Lets start with who I am, as this will assist with the understanding of where I'm coming from with this topic. I'm 29 years old (born in good old 1980) and so I'm sort of right at the last of the real first generation of gamers.... if you're born after 1985, no doubt you have some nostalgic knowledge, but you're too young to really appreciate where gaming really came from in the very early days. At least from a historical when-you-were-born point of view.... please, if you were born after then and you have a great gaming knowledge, I've not said that to insult you at all, it's just a case of when you were born, and if you were there, if you get my meaning.... in other words, an expert who studies something as historically important as say, the assassination of JFK, would benefit far more in their understanding of the incident, if they were old enough to be there, and not so young that they have only studied the incident and not actually seen it. With me so far? Good(!)

Infact, even I'm just a little wet behind the ears to really see where gaming started, with the glut of proper first home systems being around from about 1977 - 1982 (when the first video game "crash" came from poor games like E.T. on the Atari... but I digress). Most of us who have been around since the dawn of it all are typically kids of the late 60's, 70's and very early 80's - I actually find that the guys born in the late 60's and 70's have vast gaming knowledge, as they were in their teens and early twenties and able to properly appreciate the early games, whereas I was still very young when I first played things like Pong and Space Invaders and only saw the flashing colours and zip-zap sound effects. It's like when you watched a film when you were little - you enjoyed it, and you remember it, but then you watch it as an adult and it's oh-so different because you can appreciate it in so many more ways...

I find it fascinating as I age now, that, even 30+ years on since the industry started, we are still not seeing gaming knowledge given any true value outside of the circle of gamers that understand it's value. For instance - you read 30 books (fictional, or factual - whatever you like) and instantly, educated types and most of the known world will recognise this as something that an educated, well balanced indivudal is going to do, to better themselves. Even films now, having been around just about 100+ years, can be broken down and studied in the literary sense, with some extremely well educated and respected people affording their appreciation of knowledge on this subject - even approaching the levels that studying books is valued as.

So I find it extraordinary that by now, with 30+ years of industry under our belts and hundreds of thousands of stories and experiences out there for gamers, that the same educated types (always non-gamers of course) offer no sense of value to the knowledge gained by, say, having completed Super Mario World hundreds of times and knowing every little secret area, nuance of the story etc etc. Why is that? Is it simply the passage of time that hasn't been enough yet, and if so, at what point will this value suddenly become apparent to non-gamers?

Games are villified as time wasters by educated non-gamers, but this is only because they themselves choose not to play games and then ridicule those that do.... it's the power of their educated voice(s) that then lends credence to influencing other non-gamers who perhaps aren't as well educated, into also believing this complete and utter nonsense. The way I see it, is knowledge gained is knowledge gained. Full stop (or Period if you're from the other side of the Atlantic!). The subject matter has no bearing on whether or not some knowledge or experience of value has been gained from doing whatever activity it was.

I find it incredibly frustrating, because there are so many people out there that think this archaic way of viewing games is still valid. They will often use that belief to shape how and what games they will give their offspring access to (if at all!) and I for one think that this can be very damaging. Now of course, if your son or daughter is playing NOTHING but video games, then yes, this is still a concern... but it's what they gain from that - the experience, the story - this is what is being downplayed and undervalued. Put another way - if your son or daughter spent several days reading a fictional book, and then they proceeded to sit and tell you about the story and the wonderful characters, all the things they remembered from it - the literary and educated crowd of parents would be dancing for joy as their child has seemingly picked up some real valuable knowledge from the book, so much so that they can spout lines and examples from it at will. However, if that same child began to remember lines and examples from a video game story - those same literary types would simply scoff at this, turn off their selective hearing and start to tell their kids that they're playing too many games(!) Do you see the imbalance here!?

There have been a lot of people blogging about the emotion that Quantic's recent release, Heavy Rain, has suddenly brought to the table. There will likely be the odd spoiler in here, so if you've not played it, don't read this next part....

Heavy Rain is essentially more of an adult themed, cleverly written and thought provoking game than any before it. It's theme explores whether or not you, acting as a father of two children, would be willing to let your second son die, having already lost your first son. It's an incredibly powerful story and for the first time is one that I think may be able to punch through this unfair wall of massive undervalue I see in gaming knowledge. I would dare to hope that possible, but from my own experiences growing up and seeing how games and gamers are treated, I'm not exactly holding my breath.

So what do you all think? Are you too sick of non-gamers laughing at you, because you're sat talking with another gamer about the story in a game you played recently? You know they would have nothing to say if they thought you were discussing a book, so why do they pass the sudden judgment, the moment they know a control pad is involved? Do any of you think we will reach this Nirvana and it be widely accepted that playing games does give us all something of value?

I'd like to think that eventually, when I'm about 70-80 years old, this sort of subject will finally be recognised properly... if you're into books and other literature, the study of English (literature and language) at College or University would be a logical step. If you love music, you could go on to study the instrument(s) of your choice... if you're into films, then the recently evolved subject of Media Studies will allow you to follow your passion and appreciate films in the literary sense.

But what about if you're a gamer? I'd like to hope that there will be an old timer like me, a child of the late 60's, 70's or early 80's - now an old person, teaching the subject Games History in schools/colleges... and that will only happen if the rest of the educated world finally unbunches it's panties and sees that games have a lot more to offer, than just to waste people's time.

Why the Wii is great

OK - so first off, i'm as guilty as many for giving the Wii negativity.

As a gamer since the days of 16k spectrums and Commodore 16s, I consider myself an avid gamer and real champion of the hobby - recommending it to anyone and everyone I come across. This means that I do, at most times unnoticable to me, get on my "high horse" and believe that my opinion on games (to non-gamers at the very least) is what counts, and people should listen to me.

Well I'm wrong. And I'm here right now to admit and realise that (whether I stop doing it is another thing, but at least now I'm aware).

Now I'm going to go way off subject a second here before swinging back... take another media - music is the best example for me here. I've always liked "alternative" music, and used to get ribbed all the time by the many who liked mainstream music. Essentially, their opinion was that the music I listened to was crap - my argument against this was, at the end of the day, millions of people bought and listened to this same music, even though it wasn't mainstream. So it may not sell as much as others, but the music cannot be crap, because millions of people buy it. If no-one at all bought it, then I could concede that it would be rubbish, but the mere fact that it has an audience means that many people enjoy it.

Of course, personal opinions always are valid - to you at least. But to apply them to a whole genre of something you don't like and then brand it as crap is actually very presumptious and childish and a clear sign of elevating your opinion above others.

Well, I'd believed in that mantra for years - specific to music. And then I realised something - I've made both negative and positive comments about the Wii (mostly negative) and was branding the console as rubbish just because I personally didn't find a great number of decent titles on it. Why was I having this double standard? Had my years of gaming shielded my opinionated soul from myself?

I've realised that for this very fundamental reason - I.E. just because I don't like something very much - that I have no right at all to brand the Wii as rubbish. I can think it to myself all I like, and I can even express it as an opinion, but what I (and countless others of us gamers) do is tend to rip it apart and give my opinion about it, like it's some sort of gaming gospel of truth. Well it's not. I'm a humble guy, and actually, although I'm a very knowledgeable and avid gamer, I have lots of gamer friends who's gaming knowledge and geekiness knows no bounds compared to mine, so actually, my opinions are nowhere near as valid as my initial reactions would have me believe.

For the Wii specifically, the main argument for it being a great console is so very, very clear. First off - look at how many people have bought it. Yes, even I have said myself that sales figures don't necessarily mean a great product - i've used the analogy of explaining how corporate boy bands sit at the top of the charts.... yes, they sell, but anyone in the music biz and in the know, knows that they're awful and do not deserve to be at the top... so does that apply to Nintendo? Some may say yes, but I don't fully agree with that...

There are manyWii games thatI, and you other discerning gamers, would call absolutely rubbish. I mean, these games flood all platforms these days, but the Wii seems to be the home for more of them at the moment. You know the games - "Hamsterz" or "My Boutique" or "My Badger Hospital" etc etc, those games that you've never heard of in development, but they seem to even have TV adverts for them... and they sell like crazy too. Looping back to my earlier comments - these games clearly have an audience. I'm not presumptious enough to assume that everyone buying one of these games will like it and think it was awesome (lets face it, many are presents and are just bought for someone else), but these games continue to sell, so there must be a lot of people out there who enjoy them. These same people are now the "alternative" music fans, like I was, and I'm one of the mainstream, musically aware, on-his-highhorse know it alls that scoffs at them for what they like.

Well it needs to stop. For gaming to move forward and truly become what we have all said we want from the start - for everyone, with wide acceptance and ceased media frenzy on violent titles - then we all need to realise that our little corner of gaming that has been pre-reserved for the "hardcore" gamers (I hate that phrase, but it works for this purpose) is not just ours, it's for everyone. And no matter how crap you may think "Hannah Montana" is, somewhere out there are many, many gamers playing that, loving it, getting a kick out of it - and most importantly, getting involved with and enjoying games. That's a good thing.

My second argument for why the Wii is a great console is this. ALL of us have a great console from our past - mostly childhood - that gets remembered with a certain rose tintedness. You go back and play about 75% of the games on it you thought were awesome at the time, and you'll find you were wrong, but there's still those 25% of games that just never get old. Now, in 20 years time, when the kids who got a Wii in recent years are looking back - they'll remember the Wii. They'll remember all those ****c awesome games they played, and no matter how rubbish those games actually were - to them, they'll always be important. And no-one can take that away from any games console. There will be millions and millions of people in years time looking back at the Wii with serious rose tinted spectacles, because for them it was part of their childhood, or their first few steps into gaming.

My final argument for why the Wii is a great console is accessibility. The great controller debate... I myself have also been guilty of this. How many times have we read that perhaps games were not accessible to people because of a complicated game controller? And then how many times have we, as gamers, laughed at this.... "of course it's not difficult to use a controller!!".... yeah, because we use them every day. I got my first real example of this and it was stark obvious, when my wife started picking up gaming herself afew years ago.

She has a gaming past - she played a few master system and SNES games when she was little, so she was more than familiar with the usual 8way digipad and a few buttons to press. But when she came to pick up a "modern" game (it was Munch's Oddysee on Xbox), the analogue sticks and the 3D field caused massive problems for her at first.... she just couldn't grasp the 3D concept of pushing up to go "into" the screen, and down to come "out of" the screen. The 2nd analogue stick especially confused her. It took her a long time to get used to moving her right thumb between buttons and a 2nd stick, but she eventually got it. I could easily see how this could put someone off who gave it a try, but didn't have the inclination to put up with the frustration of the controls.

Fast forward about a year, and the Wii comes out. She picked up the controller and with zero direction from me was doing anything and everything the Wii can do. Particularly Animal Crossing, she spends hours a day on it, and my Mrs never used to game when I was out of the house, she would always wait for me to come home and set stuff up for her. The Wii has completely removed the technofear, and sheis now a fully fledged gamer, probably putting more hours in than even I do(!)

So how can the Wii be bad, if it gets even my wife to game (not to mention the rest of my family - mums, dads, grandparents, but that's another story), and now we happily sit together playing our respective games? They're totally different games, and I don't like her games any more than she would like to play the ones I like, but the important thing is we're gaming together, and the stigma surrounding the games taking up all my own time is now gone. We're gaming united, so to speak.

At the end of the day, the proof of the pudding will be in a few years time, when the Wii will be remembered very fondly by countless millions of people who bought it. And that's what counts.

So next time you feel like bashing the Wii - remember the above. It IS a great console, I just don't personally like it very much myself - it's capabilities and audience speaks for itself though.

OK - so first off, i'm as guilty as many for giving the Wii negativity.

As a gamer since the days of 16k spectrums and Commodore 16s, I consider myself an avid gamer and real champion of the hobby - recommending it to anyone and everyone I come across. This means that I do, at most times unnoticable to me, get on my "high horse" and believe that my opinion on games (to non-gamers at the very least) is what counts, and people should listen to me.

Well I'm wrong. And I'm here right now to admit and realise that (whether I stop doing it is another thing, but at least now I'm aware).

Now I'm going to go way off subject a second here before swinging back... take another media - music is the best example for me here. I've always liked "alternative" music, and used to get ribbed all the time by the many who liked mainstream music. Essentially, their opinion was that the music I listened to was crap - my argument against this was, at the end of the day, millions of people bought and listened to this same music, even though it wasn't mainstream. So it may not sell as much as others, but the music cannot be crap, because millions of people buy it. If no-one at all bought it, then I could concede that it would be rubbish, but the mere fact that it has an audience means that many people enjoy it.

Of course, personal opinions always are valid - to you at least. But to apply them to a whole genre of something you don't like and then brand it as crap is actually very presumptious and childish and a clear sign of elevating your opinion above others.

Well, I'd believed in that mantra for years - specific to music. And then I realised something - I've made both negative and positive comments about the Wii (mostly negative) and was branding the console as rubbish just because I personally didn't find a great number of decent titles on it. Why was I having this double standard? Had my years of gaming shielded my opinionated soul from myself?

I've realised that for this very fundamental reason - I.E. just because I don't like something very much - that I have no right at all to brand the Wii as rubbish. I can think it to myself all I like, and I can even express it as an opinion, but what I (and countless others of us gamers) do is tend to rip it apart and give my opinion about it, like it's some sort of gaming gospel of truth. Well it's not. I'm a humble guy, and actually, although I'm a very knowledgeable and avid gamer, I have lots of gamer friends who's gaming knowledge and geekiness knows no bounds compared to mine, so actually, my opinions are nowhere near as valid as my initial reactions would have me believe.

For the Wii specifically, the main argument for it being a great console is so very, very clear. First off - look at how many people have bought it. Yes, even I have said myself that sales figures don't necessarily mean a great product - i've used the analogy of explaining how corporate boy bands sit at the top of the charts.... yes, they sell, but anyone in the music biz and in the know, knows that they're awful and do not deserve to be at the top... so does that apply to Nintendo? Some may say yes, but I don't fully agree with that...

There are manyWii games thatI, and you other discerning gamers, would call absolutely rubbish. I mean, these games flood all platforms these days, but the Wii seems to be the home for more of them at the moment. You know the games - "Hamsterz" or "My Boutique" or "My Badger Hospital" etc etc, those games that you've never heard of in development, but they seem to even have TV adverts for them... and they sell like crazy too. Looping back to my earlier comments - these games clearly have an audience. I'm not presumptious enough to assume that everyone buying one of these games will like it and think it was awesome (lets face it, many are presents and are just bought for someone else), but these games continue to sell, so there must be a lot of people out there who enjoy them. These same people are now the "alternative" music fans, like I was, and I'm one of the mainstream, musically aware, on-his-highhorse know it alls that scoffs at them for what they like.

Well it needs to stop. For gaming to move forward and truly become what we have all said we want from the start - for everyone, with wide acceptance and ceased media frenzy on violent titles - then we all need to realise that our little corner of gaming that has been pre-reserved for the "hardcore" gamers (I hate that phrase, but it works for this purpose) is not just ours, it's for everyone. And no matter how crap you may think "Hannah Montana" is, somewhere out there are many, many gamers playing that, loving it, getting a kick out of it - and most importantly, getting involved with and enjoying games. That's a good thing.

My second argument for why the Wii is a great console is this. ALL of us have a great console from our past - mostly childhood - that gets remembered with a certain rose tintedness. You go back and play about 75% of the games on it you thought were awesome at the time, and you'll find you were wrong, but there's still those 25% of games that just never get old. Now, in 20 years time, when the kids who got a Wii in recent years are looking back - they'll remember the Wii. They'll remember all those classic awesome games they played, and no matter how rubbish those games actually were - to them, they'll always be important. And no-one can take that away from any games console. There will be millions and millions of people in years time looking back at the Wii with serious rose tinted spectacles, because for them it was part of their childhood, or their first few steps into gaming.

My final argument for why the Wii is a great console is accessibility. The great controller debate... I myself have also been guilty of this. How many times have we read that perhaps games were not accessible to people because of a complicated game controller? And then how many times have we, as gamers, laughed at this.... "of course it's not difficult to use a controller!!".... yeah, because we use them every day. I got my first real example of this and it was stark obvious, when my wife started picking up gaming herself afew years ago.

She has a gaming past - she played a few master system and SNES games when she was little, so she was more than familiar with the usual 8way digipad and a few buttons to press. But when she came to pick up a "modern" game (it was Munch's Oddysee on Xbox), the analogue sticks and the 3D field caused massive problems for her at first.... she just couldn't grasp the 3D concept of pushing up to go "into" the screen, and down to come "out of" the screen. The 2nd analogue stick especially confused her. It took her a long time to get used to moving her right thumb between buttons and a 2nd stick, but she eventually got it. I could easily see how this could put someone off who gave it a try, but didn't have the inclination to put up with the frustration of the controls.

Fast forward about a year, and the Wii comes out. She picked up the controller and with zero direction from me was doing anything and everything the Wii can do. Particularly Animal Crossing, she spends hours a day on it, and my Mrs never used to game when I was out of the house, she would always wait for me to come home and set stuff up for her. The Wii has completely removed the technofear, and sheis now a fully fledged gamer, probably putting more hours in than even I do(!)

So how can the Wii be bad, if it gets even my wife to game (not to mention the rest of my family - mums, dads, grandparents, but that's another story), and now we happily sit together playing our respective games? They're totally different games, and I don't like her games any more than she would like to play the ones I like, but the important thing is we're gaming together, and the stigma surrounding the games taking up all my own time is now gone. We're gaming united, so to speak.

At the end of the day, the proof of the pudding will be in a few years time, when the Wii will be remembered very fondly by countless millions of people who bought it. And that's what counts.

So next time you feel like bashing the Wii - remember the above. It IS a great console, I just don't personally like it very much myself - it's capabilities and audience speaks for itself though.