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| Help Wanted: Forget Unemployment! Hudson Giving Gamers New Jobs This Summer |
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Mini-game collections are to Nintendo what RPGs once were to Sony. Every time you turn around, a new mini-game themed title is hitting Wii or DS, some with more success than others. The idea of bite-sized gaming isn't new, but it has certainly sparked a renaissance on Nintendo's consoles. In one sense, short-form games are the roots of the entire pastime, going back to the days where you played as long as your skill and supply of quarters allowed. The revolution may be more of an evolution then, but the new idea is that people with limited skill want to feel that surge of excitement and challenge that ordinarily is the hallmark of arcade titles.
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Help Wanted fits nicely into the casual, mini-game genre and shows signs of being a better-than-average representative of the breed. Usually what sinks these games is a combination of oddball gameplay and poor controls. The subject matter can be quirky, but it can't be too abstract. On the flip-side, just offering a denatured version of Galaga or some other classic arcade hit repackaged as a casual game doesn't cut the mustard. The controls have to be basic enough to be grasped quickly and intuitively, and they have to be implemented perfectly. Help Wanted scores well on the first count, with mini-games built around jobs that people might actually have in real life (Farmer, Tailor) or might enjoy picturing themselves doing (Stunt Person, Body Builder). There is even the purely whimsical, Haunted House Crew, that involves jumping out from a hiding place in a spooky old house to scare passersby.
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On the second count, the requirement that controls be intuitive, Help Wanted takes a different approach than some others in this genre. Many games use both the Wii-mote and Nunchuk, mapping control elements across several buttons and motion controls. The extent to which this makes Help Wanted feel less like a casual game that you pick up and play will depend on the player. Arcade veterans looking for mindless fun will find it here, and won't think twice about the controls. Newbies looking for an approachable party game may have to practice a few times to get up on job like Dairy Farmer, where you have to synch up-and-down motions in both hands with button presses in both hands. The payoff for two players is good mutual fun, but we'll be excited if up to four can compete in the final version.
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Offering up to 50 job mini-games, the final version of Help Wanted will likely be a success on a platform where casual gaming is "pre-sold" to a large portion of its installed base. Not to overgeneralize, but pre-tweens and boomers are the most likely target market for Help Wanted. Compared to more involved "job" games like Order Up or outright simulations that have appeared on Wii, Help Wanted strikes us as a nice middle ground. Whether that nice-to-have quality becomes something more viral and must-have when the full version releases in Summer 2009 remains to be seen. In the meantime, don't quit your day-job...
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-Fridtjof, GameVortex Communications AKA Matt Paddock |
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