Another month, and another professional haver of insta-opinions in the mainstream press denounces videogames. This time it is the turn of freshfaced Times columniator James Harriott, whose thought bubble is headlined “All gaming taught me was how to destroy stuff”. Well, dear Edge readers, allow me to read it so that you don’t have to.
Let us first leave aside the obvious truth that, in certain circumstances, destroying stuff is a very useful skill. One might be a(1983), and Celtic mythology from Gargoyle’s (1984). I learned much about Newtonian physics in microgravity from (1979), and by feeding all my 10p coins into the local chip shop’s (1979) machine. And I learned about the proper use of claymores from (1998) and hundreds of hours of co-op Spec Ops missions in (2009). Never mind my intimate understanding of urban planning, air-traffic control, immigration security, and, er, the ballistics of sniping.
