Real Video Games

Can you go back in time to the origins of video games? Funny and imaginative characters would embark on a funny and imaginative adventure in a funny and imaginative world. Those simple and harmless days seem to be ancient history today. Because a great amount of video games now use real world places, events and people as their storylines and settings. Video games used to be a diversion from reality, and now, they are another window into it. And, that can either be a good thing or a bad thing.

Consider one of the most enduring and endearing video games in history: Super Mario Bros. A plumber, through accident, enters a world where he can eat mushrooms and grow and eat flowers shoot fireballs. No matter how imaginative one's imagination could be, there is simply no way that such an occurrence could happen in this world, like, for real. So, the illusion of the game remains intact.

Now, if you look at today's video games for popular systems like the Microsoft Xbox 360 or the Sony Playstation Portable, you can clearly see that video games are now using real world issues as their premise. Of course, there are also a plethora of fantasy based video games and characters. However, you are more than likely to discover a game that takes place in the deserts of the Middle East rather than the Kingdom of Mushrooms. Can you envision a 1980 game based on the Falkland Islands affair for the Xbox 360 or the Sony PSP? But, today, there are many video games using current events as a fantasy gaming world.

There are many theories as to the dearth of reality-based video games. The improvement of video game graphics can makes it easier to make real world wars, conflicts and issues appear that much, more, real, on the screen. Perhaps it's easier to steal an idea from the world of today than it is to create a whole new world with plot, characters, functions, missions, etc. It could simply be an easy way to reach frustrated gamers who want to participate in the real world fight, but simply can't or won't. In the latter instance, at least, it can make for a quick way to make a quick dollar.

It used to be easy to distinguish video games from reality. Reality had problems and issues, and there was nothing you could do about it. Video games, like the Microsoft Xbox 360, allow you to be the ultimate ruler of the universe contained within. Idea: why not combine the two, and give a video game player the complete control that video games provide into a real world situation in which otherwise, they feel powerless?

It seems that today, a gamer can watch the news, get upset and then do something about it in the real world that exists inside their Sony PSP or Xbox. The merits of such a union is a matter for another debate altogether.

Apple iPod Nano

- Bob Woolford