Virtual Work: Jobs Better-Suited for Consoles
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I am fascinated by the fact that the mundane can become the fun-dane when done virtually. Games like Cooking Mama have proven that cute, anime-eyed characters and bright colors can make anything appealing: despite my hatred of cooking, I can’t help but want to play that game every time I see a screenshot of it.
The other day, I thought to myself, “They’re not capitalizing upon this concept nearly enough. People seem to like working when they’re not actually working.” Considering the growing popularity of casual gaming and the fact that there are a countless number of occupations to explore, I have comprised a list of professions that should make their way to consoles:
Handheld gaming devices have been the godsend to gamers on the go. They’ve been the perfect companions for those long trips to Grandma’s house or those quiet moments alone while on your lunch break at work. The current generation of portable devices allows us to not only play games, but indulge in all of our favorite forms of multimedia at any time, anywhere. But where do most people play? The results of a recent poll may surprise you…
In a somewhat surprising move to most of the gaming community, EA has decided to get rid of its casual gaming label. This comes as an attempt to recover from a financially disastrous quarter, in which they lost a net of $310 million. The Casual division, formed just over a year ago, barely had a chance to stretch its non-hardcore legs.
If you’re reading articles at GotGame, chances are you’ve played Super Mario World. If you haven’t, punch yourself. And then try to find a copy on eBay or something, because it’s a great game. For the rest of you SNES-literate readers, chances are you’ve kept up with the most recent run for the oval office. Well, the good folks over at Zensoft are in the exact same boat and have decided to showcase their appreciation for both Super Mario World and president-elect Barack Obama by creating Super Obama World.
The pen is allegedly mightier than the sword, but in Time Hollow for the Nintendo DS, a pen has the same powers as Doc Brown’s DeLorean or Bill & Ted’s phone booth. Even if the Back to the Future and Bill & Ted series are the only authorities you know on time travel, you should have no trouble with this game. Kiddies, it’s time to put away your flux capacitors and start practicing drawing time holes.
Did you know that there are some people out there who don’t play video games? By choice? It’s understandable, though. Jumping into gaming isn’t as easy as it used to be. Stick your grandpa in front of an online Counter-Strike match and he’ll look at the keyboard the same way a monkey would look at an algebra equation. And it hardly seems fair throwing him into the inevitable onslaught of spawn-killing delinquents. There’s hope for your Pap-Pap though, with the aid of the right introductory games. 
About a week ago, it was widely discussed that Quakers were gonna have a stab (I guess pacifists can’t have a stab at anything) at their own WoW-like MMO. But, as is the advice my daddy gave me: “don’t believe everything you read,” especially on the internets. But, seriously, how sweet would that be? We’re all so used to killing things in games, but we do it so rarely in real life. It would be a revolutionary game because…it would be so normal.
With last month’s release of Wii Music, Nintendo concludes its “Big Four” group of nontraditional games (Wii Sports, Wii Play, and Wii Fit being the previous three). Unfortunately for the Big N, its foray into the music game genre has been receiving less than stellar reviews, averaging a score of 60, according to Metacritic. Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s resident developer guru, has come out in support of his game. Which, he admits, may not really be a “game” at all, but rather something approaching a “musical arrangement engine.” It would appear that with Wii Music, Nintendo’s dogged pursuit of nongamers has finally resulted in a misstep, in spite of Miyamoto’s firm defense of his creation.