I’ll be honest, I’ve not been much of a gamer since I was a teenager. I started young. I got my first computer when I was probably only around 5 years old (though I had small handheld games even before then), and how I loved my ZX Spectrum. Eventually I progressed upwards to an Atari ST, and had a dot matrix printer way bigger than anything I currently own sitting next to it. But in my later years at school, I was talked into getting an Archimedes, which was fine and all. Cool processor. Cool business computer. But the dullest thing ever for computer games, and I think that’s the point where me and gaming started to go our separate ways. Sure I dip into the latest version of Pro Evolution Soccer every year, but it’s very minor–I can’t let a stupid game get in the way of work or my internet addiction.

But a couple of months ago I started on a new path by purchasing a Nintendo DS Lite. Portable gaming is an especially foreign concept to me having never owned a portable console, but I was spending so much time travelling on trains that the idea became appealing to me. Plus the DS is such a sweet little thing, and the more I read about it, the more it won me over. It just seems like such an innovative beastie, and while the Sony PSP was also quite appealing to me with its snazzy graphics, I was eventually convinced that the DS would provide a long term future of happy gameplay.

Lo and behold, everyone who said so was right. The DS is now one of my favourite things, and train journeys, plane journeys, and just general times when I’m waiting around for something to happen dissolve away when I start it up. So I’m really happy with the purchase, and hugely impressed with the line of official Nintendo games too. I was never a fan of Mario as a teenager, but man, those Mario games are some of the most creative and rewarding games I’ve ever experienced.

My point is, I plan on adding the odd bloggy bits about games I’m currently playing. It won’t take over from music, but I think it will be fun to write about a new form of media with my new-found status as an intermediate gamer.