VIDEO NASTY

Earlier this evening I was hanging out with my eldest kid in his bedroom, watching him on one of his Playstation games. I'm not really into those things myself. I'm not very good at them and the games are too complicated for my little brain to cope with. For some reason I started lecturing him about how simple, addictive and totally brilliant computer games were when I was a lad. My generation were the first computer game obsessives, trading cassettes in lunch break at school filled with all manner of primitive bleepy zero-pixel gaming nonsense and loading them into our ZX Spectrums and Vic-20s. Then I started regaling him with fond memories of the original iconic video game: Space Invaders. It came out as an arcade machine in the late '70s and was an overnight sensation. Whenever I saw one stationed in a public place I'd be pestering my dad for 10 pence (or however much it cost back then) so I could play it. My son seemed vaguely interested in what I was saying (which is quite unusual these days), so I thought I'd have a look on the internet and see if there was anything I could show him to illustrate what Space Invaders was all about. Lo' and behold, straight away we found this site, which covers the history of the game, along with many images, wallpapers, screen savers, merchandise etc, etc. AND....you can actually play the original game on your PC, for free. It does a pretty fine job of replicating the original graphics, along with that particular bloopy music that accompanied it. My boy found it quite amusing...a bit like looking at cave paintings for him, I suppose. He soon got bored and went off to do his thing, leaving me staring at the screen and drinking in the nostalgia for something that hadn't even crossed my mind for years. Problem is, I'm already getting addicted to playing it again. I've only just managed to tear myself away to tell you lot about it. This is bad fucking news. If the blog goes quiet for a few days...you know why.

PS. Don't play the game!!! It'll have you in it's grip quicker than a month's supply of crack cocaine.

Don't say I didn't warn you...