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Remember the good old days of video games? Where cute, harmless and completely unbelievable and mythical characters would tackle zany adventure in make-believe worlds far away from our own? Those days are long gone, now. Today, many video games created for the Xbox 360 use real world events as their source of inspiration. Video games used to be a diversion from reality, and now, they are another window into it. Depending on your vantage point, that can be very good or very bad indeed.

Take a look at one of the most popular video game franchises in history: Super Mario Bros. A plumber falls through a pipe and enters a world where he must rescue a princess, defeat and evil monster and navigate a world full of mushrooms, blocks, question marks and goombas. No matter how imaginative one's imagination could be, there is simply no way that such an occurrence could happen in this world, like, for real. So, the illusion of the game remains intact.

Now, if you look at today's video games for popular systems like the Microsoft Xbox 360 or the Sony Playstation Portable, you can clearly see that video games are now using real world issues as their premise. Now, there are always a dearth of video games that are still fantasy based, and there always will be. But, more and more games are using Iraq as their setting rather than a mushroom kingdom. Now, if you look at video games through the past, and place yourself at the dawn of the home video game explosion - the early 1980s - it would be hard to imagine a video game dealing with, say for example, the Iran hostage crisis or the invasion of the Falkland Islands. But, today, there are many video games using current events as a fantasy gaming world.

There are many theories as to the dearth of reality-based video games. The improvement of video game graphics can makes it easier to make real world wars, conflicts and issues appear that much, more, real, on the screen. Perhaps it's easier to steal an idea from the world of today than it is to create a whole new world with plot, characters, functions, missions, etc. It could just be a method to appeal to angry gamers who want to fight the real world enemy, but don't want to leave the comforts of their living room bunker. In the latter instance, at least, it can make for a quick way to make a quick dollar.

It used to be easy to distinguish video games from reality. Reality had problems and issues, and there was nothing you could do about it. Video games, like the Microsoft Xbox 360, allow you to be the ultimate ruler of the universe contained within. Idea: why not combine the two, and give a video game player the complete control that video games provide into a real world situation in which otherwise, they feel powerless?

It seems that today, a gamer can watch the news, get upset and then do something about it in the real world that exists inside their Sony PSP or Xbox. The merits of such a union is a matter for another debate altogether.

Playstation Portable