Learning To Walk Using Your Hands 
Sticks For Swords — Why We Should Sometimes Play By The Rules 
Mainstream Media: If You Must Cover Video Games, Could You Please Do A Better Job Of It? 
Nintendo Undoes Four Years Of Alienation In A Single Hour 
Dear Apple, Nintendo, Sony And Microsoft, 
What Do I Look For In A Video Game? 
I have a nephew and he is one years old. Around one month ago he took his first steps. I watched as he stammered for three or four steps then fell. And cried. Five minutes later he was back on his feet — this time he made it five steps. Before falling again.
I said out loud — ‘this little guy learning to walk for the first time is like me trying to walk using just my hands.’
I thought to myself, how cool would it be to learn to walk with your hands?
It’s a familiar story; at least it was when I was a kid. You gather your friends, split into teams. It’s war — Cowboys and Indians, Cops and Robbers. Is it different nowadays — Gryffindor vs Slytherin? Vampires vs Werewolves? Team Edward vs Team Jacob? God, I don’t know! I’m so out of touch with the kids today and their… stuff.
“You might think games are only played in dark basements by computer addicted geeks but it’s a very big business,” drawls the presenter, repeating a paraphrased opening gambit that’s been rehashed since 1994, with very little change.
I was even involved in one myself.
Nintendo’s E3 was very strange. Watching the parade of titles on show for both new and existing hardware, you’d never have guessed this was the same company that for four years had almost undone twenty years of good work.
I’ve been writing about video games for eighteen years. I’ve been playing them for longer. There must be some common threads running through those games I like, and through those games I don’t like. Surely?
Last week more than a million people logged in to their Xbox 360s, plopped down and got a taste of upcoming first-person shooter Halo: Reach. And that was just on the first day.
