Dial the time back to 1993. I've just come out of college, and computers are things that schools have, businesses have, but people don't. Well, we have Spectrums and Commodore 64s, but the idea of almost everyone having their own laptop...that's a long way off. I was teaching at my old school back then, and the music department had just bought itself some high-end PC to run composition software. Naturally, I wanted to see what games came with the package, and soon found myself wasting many a precious hour of what should have been preparation on the likes of Spider Solitaire and Hearts.

Now let's move the dial on the best part of twenty years. Within my sight are the following items:

1. This laptop, filled to bursting with any number of games. Then there's the internet, gateway to thousands of games featuring addictive gameplay and great graphics, all with minimal load times.

2. My cell phone. Not an awesome gaming device by any means, but certain things still get an airing, especially when I fancy a bit of Jewel-style gaming.

3. My PS2. Old, battered, on its last legs, but still providing relentlessly enjoyable games at very low prices. I've spent thousands of hours ploughing through Final Fantasy RPGs, any number of sports games, the Champions of Norrath series at every difficulty level...The thing is a workhorse of gaming genius.

4. An advert for Skyrim, currently lighting up PCs, PS3s, and XBox360s everywhere. When I haven't heard from many of my friends for some time, this is probably why.

5. My iPad. Currently my gaming platform of choice, because I'm away from home so much, I find the whole world of iPad gaming to be completely compelling. It's a fantastic platform for gaming of many kinds, but especially so for board games, where it's so perfectly positioned it's untrue. Great at automatically knowing all the rules, great at all the tedious 'accounting' bits of games, clever enough to provide a worthy AI challenge to most players, an amazing screen to bring everything to life, and a blistering processor that means every game takes way less time than the real thing. Plus, it's always there when friends can't be.

Things have definitely moved on somewhat since 1993, and it's hard to believe that Hearts was once the apparent height of wonders. This brings us to Modern Art the card game, a simplistic affair that has been ported across to the iPad.

From the moment you see the ghastly graphics as the game table opens up, you're instantly transported back to 1993. The game involves playing cards representing five modern artists. As each card is played, the popularity of that artist goes up, and the idea is that the players take account of what artists the others are 'buying', and play their own cards accordingly. At the end of each round, points are awarded according to the popularity of the different artists. There are a few small twists to the basic idea, including drawing extra cards, playing a second card on your turn...

There's certainly some small degree of skill to be applied, but why you'd want to is way beyond my powers of deduction to guess. The interface is rancid, with fiddly card selection being followed by having to press the giant Play button in the corner. No sweeping cards to the center of the table like, let's say, an actual iPad game made with care and attention.

A while back I reviewed Medici for iPad. That too is a fairly simple game. It's also wonderful. This, most emphatically, isn't. In 1993, if it came free with your PC, you might spend half an hour working out that you never want to play it again. In 2011, paying anything other than nothing for that information is a price not worth paying for a game not worth playing.