Over the past few years, there has been a noticeable decline in hardcore gaming in some areas of the industry; it has been an aspect of gaming that has unquestionably been challenged by Nintendo's casual crusade so to speak, with the release of such revolutionary hardware as the Nintendo DS and Wii. Games are becoming shorter in length, easier in difficulty, which many would say is undoubtedly an appeasement to the casual market -- but is there a new shift in the zeitgeist, a revertion to a golden era of gaming?

Notably, Square-Enix -- the bastion of traditional gaming is delivering an antithesis to the casual gaming phenomenon, it has just recently been announced that Chrono Trigger; arguably one of the greatest installments of the Japanese role-playing game genre is to be released on Nintendo's handheld, dual-screened console. This follows a string of remakes by the Japanese gaming giants, most notably remakes of Final Fantasy classics on the Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance as of late. Are Square-Enix really supplying a demand for pure, traditional gaming though, or are they just flogging a dead horse -- advocating a golden age of gaming in which they were supreme -- scared of the new age of casual, social gaming, in which they can't find their sense of place, an age were they don't seem to fit?

Many will be delighted at this apparent reversion to a different kind of gaming to today.

Perhaps people are quite tired of what they perceive as the gimmicks of today's industry, Wii Fit is good and all, but it doesn't deliver what initially attracted so many people to gaming -- and that factor is pure escapism, the feeling that you are interacting in a new world -- surreal as it may be, spending hours upon hours of leveling up my black mage in Final Fantasy will always be more satisfying then complimenting real life factors such as mental aptitude and physical feature -- perhaps that is a principle that has been lost in today's gaming industry.

Gaming today is increasingly based on real life issues and problems -- war, disease, terror. Whilst this is certainly not a bad thing, after all, gaming has as much potential as any other medium to deal with real life issues, it seems that the proportion of these types of games are too high, which sometimes leads to the fantasy aspect of gaming being neglected.

I think gaming is about taking the gamer through a journey, an adventure from start to finish -- delivering a fantasy within and beyond the player's bedroom -- the notion that game's such as Final Fantasy and The Legend of Zelda were built upon. So whilst I don't hate casual gaming (I've played many the hour on Wii Sports) I think, at least there should room in every console for traditional, time consuming, social life destroying game play.

Whether this kind of gaming, with punishing difficulty level catches on is up to the gaming public at large -- we have a decision -- we can rejoice at this rejuvenation, or merely ignore this slightly geeky gaming world of yesteryear.

Finally, after months of frantically completing last-minute coursework, and what seems to be an endless succession of textbooks to revise from, I am now at exams end, and now my 'blog' can officially begin, so seeing as it's is my introductory blog, I think it is best to tell you about myself:

Well, I'm 16 years old, I live in Middlesbrough, England, and I've just currently left secondary school (11-16 education), after a series of about 18 or so GCSE exams, and believe me, I'm exhausted, but no worries as I have a few months to do sweet nothing.

I'm planning on going into further education, and am hoping to take chemistry, biology, physics,maths and English literature, that is if i get the grades I want though, after college, who knows what the future holds.

As you've probably guessed, I'm into videogames, I've been heavily engrossed in Nintendo's hardware, and software, so naturally have a fondness over my Wii and DS, but I have dabbled in a few of the outings on the other twos' consoles, particularly, I really enjoy the Metal Gear series for a variety of reasons -- but hopefully, in the next few years, I'll broaden my horizens towards western games. What I mainly look for in a videogame is a strong, immersive storyline, fluid gameplay and excellent production values.

Forgive me if I'm a little happy, but school's out!

You may have seen me around general games discussion, GS UK board, and off-topic on GameSpot, and I have perhaps have been snappy and irritable, but I guess that is because of exam stress, but yeah, I'm liking GS a lot, I think it is perhaps the best gaming site for the community feel.

Also, because of the absence of exams, I'll be hitting up some reviews pretty soon, so please feel free to have a little flick through what I've wrote, and PM me if you think I need to improve.

That's MGN out!