Wired: “The Casual Game Has Gone Too Far”

Wired writes:

Does anyone still play Nintendogs?

The game with the cute puppies you can touch and play Frisbee with brought the Nintendo DS into countless hands when it was released in 2005, moving millions of units. Suddenly, handhelds were flying off the shelves, and videogame fanatics finally had the means to spread our gaming gospel to those who would have none of it for years.

I picked up my own copy with the first DS I bought, to get a taste of the phenomenon. And I legitimately enjoyed it, much as I enjoyed the Tamagotchi I once owned. That is to say, I enjoyed it for about a week before shelving it. I passed it along when I bought someone a DS Lite as a present to introduce them to my passion, shovelware to complement New Super Mario Bros and Meteos.

Don’t get me wrong, I get it: Casual games are the bait, the proverbial foot-wetting that leads the uninitiated to the deep end of the pool. Enjoying Brain Age? Why not try Professor Layton. Wii Sports got you and your friends all riled up? Good news, here’s Mario Strikers. And now, this?

Every year during E3 season, when the latest me-too hi-res shooter, debuting on whatever next-gen console, attempts to do what my self-built gaming rigs have been doing for years, I take comfort in the fact that Nintendo and any third-party developers toeing the line will provide something new, and fun, and different.

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