Child's Play Stations

Once upon a time, the school holidays were heralded by the smell of freshly mown grass, the sound of the ice-cream man and a feeling of time unbound, carefree days that stretched on forever. Today, we know the school holidays are here because there's an influx of aggressively hyped animated movies at the cinema and their accompanying games fighting for attention on the shelf.

It's a shift in perspective rather than reality and ever since my son first voluntarily picked up a joypad at the age of two, I've been fascinated by the way he plays games, the things he responds to in games, and the surprisingly frequent parallels with my own first gaming experiences. I'm old enough to remember being intensely jealous that a friend had a ZX-81, with its chunky monochrome blocks, while my son will probably grow up harbouring similar nostalgic fondness for the innocent days of the Xbox 360, when games were only high-definition and had to be purchased on funny silver discs. The games that tickle our fancy, however, aren't all that different.more...

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