It's arguable that there's always some part of the press trying to vilify video games at some point, but last week's NPD study on gaming addiction and a UK therapist's comparison between video games and cocaine was an odd coincidence.

Brad Hilderbrand reported on the NPD study which suggested the most hardcore of video game players can put in up to 50 hours of gaming each week. 50 hours per week! That's quite the feat when you consider that there are only 168 hours in the week and on average 42 of them are spent sleeping. As Brad rightly pointed out, where do these people find the time? It's my job to play and talk about video games, and I doubt I've ever put 50 hours of gaming into a whole week. My fingers couldn't take it.

Meanwhile, here in the UK a therapist said that "spending two hours on a game station is equivalent to taking a line of cocaine in the high it produces. It is the fastest growing addiction in the country and this is affecting young people mentally, as well as leading to physical problems such as obesity. It gives parents peace and quiet, but it becomes a concern when it's all the child wants to do."

If you wanted to, you could add those two stories together and produce something very concerning. My problem with these reports, though, is that while there's some accuracy in both of them, they both highlight the press' tendency to sensationalize, a sensationalism that is quickly growing old.

First, let's consider the '50 hours per week' story. That figure denotes the highest limit of the those surveyed and apparently accounts for only 4% of  the US population. So 4% of people put a lot of time into what is fast becoming the most popular entertainment industry in the world by far. Is that truly indicative of any problem? Besides, the average hours gaming per week was in fact found to be 13. That's roughly a healthy sounding 2 hours per day. And of course this is only one survey. Any survey deserves scrutiny in terms of its sample population, how it was conducted, and so on. But, rather than concentrate on any of that, it's far easier to focus on a figure that doesn't account for the vast majority of people.

As for the UK therapist, why is the comparison to cocaine necessary unless, ahem, you're making it simply to get noticed? Gaming is not the equivalent of cocaine. Really. It's so ridiculous a claim that it's barely worth going into detail about. I will, however, link to this article on cocaine abuse, and ask readers to consider whether or not its contents reminds them of gaming. Maybe I'm missing something here.

As always with this kind of story, there's a dire need for common sense. If you read further about the UK therapist's claims, the story talks about a mum who didn't realize buying a Call of Duty game for her underage son who would've been around 12 at the time if it was Modern Warfare (rated 15 in the UK) or 14 if it was Modern Warfare 2 (18), was a bad idea. If a parent's going to leave their kids to play video games for their entire childhood, or let them play games which they shouldn't play at their age, then guess what – there would be problems. Do we ever hear calls for parents to stop being rubbish and grow some common sense?

Well of course we don't. Where would the fun in that be?

Games Abyss is giving away Dementium II autographed posters and a few Dementium II games courtesy of Renegade Kid and SouthPeak games.

Here's what you have to do for a chance to win, it's simple – enter this contest by posting a comment under this post telling us the most scariest moment you've had in any videogame you've played. No multiple entries on this post, however, if you follow us on Twitter and mention a second most scary moment @GamesAbyss we will definitely count that as a second entry giving you better chances to win. The comments/posts our editors consider to be best will be chosen as winners.  Two winners will receive both a signed Dementium II poster and a Dementium II game, runner ups will receive just the signed poster.

If you're posting as a guest, please be sure to post a valid email address on the email address field. Winners will be contacted via email and asked for a valid mailing address.

June 13th @ 12AM EST is the deadline to enter, winners will be announced shortly after.

WINNERS:

Ryan

Jordan

(no photo)

Congratulations to you guys, thanks for entering!

My typical response to news of another game-to-movie adaptation is a facepalm of forehead-denting proportions. However, upon hearing that a Mass Effect movie in the works, I actually stroked my chin and left my forehead dent-free. I think it's a good idea.

I'll freely admit, I'm very much on a Mass Effect high having just completed the first game for the first time yesterday. I thought it was fantastic if filled with flaws. Sure, there were repetitive side quests and the interface was way too hostile, but what kept me going through them was the story.

Shepard's hunt across the galaxy for Saren has both simple-to-get blockbuster appeal and yet offered plenty of facets and a cavalcade of odd twists and turns, just as you would expect of a BioWare RPG.

It had lots of player choices too, something that obviously cannot be translated into a movie. Many Mass Effect fans may feel that taking away interactivity from an RPG, a BioWare RPG no less, is a sure-fire recipe for disaster. Normally, I'd agree.

I think, however, that BioWare did such a fantastic job at establishing the Mass Effect world, with its society, politics, culture, and its mix of interesting, Star Wars-like races. As long as the movie kept true to the core components of the world, and it should do with BioWare doctors Muzyka and Zeschuk on board, and promotes a story along the lines of the first game's chase across space, then it could work. It could even be a mature Star Wars for the 21st century.

OK, maybe I am going too far now. One must remember how many truly awful video game movies there have been. Usually, though, the games picked for adaptation have below-par stories – see Tomb Raider and Street Fighter II for memorable examples. Mass Effect's best assets were its world and its plot. So, for once a video game movie has me cautiously optimistic.

Come on, TIME magazine! This is outrageous!

The Virtual Boy is not one of the 50 worst inventions ever. Don't get me wrong, Nintendo's ill-fated 3D handheld is not exactly a humdinger of a creation, but is it really as bad as spam e-mail, Hair in a Can, and fake ponytails? TIME magazine says it is, but I would have to disagree. Fake ponytails, for crying out loud?

OK, it might be in the top 100… but surely there are 50 inventions worse than it.

I'll admit, I'm a little biased because I actually a proud owner of a Virtual Boy. That's right; I'm British and I have a Virtual Boy, even though the goggles-on-legs never made the journey across the pond - and I didn't get it off eBay either. I got mine in early 1996, around the time they got discontinued.

A 14-year-old yours truly went on a school ski trip to Boston, MA. One day we went to the mall, all touristy-like, and there I first saw the Virtual Boy. It was on sale, and by on sale I mean slashed from $200 to $25. Not that many people were taking up the offer, given how the store front was filled with the blighters, but I figured at that price it was more than worth a pop. Unfortunately, I didn't have the money on me, and the store closed before I could borrow any from friends. I thought my chance to get Nintendo's exciting new console at a bargain price had gone.

It was not over yet. I hatched a plan. I would leave the resort where the 80 of us school children were staying, grab a bus and ride the half hour trip into town, buy a Virtual Boy just before closing time, and then head back to the resort with nobody the wiser. It was a masterful plan. Where was the danger in an unsupervised child roaming an familiar city in a foreign country at night?

So what happened? Well, I got no further than the bus stop. What instead ensued was me getting my head bitten off in a massacre of verbal abuse courtesy of the teacher in charge of the trip – in front of all my classmates. That was fun. Of course, in the end we ended up making an unplanned second stop at the mall and I managed to pick up a Virtua Boy anyway. Stupid.

While I may well be biased because of how much effort I put into getting my Virtual Boy, I still think the handheld is not quite as bad as time and its failure has painted it out to be. Sure, only one game on it was any good (Virtual Boy Wario Land), but it really was good. Really. Some of the other games were not totally awful, too. Nester's Funky Bowling was bags of entertainment for up to seven minutes at least. And yes, maybe it wasn't exactly designed with comfort in mind, but I found that if I played it while lying on my tummy, it only caused severe neck cramp after a whole hour. And, truthfully, it didn't ever give me a headache. Then again, I now find that any kind of 3D film makes me want to instantly throw up… there's only a 35% chance that's the Virtual Boy's fault…

Alright TIME. You win. Chuck it in Room 101 with the ponytails.

I realize that I'm LTTP with a capital V, but I've only just picked up genre mix-up Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords. I always suspected it would be a game I'd like; I like puzzles, I like role-playing games, and I like quick-fix casual games. What I didn't reckon on was that it would hold a vice-like grip on my entire life. Over the last week the game has utterly consumed me – I've even had dreams filled with colored spheres and skulls just waiting to be lined up. When you add in that it's been vying with Mass Effect for my attention, that's truly saying something. And yes, I'm also VLTTP on Mass Effect, but moving on…

What I haven't done, however, is play Puzzle Quest: Galactrix. After reading and hearing plenty of disparagement about it from fans of the original Puzzle Quest, I'm a little put off. Galactrix may well sway me into giving it a go in the future, but for now I'll pass.

I am excited about Puzzle Quest 2, though. Developer Infinite Interactive is making all the right noises about it. The game is not going to mess around too much with the core Connect 4-like gameplay, which is very good to hear. There'll just be a few tweaks, extra mana gems, etc. here and there, but it will be very familiar to Puzzle Quest fans. Instead, Infinite Interactive is looking to present a more intimate narrative and interface within the sequel. The overworld of Puzzle Quest is gone, in its place a Diablo-like dungeon-crawling map which sees you move from room to room rather than town to town.

I'm not particularly enjoying traversing the drab overworld of the first game at the moment, so that's music to my ears. Also, I think it could help place more emphasis on the story. While it's hardly the most important facet of Puzzle Quest, I've found that its plot gets lost because I want to move on from quest to quest as quickly as possible. I wonder if the dungeon-crawling aspect will provide Puzzle Quest 2 with a little more linearity, both in how you move around it and in how the story progresses. That could help to keep me interested in the plot, however shallow and predictable it is. Of course, not paying attention to the original's fantasy witterings has hardly stopped me from stomping my way through it.

In truth, even if Puzzle Quest 2 proves to be little more than an expansion pack of the original, I'd still be happy.

The more I read on the game, though, the more it seems Infinity Interactive is keen to keep some things familiar while working in twists on other aspects. I'm sure you'll hear more from me about Puzzle Quest 2 when it releases on June 22 for Xbox Live Arcade, PC, DS, and iPhone. Unless I'm too busy playing it to write anything, that is.

The Wii's colorful platforming adventure game de Blob always looked likely to do well. I first played it at London's Play.com Live event in early 2008, and even then it was gathering a sizable enough crowd at the back of THQ's stand. When I actually got to play the retail version, it instantly charmed me. Sometimes a game can just win you over by being happy enough, and de Blob was a great example of that. When the point of a game is to color in a lifeless grey city, and when doing so helps to create this cacophony of jazz and chirpy noises as well a multicolored landscape, it's hard not to get on board.

So it's great to see the first details of the sequel, de Blob: Underground emerge. The first game sold fantastically, THQ announcing last year that it hit the 700k mark, so it's not wholly surprising, especially after murmurs of a second game around this time last year. Still, it could've easily been forgotten, put down as a gamble given the way third-party Wii games have sold. The truth, though, is that not enough people played de Blob. It deserved a lot more love than it got, as is often the case with Wiigames. If it had been released on Xbox 360 or PS3, we'd have heard a lot more about it, I suspect.

What maybe hurt de Blob in the long run, though, was how repetitive it got after a while. Some of the levels were simply too big, and certain sequences towards the end of the game, like dreary rides along monorails, felt like padding. So hopefully this is something that will be rectified in the sequel. The base concept of throwing your colored-up Blob onto buildings is grand, but Underground needs to spice things up with some variety. Maybe a bit more in the way of puzzles, combat, and actually challenging platforming sequences would help. The news that more 2D platforming will be included, a la Mario Galaxy, is music to my ears. I'm sure we'll hear more details about the game in the coming months, and we'll soon start to get an idea of what developer Blue Tongue's focus is this time around.

Either way, I'm excited about Underground and looking forward to when it hits DS and Wii in early 2011.

While every cowboy this side of Custer's Revenge has been traversing Red Dead Redemption, I decided to be a bit different and take out Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands for a spin.

The Forgotten Sands looks likely to be a victim of its release date despite the tie-in with the Prince of Persia movie. Rockstar's latest venture has already amassed huge commercial success, as reflected by my friends list filled with a litany of gunslingers and very few members of Arabian royalty.

Reviews of the game, albeit a bit mixed, show it to be a decent enough game, if not exactly standout. After playing through it over the weekend, I would go along with that. It’s hardly revolutionary, delivering mechanics and visuals that would not have been out of place in the previous generation. Innovation, however, should not be a necessity with every game, and what Forgotten Sands does do is deliver a tight, unpretentious storyline and easy-to-learn platforming revolving around environmental manipulation (familiar to fans of the last-gen trilogy). Most importantly, it had a quality that was criminally absent in the Prince of Persia 2008 makeover: a sense of challenge.

In recent years I have had more than a go at development house Ubisoft Montreal. Prince of Persia and Assassin’s Creed presented over-accessible play with an almost insulting absence of challenge, the former game in particular. However, even if the game is regressive, I'll gladly applaud the Canadian developer for taking a strong step backwards in the stylistics and mechanics of Forgotten Sands. It kept me entertained for the eight to nine hours I played it, and fans of the original series – especially those put off like I was by the Simon Says-like gameplay of the 2008 Prince of Persia – should absolutely give it a go before it gets forgotten in the May rush. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Aeria Games' free-to-play MMO Kingdom Heroes looks intriguing. It's presently in the midst of a closed beta and I've not yet had the opportunity to play it, but it sounds like a combination of typical World of Warcraft play and large-scale strategy, the latter more along the lines of a real-time army-based game like The Battle for Middle Earth. Here's the game's trailer.

Certainly, Aeria Games has good form and the game conceptually sounds promising.

So it baffles why the publisher has decided to go with this image to promote the game on its site.

Watch the trailer again and see if you can spot the well-endowed, scantily-clad Diao Chan in it. No? Well, she's there, roughly around the 50 second mark, but that's it. And yet she's thrust to the front of the game's advertising with a come hither look on her face and much more than a come hither choice of outerwear.

Apparently the only lesson that has been learned in the wake of Evony's ridiculously blatent advertising over the last year is that, given that the Evony site currently boasts 18 million players for Age II, boobs are definitely the best way to get people onto free-to-play MMOs. And by people I mean bored adolescent males.

I do realize that comparing this one image for Kingdom Heroes to the litany of Evony ads is unfair. My point, though, is that I was genuinely interested in trying out Kingdom Heroes. Its trailer caught my eye this morning, but then I wandered over to the site to find that image. And nothing puts me off a game more than puerile, shameless, lowest common denominator marketing, and that remains the marketing employed by the majority of free-to-play MMO games. As such, I won't be playing Kingdom Heroes. For me, the precocious-looking warrior girl thing is getting really old.

On the other hand, what's one customer lost to thousands gained?