When life gives you lemons, video games can be the escape we need

Dominik Diamond hasn't had the best month - but scampering around in a virtual world full of robot dinosaurs has at least given him a break

The worst thing about video games is also the best thing: their addictiveness. When you find the right one? The rest of the world can go to hell. That helped me as a child: I could use them to escape the more painful parts of growing up. Parents didn't fight in Manic Miner. You didn't have to worry about Stephen Gibson battering you on the way home from school in Chuckie Egg.

As a parent of young kids, I was a dreadful hypocrite, always saying they should be doing something more worthwhile than playing Mario Kart - even though, when they would ask me like WHAT, Dad?", the only answer I could think of was the stuff the other parents brag about their kids doing on Facebook".