I adored Ms. Pac Man. There was something about that coy yellow figure with the red bow that would have me entranced for hours. She was sassy and feisty and could get along just fine without Pac Man. I'd pop quarter after quarter in the machine just to keep her chomping dots and chasing ghosts.

Back then (um, 1986) I justified video games as a method of improving my hand-eye coordination - if only Steven Johnson had written Everything Bad is Good For You when I was 13 - but today video games do much more than that. Recent research has found that kids who play video games often have increased perception and their brains can analyze things faster.