Steve Litchfield

Am I so unusual? I see the people of the world spending tens of hours each week and significant proportions of their income on console and desktop games, locking themselves into virtual worlds and out of the real world. What, exactly, is the point of gaming? To become more unfit? To waste time that you could spend with family or work? To waste money that could be spent on reducing your household debt and avoiding the 'credit crunch'? To let your social skills wane? Compelling, it ain't. Now, to be fair, I'm not talking about kids or even teenagers. They have time to spare. And probably pocket money as well. I'm talking here about grown-up adults who should know better. Life is short enough as it is without wasting it locked away in a darkened living room fighting virtual opponents. Halo? World of Warcraft? From a grown-up's point of view, what a complete waste of time, energy, money and space. Switch off those consoles and get out in the fresh air, get a job, ta...

I have to admit, I'm a bit of a fan of the Nintendo Wii - I just love the sports sims and getting up and involved with my games. But the graphics are very obviously computer-generated and couldn't be mistaken for reality. Yesterday, I chanced across a demo stand for the Sony PlayStation 3 - and I was blown away. They had the demo sequence running for Gran Turismo 5, with the touring cars screaming around the sun-kissed track and, for a few seconds at least, even on a 48" screen, I thought I was watching a TV picture. The lighting, the textures, the smoothness of the real-time 3D rendering of the cars was utterly spellbinding. Only when the pit scenes were shown, with simulated human beings, was it obvious that this was a virtual world. Would I now buy a PS3? Before yesterday I'd have said no, but the lure of those shiny engines of steel, glinting in the sun......