I don't get cars. At all.

And not just because attempts to learn how to operate them are sucking money out of my already-thin wallet at an abominable pace (I had a minor stroke when I was told the cost of taking the actual test � why can't we all just ride bicycles?)...I just don't understand of those obsessed enough to fix their means of transportation up in hundred of pounds worth of kit. All for the noble cause of � pulling chicks? Sorry: don't get it.

Two of my friends do though. Very much so. And at a small Xboxfest the other night I was invited to play Need For Speed Underground 2 with them. Ah, NFSU. The enemy of all those educated gamers, the game that managed to easily top Christmas sales, even though there were legions of more interesting, well-designed, original titles out there. The very embodiment of 'chav gaming', or at least something along those lines. The game that gets regular scorn from forum snobs, from the company that everyone loves to hate. So I figured it'd be interesting to actually play the game and see how it was.

What astonished me was how little of the game-playing time was spent actually playing the game.

There were more important things to do first. Pick a car model. Change the colour. Tint the windows. Choose a spoiler. Customize the hydraulics. Select the alloys. Slap on a funky paint job. Stick in some speakers in the boot if you want. My two comrades were in their element here, flicking through designs and running through automobile jargon at a dizzying pace, leaving my sipping my Coke in bewilderment. After fifteen or twenty minutes making our cars, it was finally time to get down to the game and start racing.

And my God, what an utterly vapid experience it was. A few unremarkable runs around some tracks in what was just like most other racing games out there. And just a couple of minutes later, it was over. They had had enough of the actual game, and it was time for the next title. The part of the game I was interested in was skimmed over, with most of our time devoted to superficialities. I was a little taken back at first, but it was a lesson in the changing appeal of videogames.

I'm used with straight games. Games with levels, power-ups, bosses and a plot that comes to an end. Finite games, were the emphasis was on the playing and little else. I'm sure many others are used to their games too. But games have been bubbling out of their traditional parameters for years now, the NFSU games being a prime example of the medium's extending cultural value.

We have to accept that games are more than just games these days; they've become ways of emulating life and emulating sub-cultures in life. They've become points of expression and focal points for social groups. We've seen these elements before, but the astounding reception for NFSU is another reminder of them.

To be honest, it's about time games branched out from their traditional objectives. I like my games the way I've had them for years, but other audiences need to be reached if games are to be integrated into larger culture.

And it's happening. Online games are giving people more exciting worlds to live in than their own; Singstar can galvanize fatigued partiers into bouts of badly rendered karaoke; the DS is enticing everyone to start touching; games like NFSU are touchstones for members of the lad culture.

Gamers are fond of complaining online about the unoriginality of EA's annual FIFA updates, but shouldn't we also chastise Pro Evolution Soccer and Championship Manager with the same stick? We don't because we accept their place within certain sub-cultures. Championship Manager, for example, goes beyond simply providing an entertaining experience, it takes everyone who has ever complained about their team on the television and gives them a chance to prove their drunken boasts. It unites all football fans, giving all wannabe managers the tools to live up to their self-hype. In this case, design points like Graphics or Gameplay dissipate into meaninglessness.

It's strange, then, how many gamers have reacted with spite to the success of NFSU. To be frank, it reeks of class snobbery: this insidious business of 'us' and 'them'. It seems that the scorn poured on NFSU fans by those who have designated themselves as knowing better is that of bitter elitism. Because, after all, NFSU is just another shallow, superficial racer. And it's from EA to boot. Its fans must naturally be ignorant, ill-informed degenerates then, who rely on FHM reviews and sexy boxart design when they're purchasing games, right? Erm, not quite. One of the NFS fans I mentioned earlier is an Ancient History nut who is quite the authority on console war games. Hardily ill-informed. Such myths are perpetuated by those who just don't want others in on their fun.

Any opposition to the success of EA's franchise seems to be built on the xenophobia almost inherent in gaming fandom. It's the fear that having NFSU as our bestseller somehow devalues gaming's stature as an art, and so it must be bad news for the medium. Not quite � gaming isn't all about art. It's also about finding an arena to express who you are. That more and more people are finding this can only be a good thing for games, and their place in mass culture.

[email protected]