I had my first lesson in just how amazingly compelling the Nintendo DS is last weekend when I stayed at my parents’ house with my brother and girlfriend. My brother instantly loved it, playing Mario 64 minigames all the way to Suffolk on the train. He liked it so much that he actually bought one the very next day - his first ever console purchase (having long-term borrowed mine for years).

But it was my mum that really surprised me - she saw Zookeeper and, having never shown interest in games before she asked to have a go. She enjoyed it so much that later on, after supper, she asked how you switched it on - and spent the rest of the evening engrossed. And that wasn’t all. The next day, my grandma came round and asked to have a go too. Reaction times aside she wasn’t too bad either.

It’s rather special that the DS has this effect. I hoped it might but didn’t think it would be quite so pronounced. It shows that those arcane traditional videogame control conventions of directional buttons, X, A and START really do alienate people that are open to the idea of playing videogames after all.