DAVID CAMERON has already made me cross, which perhaps is hardly surprising. The new Conservative leader was quoted recently as criticising “the music and computer games industry” for “churning out material that celebrates aggression and violence” — facile populism we could do without.

Now, as it happens, while urban music is not necessarily a speciality, I confess to enjoying the odd violent computer game. My current addiction is Conflict: Global Storm, a military-style shooter, published by Britain’s last remaining independent, SCi Entertainment.

Despite the violent nature of the game, it doesn’t make me or anyone I know any more aggressive — although one has to admit that women are not always impressed. Oh well.

The real reason Global Storm is compelling, though, is the actual gameplay. It is brain-teasingly (and finger-teasingly) difficult. That may not be everybody’s idea of leisure but it certainly isn’t worth Cameron banning it either.

In the game, a player has to manage four soldiers, who have to tackle a well-armed bunch of global terrorists with tanks and machine guns on their side. Crucially, each of the soldiers is controlled individually and a player can switch from the perspective of one to the other in an instant.

One minute you are crawling on the ground trying to knock out a tank; a key-press later and it’s time to play the part of a fellow squad member in the roof tops, providing covering fire. Sending a man in against the enemy alone is suicide (as it should be). The only way to succeed is to manage four perspectives simultaneously. Lose one soldier and the mission fails.

This kind of sophistication has only been possible relatively recently and demonstrates how far computer games have evolved. Twenty-five years ago the best games on offer were as basic as Pacman. Now, open-ended games such as The Sims or Civilization require players to carry incredibly complex strategies in their heads. Ask a player immersed in one of these strategy games what they’re working on and hundreds of goals, and sub-goals, will emerge.

Steven Johnson, an American academic, captures this point in his recent book Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making You Smarter, published by Penguin. Johnson holds that popular culture is getting more sophisticated and goes further to argue that it is behind steady improvements in Americans’ IQ scores. The last part of this argument is somewhat speculative but the growing complexity of popular culture is easy to demonstrate.

Johnson contrasts the single, linear plot lines of television programmes such as Starsky & Hutch with the multi-thread plots in Hill Street Blues and, more recently, programmes such as ER — where viewers are immersed in medical information that most don’t understand. The culmination of this ever-increasing complexity is, presumably, Lost, on Channel 4, which has left most viewers, lost.

Not all of popular culture is getting more sophisticated (think I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here!) but dismissing some computer games as violent misses the reason why people enjoy playing them. In defiance of Cameron, I intend to play on with Conflict: Global Storm, at least until my soldiers save the world for humanity.

• Swords and sorcery are fun when you are at a certain age. But while growing up is supposed to eradicate that sort of nonsense, Britons will doubtless flock to see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, a visually stunning adaptation of the C.S. Lewis tale.

  Yet it’s not clear whether Americans will take to another fantasy saga in the numbers required to allow the likeable Bob Iger, Disney’s chief executive. to claim success — and a healthy profit on his $150 million-odd (£86 million) investment. The Narnia chronicles are not as well known as J.R.R. Tolkien’s or J.K. Rowling’s work. Aside from Liam Neeson as the voice of Aslan, the lion, there are no stars to draw in crowds, however much one may like Tilda Swinton.

  Disney hopes that it may be able to film all seven Narnia books, creating a lucrative franchise to compete with Warner Brothers’ Potter juggernaut. It would be testament to a new creative energy at the now settled home of Mickey Mouse.

  In a complex world of video iPods and third-generation mobile phones, Disney’s advantage is that it has no particular distribution platforms to push. It would be unfair to judge Iger too harshly if Narnia underperforms in the US but in the long run he has to make Disney, whatever it does, compelling viewing.