Between the 21st October and the 25th February the London Science Museum is hosting the Game On exhibit, investigating the history, technology and culture that has defined computer games from the early 60's to the present day. This is an excellent idea, as an otherwise under-represented and often maligned multi-billion dollar certainly deserves some consideration in terms of its place in the growth of popular culture. The venerable institution of the science museum certainly gives this broad and weighty subject a good effort, but two tiny factors are against it making a useful contribution from the start. Firstly, the Science Museum is an august institution of family-orientated learning and hard science, not so much design or entertainment, which would be found around the corner at the Victoria & Albert Museum. The second factor can be found at the bottom of all the leaflets and posters - 'Proudly Sponsored by Nintendo'.

It was, of course, my mistake to attend the show during half term. During term time whilst those under the age of 16 are rightfully imprisoned behind indoctrination desks in educational facilities across the country, the Science Museum is a fairly quiet affair, perused by curious adults and the occasional wide eyed pre-schooler. Wednesday 25th of October, was, however smack dab during a half-term break, so the place had descended into a heaving bedlam of sweaty tracksuits hopping from foot to foot clutching the last third of a Mars bar, pram gridlocks, super-caffeinated tweenies, and proportionately frazzled parents looking forward to going back to work on Monday. After navigating a cue that had started from the local tube station simply to get through the front door I was faced with the ADHD wing of hell that was the ticketing cue. This was the time to start finding out how much weight the name of Luke Guttridge - philosopher, philanthropist, lover of women, editor extraordinaire - held with the press desk. It is a rare and beautiful feeling to walk past an hour and a half long queue, and then past another further two hour queue, under the gaze of about two thousand 14 year olds that think the peak of a cap should be worn perpendicular to the direction of travel.

The exhibit itself is divided between five large rooms, with ten thematic areas: Early Arcade, Top Ten, Game Genres, Sound, Cinema, Game Culture, Japan, Multiplayer, Kids, Design, Marketing, Magazines, and The Future.

It is the first room, Early Arcade, which probably has the closest to actual cultural consideration and useful introspection. It is also full of completely nonplussed 8 year olds with tolerant expressions on their faces being dragged around by excitable 36 year old parents shouting "Oh Wow - Missile Command!" There are entire PhD's written about early arcade culture, and in this room you can certainly see why - the innovation and love that these dinosaurs of digital entertainment were made with was never matched again. Presented in their original wooden cabinets, 18 pristine coin-op machines bang out ray traced nostalgia for anyone old enough to remember it. The air is already heavy with the tweenies cheap perfumes and deodorants and I'm tempted to try humming some John Denver or Sex Pistols to see if I can throw one of the parents into a full flashback to the 70's. The walls surrounding the cluster of 8-bit masterpieces have enormous timelines painted on them showing when the major developments were made, and compare them with what else was going on in the world. Some interesting synchronicities are brought to light this way: you can't tell me that Richard Nixon leaving the White House the same year as Tanks came out is any more of a coincidence than Sodastream coming out at the same time as Space Invaders was. Wheels within wheels I tell you. Despite my paranoid interpretation of the timeline, it is probably one of the most informative instillations in the whole show. 1987, for instance, saw the Engine, 1, R-Type, Street Fighter, Maniac Mansion, Leisure Suit Larry and the start of the AIDS campaign on TV. Games certainly take a lot longer to produce now than they did back in the day, but to have so many completely seminal titles in a year illustrates the vibrancy the industry used to have, and how in many ways the new technological demands and prowess of games products are providing its own entropy. Along with the timeline there are confessions and recollections from the gamers of the days, which often times can be read between the lines to reveal he blames not having sex for the whole of 1986 on Arkenoid. The misty-eyed enthusiasm some of these anecdotes recall is genuinely heart warming, these old-school gamers associating the glory days of their childhoods with that little yellow spherical man being chased by ghosts and eating dots.

Absolutely everyone else in the room, however, is either freaking right out about original Xevious and remembering when they had hair, or looking totally bored that the games look crap and don't seem to have any celebrity voices in them. Only myself and one mature gent, who on enquiry turns out to be 74, were vaguely interested in what the exhibits actually have to say, which is a shame. This section was probably the height of any actual cultural reference, and it goes downhill from there.

The next section is the curiously named 'Top Ten', which is actually about the birth, rise and rise of the home console market. To the show's credit, each and every console is working and playable, as the temptation to keep original controllers out of the sticky hands of the public must have been quite powerful. The consoles themselves are all mounted below monitors in Perspex boxes, with small tags in the corner describing their date, provenance, and relevant factoid. This has the slightly surreal effect of making each console look like a work of art to be considered: Exhibit 12: MagnaVox Odyssey, 1972, Molded Plastic, Circuit Boards, Electricity. A harrowing portrayal of mans folly of trusting technological prowess over marketing or common sense.