What the hell happened?

Perhaps it's all the surfing ninja's fault. Myabe he's the reason that the fun, the play, the sheer joie-de-vivre seems to have disappeared from video gaming these days. Maybe he's the reason that leaps and bounds in technology have served only to make the escapist universe of the games console more and more like the mundane real world. Maybe he's the one that ruined it all. Maybe. But it seems churlish to blame him. After all, he had to fight the mutant robotic T-Rex.

The ninja of whom I speak is the title character of Sega's 'Shinobi' series which ran through the days of the 8-bit Master System and it's 16-bit sibling, The Megadrive. Whilst I don't want to cast bias on the video gaming worlds of then and now, we shall refer to these years as 'The Golden Age'. I've recently returned to those days via the recent trend for retro gaming on handheld consoles, which has led the discerning PSP owner to be able to buy the 'Sega Megadrive Collection' for their little black box. It's 27 games for about 20 quid. It's an instant games library and the bargain of the century.

It also demonstrates more innovation, imagination and sheer maverick insanity than the combined releases of the all three Playstations and every other console since about 1998. For example, there's 'Shinobi III' where, as mentioned above, our star-throwing hero surfs and horserides his way through hordes of dinosaurs, mutants, robots and robotic mutant dinosaurs; or there's Comix Zone where a comic book artist is sucked into his own publication by his greatest villain, who then proceeds to swap place with him- the artist then having to fight from panel to panel of his own comic whilst his nemesis draws enemies onto the pages for our protagonist to fight en route to becoming a superhero.

Right. Stop. Wait a minute.

Go back and read that description of 'Comix Zone' again. Tell me that isn't the best idea for a video game ever, ever, ever. It'd be ripe for porting onto the X-Box 360 but, instead, everyone's busy playing Grand Theft Auto IV. Now, don't get me wrong, the GTA series is great and IV looks like a massive technical leap forward but it's all a bit 'real' isn't it? Sure you get to indulge your fantasies of car-jacking, relentless violence and handbrake turns across a sprawling and meticulously rendered city but, if we really wanted to, we could go out and do that anytime in the street outside. We probably wouldn't get a second go but we'd at least get a spot on the news which Rockstar Games have still to add as a feature to their title.

And if GTA IV isn't real enough for you, wait till next year when the throbbingly gorgeous Gran Turismo 5 turns up. It'll feature 60 squazillion cars all beautifully crafted by legions of Japanese graphic gurus to offer the most pant-tighteningly 'real' driving experience possible. There's a very good chance it'll be pretty enough to make me cry.

But then I'll probably be bawling my eyes out the first time I play it anyway because the Gran Turismo series, before it let's you get your grubby little mitts on most of their precious, photo-realistic cars, makes you take a driving test!

A fucking driving test!

The driving test is one of the most notorious, nerve-shredding teenage rites-de-passage (it's like losing your viriginity, only worse because it doesn't come with breasts) and yet, after shelling out fifty quid for their game, the makers of Gran Turismo then decree that you must earn the right to actually play it by reliving this whole experience again. By the time Gran Turismo 6 comes out, they'll probably just be asking you to bend over.

Something about this doesn't seem quite right. Leaps and bounds in gaming technology is being used to basically recreate the real world and, frankly, what's the point? If you want to see the real world, don't buy a console- just go outside where, chances are, you'll find loads of it. And it's better than the world of games as well cause you can't buy a Greggs pastie in Liberty City. Or watch Q.I.

So here's a thought. The current generation of games consoles have about 300 times more computing power than Apollo 11- and that went to the moon (according to roughly 65% of Americans). Therefore, instead of meticulously recreating the real-life thrill of maxing a Ferrari or extorting a bookmaker, why don't games producers just let their imaginations runs wild? If Apollo 11 made it to the moon, God knows where a PS3 could get to.

In fact, now I've mentioned Him, let's start with God. Instead of cars in Gran Turismo, why not make it Gods that you control? Gods riding flaming steeds. That are actually rocket bikes. With 7 dimensions. That run on colour. Backwards. And you don't race them round tracks- but through dimensions. That look like noises. And that's just for starters.

My ideas for remaking Grand Theft Auto while making full use of modern processing power cannot be amply described using coherently constructed sentences- I am after all writing this on Windows Notepad which is hardly the cutting edge of home entertainment- so instead I have to do my best to explain it but it would basically play something like this:

"BANG!!!.... AIYEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!.... THRAWK, PURPLE....EAGLES, PINCERS, DEATH FROM ABOVE! AND BELOW! AND THE SIDE! AND OVER THERE!.... CRUCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!! 854 OF THEM!!!!!! QUASAR!!!! Bonus Level WIND MADE OF STEEL AND JESUS!!!! Overwrite saved file? YES!!!! YES!!!!!!! YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

And that's just the first level.

Or you could just play as a surfing ninja. Y'know, whichever's easier.