I want to call it Portals because I know how many people that bothers, and I approve of that.

Portal stands to me as one of the best games ever made. When we first saw Portal demoed I was fascinated. Normally you have to choose between the puzzle genre and the FPS. Shooting or thinking. To combine these aspects, action and thought, cleverness and skill, is a surprisingly innovative concept. Even the earliest videos showed something unique, combining skill, action, thought, and everyone's favourite new toy: physics.

But the early videos missed something very important, a feature that would turn out to not only enhance the gameplay but almost supercede it, turning a neat concept, or cool tech demo into a sublime gaming experience.

Normally when I write these things I pick a specific topic and write about that. Admittedly in my own rambling way. The topic normally presents itself in a neatly obvious manner. The lack of an r rating, or women in gaming, or how much I miss having a...

I want to call it Portals because I know how many people that bothers, and I approve of that.

Portal stands to me as one of the best games ever made. When we first saw Portal demoed I was fascinated. Normally you have to choose between the puzzle genre and the FPS. Shooting or thinking. To combine these aspects, action and thought, cleverness and skill, is a surprisingly innovative concept. Even the earliest videos showed something unique, combining skill, action, thought, and everyone's favourite new toy: physics.

But the early videos missed something very important, a feature that would turn out to not only enhance the gameplay but almost supercede it, turning a neat concept, or cool tech demo into a sublime gaming experience.

Normally when I write these things I pick a specific topic and write about that. Admittedly in my own rambling way. The topic normally presents itself in a neatly obvious manner. The lack of an r rating, or women in gaming, or how much I miss having an intimate relationship with a real woman.

This one has been hard. Portal brings to mind two extremely interesting and important topics, both of which deserve their spot in the sun. Which one to write about?

Portal's length, or its excellent writing? Writing about writing? Cool! I suppose that would be metawriting? I made a word!

Begin metawriting now: Portal features some of the cleverest and funniest dialogue (well, monologues) ever written in a game. It's obvious that skilled writers were employed here, that smart and talented people were put to the writing, that it was made a feature of the game, rather than an afterthough. The fact is, without the writing the game would be more or less the same. It wasn't necessary in the strictest sense that you couldn't play without it. The mechanics were simple and the computer's voice served to provide no real explanation beyond that which we were already aware of: Get into the lift thingy. Rather the voiceovers provided depth, character, and humour, elevating Portal from "fun" to exceptional, sheerly by virtue of good voice acting and most of all: good writing.

This is fantastic to see as someone whose only real skills are writing and cunnilingus. (Normally I would try to colyly imply the latter, rather than stating it explicitly, but I'm going through a blunt phase where I deliberately eschew subtlety in favour of crudely stating the obvious. It's surprisingly refreshing.) In any case I'm glad to see validation for my stance that good writing is important and should be valued. (Cunnilingus is always valued.)

The fact is I ain't ever going to be pretty. I look like Harry Potter's creepy uncle. Not the one that was in the books. The other one that no one talks about. So it's good for me to know there's some hope, some value still seen in skilled and humourous writing. I've always held tight to the notion that having humour gave me at least something to offset my appearance. Hell, Rodney Dangerfield somehow had an actual career, and he's WAY uglier than me. And neither of us get no respect.

Some people have said Portal had only one flaw: it was really very short.

I would argue, though, that's one of its greatest features. Portal was exactly as long as it needed to be. The qualities it had were not lessened in any way by its brevity and most of all it didn't feel like the actual gameplay was artificially padded out in any way. It was accessible, brief, occasionally frustrating, and hugely enjoyable. Like me in bed, only enjoyable.

I don't know about you guys, but I barely get time for games these days, and I'm starting to get some sort of video game ADHD. I just can't dedicate the time to games like I used to as (ironically) running a gaming website (or three) takes all the time away. I no longer see 20+, 50+ or even 100+ hours of gameplay as a positive. It just means one thing: I am not going to be able to play it. Vast sprawling epics of depth and detail are no longer a possibility.

The issue of videogame time is a complex one for me. I was on a date recently and was told (not for the first time) that video games are a waste of time.

I find this attitude unbelievably annoying. It's my time! No one ever says a few hours reading a book is a waste of time. Partially because that's seen as "positive" time. You're expanding your mind, learning, growing. Speaking of reading I remember when I was on a train a few years ago and every person was reading a Dan Brown novel or a Harry Potter book.

Seriously, though, those things are childishly written, simplistic, juvenile formulaic nonsense sold purely through an overriding hype machine that overlooks glaring flaws to sell to infantile halfwits, and no self respecting adult should be seen reading one. I'm referring to Dan Brown, of course. I haven't read something that tedious and loaded with implausible nonsense and logic errors since... well... the Bible.

Where was I going here? (Apart from Hell.) Oh, yes. We're ok with reading. That's not a waste of time. Why do people judge gaming so harshly? I think it's because it's not something they do. If you want to see a waste of time, what about television? A few hours a day watching TV is not even noticed. That's just "what people do". But a few hours a day on the computer playing games, or a few hours a day playing the Xbox and someone start using the A word. Which is "addicted", by the way. I wrote that and then realised you actually can't see inside my head and know what I'm thinking. Which is probably just as well because... not arrested.

In my mind, gaming is at worst a neutral time. I don't really think you "gain" anything much from it. All that stuff about enhanced spatial geometry skills, maths skills, valuable learning, hand-eye co-ordination, etc, is pretty much bunk and we know it. But it's neutral, with no real negatives. By contrast, have you watched TV lately?

My son forced me to watch Australia's Funniest Home Videos this weekend. It reminded me strongly of the show "Ow My Balls" from the tragically underachieving movie Idiocracy. Granted, Funniest Home Videos is the television favoured by 7 year olds and those with mental defects, but it seems to be representative of television's overall direction.

So in my opinion, reading (and a few other things) are positive time. Gaming is neutral time. TV is negative time. Yet the neutral seems to attract far more criticism than the negative, despite being far less widely spread.

Whatever, in the end it's your choice. It's your time, and your leisure time to spend however you chose, and you shouldn't let anyone tell you differently.

There's one caveat to that. World of Warcraft really is a complete waste of time. I finally found out (I'd been avoiding it) exactly how much time I've wasted playing that stupid game.

It's nice to put it into other terms. In the time I've played World of Warcraft I could be fluent(ish) in Japanese. I could have mastered the guitar. I could have built maybe 5 - 10 websites at $2000+ each. I could have enhanced AustralianGamer, adding new features and improving old ones. I could have written a novel. Possibly two. I could have written dozens of articles on serious topics for publication outside the gaming industry. I could have quite probably gone out and made contact with enbreasted humans and maybe gotten myself a girlfriend.

But I don't have a novel. I don't speak fluent Japanese. I don't have a girlfriend. Instead I have a level 70 warrior. That is the choice I made. Yay me.

Excuse me for now, though. My dailies are up and the Darkmoon Faire is in town. I want to try to buy my cards before it finishes. It's very important.