Video games killed the radio games star!?!?!?!!?

No that title would never have worked. The Buggles were right to reject it.

Video games have been a large portion of my life and that portion is beginning to reduce in size, like a deflating balloon. I started gaming at about seven when my Dad bought the family an Atari. I have since owned a Super Nintendo, numerous PCs, Playstation, Nintendo GBA, Playstation 2 (two, one in the US and one in England), Nintendo DS, X-Box 360, and a Nintendo Wii. I have played games with a joystick, keyboard, mouse, controller, Wii controller, a plastic guitar on systems using disks, CDs, DVDs, cartridges, even games I downloaded! And I do wonder what it has all brought me?

I guess I do have pretty good hand eye coordination (as seen by my peeling of a sweet potato with a kitchen knife, "Look ma 10 fingers!"). And I do pick things up quite quickly which I attribute to the numerous different control systems I have learned over the years. But now I do find my self wanting to play less and less and this at a time where the technology is getting more powerful and the games are looking better and better. And the games I choose to play have changed. I used to play sports games nearly all the time (soccer, football, tennis, golf, you name it I have played a pixellated version of it), this was the closest I could get to the professional level. I lived out my dreams through the computer screen, until about five years ago I always thought that if I lost a bit of weight and just practiced that I could make it, that the natural talent was there! Mainly at soccer but now I am more realistic. At 28 most professionals are younger than me, although I do still think that give me one year at either pool or darts and I would get pretty darn good. As my interest in sport has dwindled my love of film has grown. Now I prefer playing games of a more cinematic nature, now I shoot zombies not the ball, I leap across rooftops not over hurdles. I want a story wrapped up with scenarios you can only experience in movies, or if you are a member of the criminal fraternity!

I guess that maybe I am growing up? But games are not just for kids, I was a kid when I started but I am part of the first generation of gamers, a generation who has a chance to play games throughout their entire lives. I bet in 40 years there will be plenty of octogenarians playing Wii 12 (or Wiiiiiiiiiiiii).

I think my big fear is the time that is stolen by video gaming. You can lose yourself for hours in a game and have no recollection of what has happened, what the time is or even where you are. I can recall sessions of gaming at university where I didn't blink for about 8 hours! And now as I approach my thirties I am conscious of what I want to achieve in my life and what it will take. I need to be creative on a daily basis. I can't afford to lose an entire weekend to a world where I'm in control of a pirate, a gangster or a very fast car. I need to be lucid and doing stuff that advances me and will cross over into my work life. Being funny, writing, filming. Whatever it takes I need to be doing it. Games are just another form of entertainment in which people lose themselves which is perfectly acceptable but it has had a control over me which I have to overcome other wise I will wind up at forty-five wondering how do I get off level 1?

Or maybe I just need to get some new games...to Best Buy!