Thumbs and fingers will now be getting more exercise thanks to Missouri Southern’s faculty and staff.

Recently, the Student Life Center was hooked up with new PlayStation 2’s and television sets to accompany them.

In total, there are four televisions and three PlayStations.

The idea to get the residents the PlayStation 2’s sprang to life last year when the Resident Hall Association held a PlayStation tournament for the on-campus residents.

“We were kind of like, ‘…maybe this is something we ought to look into,'” said Deb Gipson, director of housing.

Adam Griffin, resident director of East Hall, brought the idea of getting the game systems to Gipson, and she allowed him to run with it.

That summer talks arose about what type of game module to buy. The discussion ranged from getting an X-Box to a Nintendo 64.

After the resident directors surveyed the students, the decision was made to go ahead with the PlayStation 2s. The only problem was the question of how they would keep them locked down.

The conclusion was then reached to call upon the physical plant to see what it would be able to come up with to solve this dilemma.

The physical plant concluded that it would build their own casing for the game systems and the televisions, and then order unit locks for them.

“A lot of what we were able to do is a direct result of the physical plant staff,” Gipson said.

However, before the systems were even put out for students’ use, one of the PlayStations was stolen from the storeroom.

“It’s a little frightening and a little frustrating,” Gipson said.

But now students are able to play as much as they would like. Since some games are also provided, students don’t have to worry about buying their own.

Some of the games that have been provided are “NCAA Football,” “Pac-Man World” and “007 Night Fire.”

“Not a lot of students can buy them [the game systems],” said Brett Beard, freshman, undecided major. “It gives them something else to do besides pool or ping-pong.”

To be able to play the games, students must submit their student i.d. and list what time they will start to play. They would then be handed one controller and one game.

Each controller is marked so students cannot trade theirs out with those belonging to the Student Life Center.

Students are also welcome to bring their own games, but the games cannot contain inappropriate material.

“[Bringing in the PlayStations] has been one of the best things we’ve done in forever,” said Gipson.

“We have had so much usage on this thing that I can’t believe it.”

Although there are no current plans to have a tournament , Gipson said that there will probably be one next spring.