The benefits of video games

How does that song go? You know the one, even if you only last followed music when New Kids On The Block were at number one (yes, yes, showing my age now). It's sung by that woman who all the so-called smart music journos are citing as the next big thing so they can get VIP tickets to her next show when really she has 'one hit wonder' written all over her.

You know - open up your beer and you take it over here and play your video game... your video game... your video game...

Yeah, that's not me.

I say this because I was tidying all the junk in the spare room at the weekend and deciding just what old toys to throw out, I could hear the kids downstairs really getting into their Lego Batman game on the Wii.

Last year I was lamenting the demise of old-fashioned toys like the dolls house, but this year, as I watched my four-year-old boy as Batman on screen effortlessly fight his way through the baddies and fly into Clayface's lair to confront his enemy,  I am more inclined to give a slightly mournful but accepting sigh and say, a la Mary Poppins, 'as it should be'. Mastering such technical capabilities at that age can only be a good thing whilst mucking about with a dolls house for years to come will only make them fall behind.

Alas, it's all like a foreign language to me. I grew up with the ZX Spectrum (which easily predates New Kids On The Block so I am showing my age even more.) You pressed 'A' on the keyboard to go left and 'D' to go right, then hit the space bar if you wanted to jump. No doubt some geek will correct me on the accuracy there, but that was about the gist of its complexity.

Nowadays there are controls with left and right, up and down, a button below to jump, a button behind to jump, a detachable joystick that does all manner of other things while on screen you are bombarded by all sorts of baddies that you have to conquer, hazards you have to avoid, weapons and ammunition you must collect, problems and puzzles you have to solve in order to find your way across this virtual world and win the game. Sure, the ZX Spectrum fodder was like this to an extent, but the speed at which the stick figure ice man was able to move in Valhalla gave you ample opportunity to find the space bar and get ready to melt him. I think even a message might have flashed up saying 'Melt Ice Man?' and you had to press either 'Y' or 'N'. My kind of game.

So when my boy hands me the Wii remote and asks me to put right some sort of scenario with Batman that I don't really understand, I go into a bit of a panic. I stare at all the controls and wonder what on earth it is I am supposed to press, even though some are quite obvious. Tentatively, I move Batman to the left and press the button at the back of the remote which makes me punch Robin to the ground.

'Don't kill Robin, Daddy,' the boy frets.

Sweating slightly, I shift Batman in another direction and start laying into a baddie.

'No, Daddy, open the gate,' the boy pleads.

'How do I open the gate?' I ask.

'Throw a batang,' he tells me.

I vaguely know what this means and thankfully an instruction flashes up on screen. When I try to follow it, it doesn't do what I was hoping it would do at all and instead the baddies come for me, er I mean Batman.

'Daddy! No!' shouts the boy.

I stare at the screen in the hope it might guide me to an easier level where the question flashes up saying 'open gate?' and the letters 'Y' and 'N' magically appear on the remote. But no.

My fluster and panic turns into anger as I repeatedly fail to open the gate and continually make Batman run into a wall or beat up Robin again. Finally I thrust the control into my boy's hand, proclaim I can't do it and have got other things to do, then slowly edge back towards the stairs. Meantime he resorts to option two in his quest to get to the next level.

He goes and finds his mummy.

Now my wife is much better at these things and, taking the control, smashes the gate within seconds. I slope off up to the spare room.

Half an hour later I come downstairs again to find her still on it, instructing the kids, who are totally absorbed with what is happening on screen. I feel a slight pang of jealousy. That should be me showing them how to do it but of course I don't know how to do it!

So this Christmas I am going to make an early resolution to learn. Otherwise I'm only going to get left behind. I don't want to be one of those people of a certain age in 30 years time who mourns the passing of those big tablets we had that were like computers or yearns for a time when we only had 300 channels on our Sky box. It is my duty as a parent to move with the times and embrace technology as the kids are bound to continually do.

Yes they're young, but I realise now that getting to grips with these sorts of games gives them confidence in other aspects of their lives: problem-solving, advanced motor skills, the imagination to create different worlds and stories...

It is also another way, it seems, to bring the family together, more appealing and interactive than just watching a film. The community aspect here means none of us will be like the video gamer in the song nor am I destined to be left out like its singing protagonist.

But above everything else - and best of all - it means I can finally get rid of the dolls house currently clogging up the wardrobe in the spare room.

Everyone's a winner, I think, as I take out Robin for the umpteenth time and make Batman run into a wall so another baddie can shoot him in the head.