We need a new word for videogames. The term was coined back in the 1970s to describe something that at the time was a completely new and revolutionary artform (it must be barely conceivable to today's gamers that there was a time in living memory when such things as games played on a TV screen simply didn't exist), and the image it conjured up was a straightforward one of Asteroids, Pac-Man and Space Invaders – that is, an abstract, magical, ultra-modern type of entertainment, born in technology and totally unrelated to any kind of leisure pursuit that had ever gone before it.

The very word "videogame" inherently depicted something that was exciting, glamorous and – because most games were located in arcades, places where under-18s weren't allowed – slightly forbidden and dangerous too.

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Well, it's all been happening in the world of the 3DS since WoSland decreed it relevant by deciding to get one last week. Nintendo are talking about stick-on second analogue pads, brand-new models with the 3D effect toned down, and trailing mysterious big announcements for the Tokyo Game Show that sent the beleaguered company's stock soaring.

Obviously WoSland is flattered that its Seal Of Grudging Sort-Of Approval has generated such dramatic activity, but much more important than that is the fact that my 3DS now has a game to play. So how's that gone?

Since it's apparently Namco Week here at WoSland, let's find out.

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You may have seen David Cameron on the news today, anointing himself head of the "New Moral Army", promising a "fightback" against rioters, and praising (at 0.53) "the million people on Facebook who've signed up to support the police". The group in question was created, and is run, by this lovely chap:

That doesn't seem quite the sort of "morality" the Prime Minister should be getting behind, does it? But there are more rib-ticklers where that came from.

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Quickly rounding up some of the more interesting reflections on (and in some cases, prescient predictions of) recent events. By all means send any you've spotted that I've missed and I'll add them.

Riots: the underclass lash out (Daily Telegraph)

"Meanwhile, the view is gaining ground that social democracy, with its safety nets, its costly education and health care for all, is unsustainable in the bleak times ahead. The reality is that it is the only solution."

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If anyone ever doubted the uselessness of the modern videogames media, consider this – when you're working in the specialist press, and your only job is to bring people news related to videogames, how shit must you be if you get scooped at reporting videogame news by the Metro?

But that's only passingly what I want to talk about today.

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I've been racking my brains for most of this afternoon, because it's too humid to do anything that involves physical movement. I've drawn a blank, so I figured I may as well ask the millions of readers of WoSland for help.

Can anyone think of a single really good shmup in the entire history of gaming that's ever been created by an English-speaking developer?

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Readers of a spiritual or elderly bent may be aware of the parable of the Deck Of Cards. (You can listen to a splendidly reverby take of Wink Martindale's definitive version by clicking this convenient link here.)

But you don't have to go back to the 1950s for a similarly instructive metaphor for the contemporary age. Because the iOS game Coin Dozer serves, if you don't want to carry around a bulky copy of Das Kapital, as a bible of the modern capitalist world. Shut up, it's not bollocks.

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In all the hubbub about the 3DS price cut, little has been made of Nintendo's compensation package for "3DS Ambassadors", by which they'll all get 20 free Virtual Console titles, split equally between old NES and GBA games. Just a nice offer to make peace with people who might feel a bit ripped off, right?

The problem with the package, however, is that it might be a bit too good.

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I get the feeling that Nintendo just don't understand what's happening to them any more. They're doing what they've always done, and what's made them swillions of dollars for the last half-decade, but the public just aren't biting this time. And now the gaming giant's nerve has cracked altogether.

Today's announcement that the company is to slash the trade price of the stumbling 3DS by a third, just four months after release, has taken everyone by surprise. But it really shouldn't have.

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Admired WoSland acquaintance and slow reader John X has a piece today on the estimable Rock, Paper, Shotgun about gaming revenues. Obviously it's mostly focused on the PC and is therefore of limiSNNOOOORRRRRE.

Eh? What happened? Where am I? Oh yeah – the PC part of the story is of course epically uninteresting because it's about the PC, but there's a much more intriguing and zeitgeisty fact buried away in the passing.

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Celebrated WoSland associate and cloth-tasted idiot John X has been given free rein on Eurogamer today to spout a load of witless nonsense about the awful cancerous blight on the face of videogaming (and of all humanity) that is the galactically abysmal Tomb Raider Legend.

In the interests of balance and the correction of record, WoSland here presents the opposing view, retrieved from the National Archive Of Sanity.

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1. Because the difficulty has been tweaked so that the normal mode doesn't take forever to get going (which also mostly mitigates the absence of Time Attack, since you'll rarely last more than six minutes anyway).

2. Because you get both iPhone/iPod and iPad versions together in a single purchase for the absurdly low price of £1.19.

3. And most importantly, because they've taken out Quest Mode.

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Occasionally, dismally stupid internet twats whine moronically at me that I never admit to being wrong about anything. There are numerous idiotic flaws in that argument, but just so that we've got an example on the record for future reference: I was definitely wrong about the price of the PSP2.

And as a bonus, even though I never actually said this in writing anywhere: I was also wrong in believing, as I did, that Sony would surely never burden it with a name as monumentally, clatteringly shit as "Playstation Vita".

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I don't know, because I'm not going to count them. But if the latest opinion poll is correct (and it's a big "if"), the electoral map of the Scottish Parliament is going to look rather different in two weeks' time:

65 seats are needed for a majority in the Parliament, and the Greens support an independence referendum, so if these figures are accurate the possibility of Scotland seceding from the UK will suddenly get an awful lot more real. And a Tory-led government in Westminster has already seen support for independence surge by almost 50%, to level pegging with those opposed to it.

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I was out and about today, and finally saw a 3DS in action for the first time. As billed, the 3D effect is absolutely gobsmacking, but even after just a few minutes I was finding it quite tiring on my eyes and I imagine the novelty will largely wear off after a couple of days, leaving you with a very pricey way to play Ridge Racer and Super Monkey Ball again. But not quite THIS pricey:

What in the name of Canaan Banana is going on here?

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