PS3 and opium

You may have seen this in today's paper but Pat Kane - older readers may remember from him 80s croonsters Hue and Cry - writes an interesting, if overly negative, view of the games industry. While rightly criticising the militaristic content so prevalent in many games - dammit though if Call of Duty 3 isn't a blast on Xbox Live - he falls into the classic trap of assuming gaming can only be enjoyed to the exclusion of everything else. Accusing games of "interpassivity", Kane argues, "we surrender our personal adventurousness to these virtual proxies on screen." Interesting stuff though and proof that if gaming hasn't fully matured yet - Gears of War's stunning graphics/laughable characterisation is a case in point - the debate around them has.