden scheme,” said Rob Burman, UK PR manager, Codemasters. “The game is all about individuals acting in the best interests of the community to improve things for those that live there and that’s exactly what the wardens are teaching youngsters about in North East Lincolnshire.”

There are also plans for Humberside Fire & Rescue to use Emergency Mayhem to re-enforce its campaigns to teach children the dangers of lighting fires and the affects it has on people in the community.

Julie Ogley, the council’s executive director for community care, added: “Our team of wardens have a number of ideas to address anti-social behaviour across the community. Our Wii™ events always draw a number of enthusiastic participants and are a very popular part of our Safer Communities’ Week of Action events – to cut crime and anti-social behaviour across the region. We thank Codemasters for supporting our wardens’ endeavours and I am sure there will be no shortage of demand to try out this new game.”

Codemasters will continue to support North East Lincolnshire Council by providing its future Wii™ titles due out later this year – including Wizardology™ and Dragonology™, both of which are based on the popular children’s books.

GamePRess