Lately I rescued a dance mat from the dark ugly corners of my flat. It’s no surprise that straight away I booted up my lovely elite and dived on for some hardcore dancing mania!

I’ve had a passion for the dancing games since first meeting Dance Dance Revolution on the Playstation One back in the late 90’s. At that time my nagging parents had finally accepted my “silly obsession” with video games. The old “video games are a waste of time” lectures have worn off over time as the gaming industry has adopted physical exercise, expanding their market. Aspiring those who want to keep fit in their own homes and bringing fresh gamers to the scene it has resulted with new ideas such as the birth of the eye toy progressing in time with the new age that is the Nintendo Wii.

Now I do like to participate in sports and fitness but it’s quite hard when you consider:

* having to pay a stupid amount of money for the gym

* being too self concious to go for a run in your area

* playing basketball in your garden/street would annoy your neighbours

* treadmills are damn expensive for someone like me!

and so on so forth. So now I’ve got my 360 and my dance mat there shall be no excuses. It’s time to take on a personal project. To make up for the years of moan and groan of weight/health issues. To be able to run farther than just “across the road” without losing my breath. I call it “Project Dance” and this my friends is a regime that I am going to commit to. To prove something to myself as well as back up the idea of the dance mat being a fun alternative way for fitness at home.

Plus I want to complete the Quest mode!

… all bloomin’ night!

So I joined in the Frag Doll gaming marathon this weekend. I played, more or less solidly (only breaking when Kirsten took a break, with the odd  find-cover-and-nip-to-the-loo strategy thrown in for good measure) from around 10pm Saturday night until the finish-line of 10am Sunday morning. 12 hours of Rainbow Six. Twelve hours of shooting brilliance. It was for a good cause, and it was a good laugh (although, when you’ve been awake for 27 hours, anything’s brilliantly funny I think - even the mundane stuff like, you know, focusing) so here are the some of the things that I learnt last night:-

 * It took me twelve hours to get 300 multiplayer kills
* 100 shotgun kills didn’t take as long as I thought it would, so the other 200 must have taken me yonks.
* I hate the “Theater” map
* My post-death phrases involving defecation onto inanimate objects was brought into question. According to Kirsten, “more shooting of the bad guys, less shitting on a brick is what you need to do”
* Nestle’s Cookie Crisp is a very odd cereal.
* I managed to get promoted twice, once around the start of the night and once towards the end. A happy balance. And I’ll probably need those beautiful colours of camo. Especially if I could write “I played for 12 hours solid, and all I got was this lousy camo” upon it, and judging from the colour of it I’d need to be attacking a vomit factory.
* A full night of snow is nowhere near as deep as you think it will be when the sun comes up.
* When you’re tired, simple strategy (like peeking around corners before you blunder merrily in) goes completely out of the window.
* Reflexes are much faster when you pull off a snapshot against an approaching teammate than an approaching enemy. Praise the lord for friendly fire toggle!
* I love my bed!

If you’re like me, it goes like this, I buy a lovely new shiny game that I’ve wanted even before I knew it was being made, carefully pop it out of the case, gently place it into the disc drive and patiently wait for it to load up so it can take me on a wonderful gaming experience. Heaven!

It’s everything I expected and more, hours fly by, days, weeks, I’m devoted comitted and loyal to the masterpieces that I enjoy so much.

So why then do I start to suck at it, am I just bored of it? Too cocky? I start to question everything, have I lost my Gaming Mojo?

Noob faced noobs will start slaughtering me on multiplayers after months of perfecting my game, I wont remember the simplest puzzles and the easiest bosses will slay me even though I’ve kicked far superior butts than theirs in the wee hours of a Sunday morning with my eyes half shut.

I’ve realised the solution is simple and not wanting to sound like anybody’s Mum here it’s time to put down the controller (before I throw it at the wall) and do something else for a bit, something that requires no thought like watching T.V, going for a stroll or listening to friends talk about their relationship troubles.

While ones mind is blank, all those little brain electron thingies are whizzing around working on important things like gamers block, searching, analyzing and fixing the connections needed to get back in there and show that game who’s boss!