Gaming is normally covered by news outlets as one of the worst threats to our Way of Life imaginable, guilty for murder, destruction and the general destruction of the human race as we know it.

So it’s always nice when there’s a single thing in the mainstream press that manages to be both positive and reasonably interesting.

Well, more interesting than Cooking Mama selling four million. Four million.

Shock of all shocks, there have been at least three whole stories reported on by real news places over the last week, all of which avoiding the urge to decry gaming as the arbiter of doom and one even slating Keith Vaz. Amazing.

Anyone flicking through The Guardian yesterday may have noticed the full-page spread with an accompanying picture of Grand Theft Auto IV (points for originality: nil).

Most would think: “Oh dear god not again, we all know it causes everyone to kill everyone. Get over it.” But quiet, you fool, for this is the bastion of truth, justice and liberalism that is The Grauniad.

Nay, this time the paper were covering a story championing the cause of British development types, who do not enjoy the same tax cuts as those in other, possibly better, countries. Like Canada.

There was even a dig at Keith Vaz, a rubbish Member of Parliament who tends to slate games all the time, like a rubbish version of Jack Thompson.

Moving to the States, we see yet another positive piece from a real news place – even though it involves kids playing games in school, which would surely cause any normal hack to start frothing at the mouthgash. Will the madness never end?

Probably not, because teaching kids how to drive safely by playing Mario Kart Wii is already pretty much a new plateau of madtitude.

Finally we have the brief mention of the Videogame Nation exhibition at Manchester’s Urbis in most British papers, adding credence to the notion that games can indeed be classed as art.

Whatever “art” is.

So yes, Beyond Good and Evil 2 may not be being shown at this year’s E3, and no, some of us can’t actually go to E3, and yes, some of us want another sandwich but have run out of bread, but at least there’s some half-decent reportage of gaming news for once.

While we could hope this is the beginning of a new era where The Daily Mail tells us how Manhunt is actually a fine exploration of true stealth mechanics, we know it isn’t.

Next week it’ll be back to normal and there’ll probably be some fine Keith Vaz quotes to throw around. Ah well.

THIS WEEK: We wondered how much progress could be made on a game, and how it would be possible for the collective consciousness that is “we” to successfully play through Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena. Apparently it isn’t – it will have to remain an activity for the fabled “I”.

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