A Note From a Non-Gamer

I'm not much of a gamer. Really the only thing I play with any regularity is The Sims. Growing up, we had a Nintendo, a Super Nintendo and an N64. By the time the next console came out - whatever it was - I had sort of lost interest in video games. This Christmas, though, we got a Wii.

An interesting thing about the Wii is that they - Nintendo - have advertised it as the system for everyone. Hardcore gamers, someone who has never played a game in his or her life, and everyone in between. Nintendo, I'd have to respectfully disagree.

One game I love is Mario Kart. I played the SNES version about a million times, and since we own the N64 version, I've spent countless hours playing it over the years. For Christmas we got Mario Kart Wii, and I was psyched. But to my dismay, I discovered that you have to unlock certain characters, vehicles and even tracks. In order to unlock these items, you have to win place first in a Grand Prix race. Now, to be fair, they make it incredibly easy for you to win, at least in the 50 cc races (which are the easiest). I still have to make it through the 100 cc and 150 cc races in order to have access to everything.

I really don't like this. As I said, I'm not much of a gamer. Chances are I won't be able to win first place in those 150 cc races, or possibly even the 100 cc races. I think it's silly that in order to have 100% access to a game I paid for, I have to win these challenges that I don't have the skills for. That's one reason I loved that Mario Karts past - you just turn it on and play. There's no story or boss to beat - you just race.

Unfortunately, this seems to be a trend in Nintendo games. We recently got Mario Party 8, and again - you have to unlock certain characters and boards to play. This is really frustrating. I can understand doing the unlocking thing for games designed for hardcore gamers, who actually have the skills to unlock these items. But for those of us who aren't, it's just annoying.

I officially feel like the biggest nerd for blogging about video games, but there you have it. I swear I'm not really a nerd. Really!