As you, I, and the rest of the gaming community know, the videogames industry is far from perfect. There is certainly a lot to criticise � I'd be out of a job if there wasn't. But it tires my heart to always hear nothing but complaints about the way Nintendo is handling the European market, or how the PSP will never make it in the handheld scene, or how Electronic Arts is taking over the entire industry like a tide across the virtual shore. Log on to any videogames forum and this is all you ever find. Read any editorial on a gaming website and it always seems to slam the gaming world � like my last edition of Magic Mushrooms, for example. Like I said, a bit of healthy criticism is all well and good, but all of this makes me wonder: why does nobody have anything nice to say about the industry any more?

Imagine the world of videogames as a giant mosaic. If you were to walk up closely to it and inspect it, noting any cracks in the stone or flaws in the design, you'd find plenty of faults. There's a stone out of place there. Oh look, that one's a bit chipped. How queer, that stone has 'EA' emblazoned across it. Better keep an eye on that one.

However, when you step back from the mosaic, stop analysing every individual piece and look upon the entire thing as a whole, we have a bright, varied, interesting work of art. All the missing stones are irrelevant, barely noticeable. The gaming world, for all of its faults (of which, admittedly, it has a great deal), is a great one to be a part of.

Yes, there is a great deal of competition, a great deal of artists with very different ideas of what makes a good games machine trying to make their mark on the videogames tableau. We have three separate home systems and will soon have a grand total of six videogame handhelds vying for our affections and our cash. However, with these separate machines come different ideals, different abilities, and different games. We have games ranging from deep online adventures to fierce multiplayer FPS games to crazy, colourful platformers. While this leads to heated 'XB vs. GC vs. PS2' debates between fanboys, your average Joe gamer has a hugely diverse selection of games and consoles with different factors appealing to each individual. What this means, of course, is that gamers have more variety and more choice, and therefore more people are attracted to videogames.

The more people who are attracted to videogames, the more money the developers earn, the more games can be created. The amount of money now being poured into the industry is huge, and so every gamer benefits as more games are released for their platform of choice. This may sound fairly obvious, but it's a fact that many gamers don't care about � rather, they focus on why Xbox Live is better than Sony's online service, or other pointless arguments.

Another recent change in the world of gaming is that it's no longer a hobby that only spotty teenage boys can enjoy. The wealth of sports games and licences, while generally avoided by those who believe themselves to be 'hardcore' gamers, sell so well because they appeal to those who only like to spend a few minutes now and then playing a bit of FIFA. The mature games appeal to those in their twenties and even thirties. Even the amount of female gamers (shock horror) is growing thanks to the rise of rhythm-action games and colourful, cute platform heroes. That's not to create a stereotypical view of female gamers � hell; a good lady friend of mine is currently getting stuck into Need for Speed Underground 2 and Prince of Persia: Warrior Within on her PS2 � but the colourful, simple and musical games do tend to be the ones which are attracting more girls to the hobby, which is surely no bad thing (as I'm sure all of those spotty teenage boys will agree).

So, we live in a world of choice when it comes to videogames. We have the freedom (and hopefully the cash) to choose the console and play the games that suit our needs best. That is the variety in the mosaic. As for that graffiti artist scrawling the same two letters across the tableau (both vowels), while they are trying to cover the mosaic with their dark paint, trying to make the gaming world its own, there are parts of the mosaic too high for it to reach. Try as it might, it will never cover the whole wall, and it will never take over the industry. As much as we may hate them, never forget that they can't cover the whole wall and there will always be plenty of colour shining through in this gaming world of ours.

The rise of handheld gaming has brought an intriguing twist into the industry. Each of the six handhelds (GBA, DS, PSP, Zodiac, N-Gage and Gizmondo) has wildly different and diverse features which offer a unique view on gameplay. Not only does this bring the afore-mentioned variation in the home systems to a whole new level, but their portability makes them more accessible than their cousins underneath the television. There's another advantage that handheld gaming brings to the industry, but that will be discussed in a future article � however, there's no denying that the huge variation in the features of the handhelds offers a great deal of innovative ideas, from control systems to graphical prowess to game-enhancing features to the very games themselves.

On the subject of handhelds, the technology within them is absolutely amazing. A decade ago, 3D gaming was but a distant dream. Now, huge, expansive game worlds and highly detailed 3D visuals can be found on a pocket sized gadget, with graphics and features to even rival that of the home systems. Eight years ago, the N64 brought 3D games to life for the first time. Now, we have (visually) superior 3D games on tiny SD cards as opposed to huge cartridges, on a portable games machine. And the PSP goes a step further with graphics almost rivalling the current generation of home systems! At the risk of sounding clichéd, we live in an amazing technological age where, although not everything is possible in the real world, anything can be created in a videogame and anything is possible. Games are only becoming more interesting (as Nintendo in particular will hopefully prove with DS and Revolution) as new control methods and styles of play are experimented with. Things that were impossible before in gaming are now possible, and it's going to keep going that way. The gaming mural becomes more interesting and more colourful to look at all the time.

But most importantly of all are the games themselves, the individual images within the mosaic before you. They become more involving, as the visuals and the storyline help to pull you into the world created on the screen before you. The new control methods make games more interesting, original and entertaining. Four player games, LAN and online games make playing videogames a much more sociable and altogether more enjoyable experience. While we do of course get a great deal of rubbish in games nowadays, perhaps more than we did in the past, a great deal of the games released now surpass all previous games in their greatness. Games are only getting better, as long as you are willing to remove your rose-tinted glasses and see past the fog of nostalgia. True, they don't make games like they used to anymore. But they're (dare I say it) much more entertaining.

That's quite enough complimenting the industry for one article - usual criticism and negativity will return in the next edition. But while you wait for my next 'enlightening' article, why don't you kick back and enjoy the marvellous mosaic that is the world of videogames? Enjoy the view, and try not to stare too long at the cracks.

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