Video games are great and all, I don’t want you to get me wrong, but sometimes you just have to disconnect, you know? Really take a look at your surroundings and the people closest to you: learn to appreciate the real things in your life.

Of course I’m kidding, we all know that other human beings are fuckers and that reality is a hugely overrated series of crushing failures and missed opportunities. Let’s get virtual.

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Welcome to Press Start! It’s a column about my intense self-loathing, eating and masturbatory habits, cleverly disguised as a week in the events of video game culture. Come on in.

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It’s no surprise that most of my favoured games this year are download-only: games free of the constraints of large publishing deals and the costs of physical media. I like those physical artifacts as much as the next self-respecting hoarder, but when it comes to gaming and the creativity that I’ve seen flourish within the digital marketplace, it seems all the more difficult to pine for the past. The future of gaming is increasingly digital, independent and passionate: a fact well-displayed by some of the better releases this year. As Bobby Kotick plots to overthrow Steam, kill Gabe Newell and eat his heart to gain his strength, let us celebrate the games of 2012.

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As the year draws to an end, we all get to reminisce about the gaming highs and lows throughout. Everybody is doing it: no-one escapes the end-of-year lists. They may have different names and irregular structures, but no-one is truly above this ceaseless list-making. Why do I care? Maybe it’s because all the real writers are so busy making their lists that they’ve forgotten to give me any news to regurgitate.

I’m delving deep and brushing off the gaming news artefacts. Then I’m gonna spruce them up for you: just like I was Dr. Alan Grant.

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Does anyone else regularly think about the intro sequence from Ghost In The Shell? I remember how amazing it was. I loved watching that shell being born: all dripping liquid and hydraulics. Birth without all the mess: I can dig it.

As I step out of the shower, I feel a similar kind of (re)birth and I’m ready to fill this pool up with enough gaming news to drown anyone foolish enough not to wear water wings. Get in.

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Hello friends, and welcome to another edition of Press Start! For the uninitiated: this is a gathering of stories from the world of video games. I try to pick amusing, or over-looked stories that you perhaps haven’t managed to read because you were so overwhelmed by the amount of map pack release announcements or touching human interest stories about daddy and son waiting in line to pick up their Wii U. It’s enough to make a man sick, isn’t it?

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I’ve not slept much this week. I’ve been consumed by thoughts of an imagined reality. I’ve been filling in the gaps, if you will: fleshing-out video game lore with some disturbing possibilities. Imagine the horror of being an animal trapped inside one of Dr. Robotnik’s murderous cybernetic shells: trained upon killing your only potential savior and being powerless to stop yourself. You try to resist, but the mechanical death-suit overpowers you: contorting and forcing your limbs into committing unspeakable acts.

You gaze downwards in horror at your blood-washed metallic hands: feeding tubes sustain your existence and damn you to a perpetual waking nightmare. As you gaze in horror at Sonic’s desecrated entrails, the suit gives you just long enough to truly absorb the horror of it all, then it contorts your limbs once again: wrenching your frail body towards an even darker purpose. Now you know that your family will die at your own hand.

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Some weeks I find myself gazing in despair at my computer screen: desperately hoping that I’ll find enough interesting stories to write Press Start. Some weeks I fail and I resign myself to self-abuse and comfort eating. Not this week, though. This week, being another full of shitty non-news, I thought I’d present you with an alternative.

So here it is: Press Start II:Championship Edition.

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I spend far too much time telling you guys about my eating/masturbation habits in these intros and for that I want to sincerely apologise. No-one should have to endure that. From now on, I’m going to make a concerted effort to talk about video games more often, like I’m supposed to. This week I have been playing Assassin’s Creed 3. It’s so pompous, boring and devoid of purpose that I comfort ate a whole tray of brownies and jerked it into the mirror whilst I cried. True story.

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All week I’ve been vividly imagining the symbiotic relationship between Mountain Dew and Doritos whilst trying to figure out just how video games fit into it. Cross-promotion is a bizarre concept to me; I keep trying to see the links, the patterns and then I get scared and frustrated when it doesn’t all piece together. I’ve been having fevered nightmares about neon, corn-peppered shit slurry: really vivid, nasty stuff. I need to write this to exorcise them demons.

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