So why start at the second coming? Why not be like everyone else, do it all chronologically?

I can get more retarded jokes out of this one.

"Videogames are affecting our children and making them violent", scream an alleged bunch of psychologists with comedy arrows stuck through their heads. This is a time where every child who plays a violent game is allegedly picking up guns and killing people.

Allegedly.

I played Forgotten Worlds on my Megadrive at this time. I could never fly though, plus I just didn't have the sunglasses.

The only way any videogame affected me was when I first received said Megadrive. People rubbish the claims entirely about affliction, but the bruise on my arse and the small group of classmates laughing at me for my attempted Sonic-style spin attacks suggest slightly otherwise.

I always wondered why I didn't go "oooop!" whenever I jumped in the air, too.

I can't actually remember how old I was when I received my Megadrive, I think it was for a Christmas present, from my older brother. The main reason for him buying me this was to keep me away from his Atari ST, which whenever he was out would suddenly become occupied and be brought to life, the Automation and FOF disks playing the gradually-improving introduction screens and cheesy music each time.

This was different. There was no joystick, and three buttons (although in my first game, "Sonic the Hedgehog", they all did the same thing anyway), and the games loaded in an instant.

In the first couple of days of ownership of said game, I'd battled my way to the end of the Marble Zone act 1. I remember being over the moon at school, and we had to draw a picture of what we'd done over the weekend. Suffice to say, Marble Zone it was.

Later that day, I beat Marble Zone 1. After that I remember feeling like I'd wasted my day at school, all because I wrote a different number… it all seemed so insignificant. In retrospect, whilst amusing and sad at the same time, it hits something home about videogaming in general.

If you can make your day feel insignificant because you beat a level on a game, there's something really special in whatever you're doing…

Thus began my true foray into the world of videogames. The little sleek black box with the annoying blue bastard, that really started to eat chunks of this little life of mine.

The joypad eventually broke from overuse. Shame, really, as I think my hands pretty much moulded to it. Literally. So much that I won a Sonic The Hedgehog time attack competition seven years later at my secondary school, which brought with it a Commodore CD rack and something else equally as crap.

Funnily enough, I never did try to be another videogame character ever since. Not Strider with his big sword, not Sparkster with his rocket pack. Not Earthworm Jim with his, er, wormy-ness, nor Tails, who constantly got lost.

Ok, so I also constantly got lost. But that's beside the point…

Next time: "So where DID it all begin, then?"

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