by Gavin Smith

Created on: March 05, 2008

The blinking green button of bliss is never far from my person or my thoughts. Of all the drugs I've tried, from home-brew with a soupcon of mildew to the auto-administered opium attached to my hospital bed, the button is the purest. It can take you up and it can bring you down. It will leave no trace in your blood or urine, though it can leave your eyes bloodshot and your bladder full enough to cut through steel. It is not only legal, it is available off-prescription. You don't need to smoke, inject or swallow it. It can make you a social pariah; not because you'll mug old ladies or contract Hep C, but simply because you'll cease to see the point of leaving the house or talking to anyone other than the postman when he brings you new thrills.

There is a moderately expensive start-up cost, but overall it's cheaper than any other addiction. Most impressively of all, it allows the user to achieve something that has eluded cutting-edge physicists: time travel. I don't want to overstate my case. The button cannot give you a ringside seat at the Battle of Agincourt or allow you to stay in and catch up on some grouting on the night you would have met your horrid ex. But it can magically turn hours into minutes without fail. The user might ask their partner for a nice cup of cha and, supposedly six minutes later, pick up a stone-cold mug of treacle and realise that said partner has been sensibly asleep for at least five hours and the birds outside are greeting the dawn with their usual dumb efficiency.

Of course, the true user will consider the motions of the vulgar universe as nothing set against the power of the button. Let this spinning rock to which we are pinned by enigmatic forces roll around its axis one more time. The universe is old, infinity beckons, and I'm sure if I return to the Cave of Mighty Draughts, I can secure the Brazen Dwarf's Boots of Escaping. Or if that's not to my taste, I'm sure to beat Schumacher's time around Hockenheim on my 93rd attempt now that I'm carrying 1% less front downforce and have scrubbed in the slicks. Otherwise, I'll recharge my depleted neutronium exo-skeleton and disapparate with my plasma rifle. I could stop, but who would save humankind then?

I am, of course, talking about computer games. I've been a gamer since as a thoroughly bookish and socially incompetent teen I played Elite on the BBC Micro and lost hundreds of hours blazing a path between distant stars as a privateer starship captain. I mercifully lost the habit at

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