We have all been there. A certain portion of a game we recently got, that is so damn tough it feels as if you will never ever ever pass it and it will continue to mock your inadequacy. I'm looking at you Ninja Gaiden. But anyway, when the time came that we WERE able to pass that area and move on, we felt great satsifaction, relief, and triumphant. This, apparently, was not the way to do things according to Nintendo and their new system they are putting into the works. They are putting major effort into a new type of game where you mostly watch what is happening and participate when you feel you want to or want to try and, yknow, play the game or something. So its more like a DVD that has those little commentary things that pop up and you select it to get some info or a funny scene or what have you, then you continue watching. This is not a game, a game needs interaction, participation by the player to be considered a game. What Nintendo is doing has gone beyond casual, to coddling.

I know some games have hard portions in them but that is what we expect. Its a challenge to us as gamers to overcome said obstacles through skill and perseverance and a bit of luck. Why would you take that away from gamers? I mean, even casual gamers must need a bit of challenge in their Cooking Mama right? And if you don't challenge them, how can they learn and grow and perhaps even move onto more mainstream and challenging type games? You deny them the very learning blocks they would use to try out new genres and expand their horizons. And yet they are producing what is in essence very long cutscenes that you can choose to jump in and play at whatever time, and back out again if you feel you got in over your head. You blur the line of what is a game even further to the point that your shouting at the stupid guy on Blue's Clues to where the hell the objects are he is searching for on the TV.

Perhaps its unfair to judge such a huge step back in gaming experience and see it as something positive, and even gentler step into the world of gaming, though at this point I am not sure how much easier it can be made, except to have them get the disc and insert it and the ending comes up automatically saying you won.

A challenging game is not a bad thing, nor should it be seen as a roadblock to getting into games. If people really gave up after only one or two tries at a game, then maybe games just aren't for them. There isn't really a need to dumb it down to a level of interactive videos. And what of multiplayer games? Will we all just be playing against avatars we made and let loose in a map? Where is the bragging rights in that? Or the community for that matter? I mean, can an AI trash talk or make you feel inadequate if you miss a shot and they hit you instead? I think not.

This is a step in the wrong direction for games. There is easy and gentle learning curves, then there is making you sit down and watch how it's done and drink your juice box.