It seems like ever since I first set my thumbs to a gamepad many years ago, I’ve been defending video gaming as a valid entertainment medium that goes far deeper than just allowing us to live out pixilated fantasies involving violence, anti-social behaviour and — more often than not — elves and barbarians.

I’m not saying there isn’t gratuitous gore, bloodshed and violence in most of today’s popular game titles (in fact, I admittedly turn all my gore settings to “ridiculous” if possible in a game). It’s just that I’m not convinced video games are any more harmful to youth than rock music, racy movies or horror comics were to kids in the past.

Speaking as a person who has devoted a great deal of time, money and storage space to video gaming as a hobby, I love shooting things (in games), blowing them up (again, in the games), as well as eviscerating with swords, chainsaws, Batarangs, cars or whatever is handy and available in a game.

But much as I enjoy the old Warner Brothers Roadrunner and Coyote cartoons and have yet to drop an ACME anvil on anyone’s head, I also have never shot, blown up or eviscerated anyone.

Whether I’ve used a Batarang for violence is between me, the people at that unfortunate Halloween party and the staff of the late night clinic.

But the point is that gaming, like books or movies, is just fantasy – an escape from the real world.

Gaming just puts you in the driver’s seat, whether it be as a soldier at war, scientist caught up in an alien invasion, or even a character from literature like Lord of the Rings or the Conan stories.

See, elves and barbarians — I told you.

But, as a story at Discover Magazine points out, recent studies say gaming also improves hand-eye coordination, navigational skills, and not only challenges manual dexterity, but mental dexterity as well.

It seems at least one institution of higher learning agrees that gaming is more helpful than harmful, and now has all its freshmen assigned the first-person game “Portal” as required “reading.”

I used to cut university classes to play video games and now they’re actually forcing students to play them.

Life is so unfair sometimes.

So, Wabash College in Indiana had Portal added to the curriculum for “Enduring Questions,” a required seminar for all new students that acclimates them to critical readings and discussions in a college environment.

Portal is an award-winning and critically acclaimed first-person-shooter (FPS) from Valve Corporation, where you don’t actually shoot anything.

Essentially it’s a puzzle game in which the character must solve scenarios using a teleporter gun, all while being antagonized by an annoying computerized female voice with attitude.

That sort of sounds like every call I’ve ever made to a company’s customer support line… well, without the teleporter gun, of course.

But considering that gaming has gone from being first regarded as a lowly and pathetic geek pastime to being maligned as brainwashing children to kill, it’s great to see my hobby come out from the shadows, become mainstream (the gaming industry now dwarfs even Hollywood in terms of sales) and shed the stereotypes by becoming a part of the higher education process.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to boot up my gaming computer, get comfortable and go stab some elves in the face.

But it’s OK, I’m really learning about… mythology. Really.