I always said it was dangerous to leave me alone with my brain and today I've been thinking. Discuss my thoughts and rantings if you feel the need. 

Imagine if you will, a world where books and literature don't exist, a world without Tolstoy, Checkov, Dostoyevsky and on a much lesser extent Tom Clancy. Imagine if Samuel Pepys, Samuel Colleridge Taylor, Lewis Caroll and William Shakespear hadn't put pen to paper.

Imagine no Crime and Punishment, no Romeo and Juliet, no Alice Through the Looking Glass. Imagine no Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Now, without all those things we wouldn't have story telling and that would make the world a sad, barren void of uninspired mindlessness and we wouldn't have those great works or even the great works of other authors, musicians, poets and artists. There would be no radio, no TV, no movies.

We wouldn't have any games to play either. Imagine that!

I'll say it again, no games! Doesn't bear thinking about does it?

Now, no games would mean we wouldn't have the greatest media crossover known to man, woman and child. And like I said it really doesn't bear thinking about.

Today we hear so much bad press about gaming and its effects on humanity. We hear that it's dumbing down our youth, that games like Grand Theft Auto are inspiring violence, bad language and quite possibly, if certain pressure groups have their way, bad grammar and bad diet. We also hear that games are making us lazy, games like Rock Band are teaching our youth that it's better to play a plastic instrument than a real one. We're also reminded by pressure groups that games like CoD and the recently canned Six Days in Fallujah are glorifying war.

Well, to these groups I say no, no and no! For a start GTA isn't dumbing down our youth, they're already more than capable of violence and swearing that they can learn from watching TV or sneaking into the movie theatre like I used to as a kid. And anyway like sneaking into movie theatres our youth shouldn't really be playing GTA. Isn't that down to parents rather than the gaming industry?

Games like Rock Band inspire a lot more kids to pick up a real instrument or at the very least exposes them to all those classic bands as well as other acts they might not have heard of in the mainstream media. And isn't musical appreciation akin to appreciating literature? It was last time I looked.

Finally as for war games glorifying war, no they don't. They quite clearly show that it's dangerous and scary and also it's not a place any person would ever WANT to be and surely sitting on a couch shooting digital bullets into digital people is far better than shooting real bullets into real people.

Anyway, that being said, back to where I started. Gaming is a crossover media. For the most part, gone are the days of just shooting things before dinner or getting to the finishing line before bed. Games now cross over into music, cinema and also literature. And like I said earlier, just like all the other art forms we have a lot to thank literature for. For instance the biggest example of gaming being a crossover is probably Final Fantasy VII a game that is probably just as defining and important to it's medium as Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange or Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting as it told a story in a new and unheard of way. It's also a game that showcases cinematics as well as a story of love, war, betrayal, adventure and an epic cast of characters that would make War and Peace blush and is not entirely unlike the (good) Star Wars films. It also uses music to set a mood and an atmosphere, just like music does so well in the real world.

And if you think about it and look into a lot of other games such as GTA, Fallout 3, Metal Gear Solid, the Halo games they all do this in their own way.

Now, the reason I'm saying all this is I'm sick and tired of naysayers telling me, telling the world, that gaming is a bad pastime, that it's a waste of space. It's far from it. After all all the innovations in entertainment go through this stage of disapproval from certain people.

After all, cinema has courted controversy with films like Life of Brian, Rebel Without a Cause, and like I said earlier cinema is a story telling mechanism.

Music has done the same, the punk movement, rave music and heavy metal have all caused controversy and again, music is another story telling mechanism.

The same can be said for art, Pablo Picasso, Damien Hurst and even Leonardo DaVinci all courted controversy with their art, and again art conveys a story.

Books have even done the same. Lady Chatterly's Lover being one prime example.

Now all of the above examples are now regarded as either geniuses in or classic examples of their medium, yet there have been calls for bans or public outrage aimed at all of them.

Don't get me wrong here, I fully endorse any and all forms of art, they are probably the most important thing to ever advance the human race on an intellectual level.

I just feel that anyone who demands we read a book, watch a film or go to a gallery and not play a game should do well to remember the trouble people have caused in the past over things now considered great. Because in a few years time when we have a new shiny medium to play with that causes the same outrage our games will be proudly lined up with the likes of great movies literature and art.

Books really do have a lot to answer for.....