("Hello viewers!")

Chums, this month I've got something serious to tell you. Something I've never had to say before.

Stand by.

PAGE 2

You've probably heard by now that Electronic Arts have canned the release of the controversial Virgin-developed four-player beat-'em-up Thrill Kill.

EA have decided that the game is "unsuitable" for release in its current form, a form which includes some fairly extreme gore and blood and, most famously, one of the lady characters pretending to do something I probably can't get past the Digi censors after she wins a fight.

No very big surprises so far, then.

PAGE 3

After all, EA are one of the more conservative, "family entertainment"-centred publishers operating in what's already an extremely conservative videogames business.

The company has already said it hopes to "modify the product" before releasing it, presumably to feature fluffy woodland creatures hitting each other with balloons on sticks in a game renamed "Ticklin' Dougal" or somesuch.

"But Stuart," you're probably not saying, "what's the 'serious' thing?"

PAGE 4

Okay. Deep breath.

I was wrong.

You see, for years now I've been banging away on these pages (and many others) about how videogames are every bit as valid a form of culture as movies and records and books and everything else, and hence should be accorded the same respect.

With the benefit of hindsight, though, it's possible to see that this contention is complete twaddle. Sorry.

PAGE 5

Because the thing about every other single form of culture is that they all deal with adult themes when talking to adult audiences. If a film contains controversial topics, it gets an 18 certificate, so kids can't see it and grown-ups can make their own minds up.

Now, games have, where relevant, the same certification system, operated by the exact same body (the British Board of Film Classification, or BBFC). And yet, you can count the number of games dealing with genuinely "grown-up" themes on the fingers of one haddock.

PAGE 6

And when I say "grown-up themes", I'm not talking, as most people seem to define it, as just a load of blood splattered around the place. That's about as "grown-up" as an Itchy And Scratchy cartoon.

"Grown-up" means something that plays on more complicated emotions than "I've got a high score!" or "Hey, I just kicked your head in!"

(Of course, ironically, most of you are probably too young to have any idea what I'm talking about.)

PAGE 7

Whenever anyone DOES try to raise the stakes a little (as with Sensible Software's now-canned Sex, Drugs And Rock'n'Roll, say), publishers either refuse to touch it with a bargepole, or all Hell breaks loose (as with GTA).

But why? Why are gameplayers apparently so much stupider than everyone else? Why are we the only people not allowed to make an informed judgement on what we are and aren't prepared to accept on our screens? (Except when we're using them to watch TV, of course.) Why can't we have the choice?

PAGE 8

According to the developers, the theme of the coming Final Fantasy VIII is "love". It's hardly a crazy-eyed new radical concept, yet it'll probably be, by default, the most emotionally sophisticated videogame of all time.

But as for whether it will, like the best songs or films or books do, offer any insight into what love is really like, or, say, how shattering it really feels when someone breaks your heart... well, I wouldn't hold your breath.