... is what I really crave!

Don’t get me wrong here, I do love a good game with a good story, and lots of game play variety. Fighting and puzzling my way through the entire castle and grounds, only to find out that my nemesis is my distorted twin brother. Unfortunately I like to sit down and play my way straight through these games, maybe pausing to eat and sleep but certainly not for trivial things like leaving the vicinity of my own home. So what to do when you just don’t have the free time?

Play mindless, repetitive, and above all easy games. Games that allow you to play, go away, and then replay. Like Hexic, or my new all time favourite, the PDA stick man game out of Alien Hominid. Who would have thought that once I reached level 100 there would be more? Who would have thought that repeating a 20 second sound byte over and over wouldn’t drive me insane? Who would have thought that after all the evolving gaming has done that this is what I’d still find myself drawn back too??

I call it Minesweeper Syndrome. You love it, you hate it, but yet you have to beat your top score on expert on a daily basis. Why?? Because you can. These games are so easy, and so much more interactive then a Sudoku (foolish world, think of all those potential paper cuts…), you just can’t help but be reeled in. 

In Hexic I have managed to complete the game, with a friend, by getting three black pearls together. I didn’t do this on my online tag (stupidly), there is no point looking. So now I must do it again, for the visual points. Then I will have to do it again for the glory, and then again to see if I can make even more black pearls and move them around the screen without ending the game whilst still making flowers.

However, my lust for mini game action did not allow me to enjoy Super Monkey Ball. I was unsure about this one, but I got it anyway in the sales as I had heard good things. Enter sofa worth of friends and many cups of tea, and the fun has begun ... or not as the case maybe. I think the problem was too much choice. Do I want to play tennis or go canoeing, do I want to play in this mode or that, do I want computer players on or off? AHHHHHHH! I have had hours of fun playing four player Mashed, but Super Monkey Ball just didn’t get the same response. Strengthening my ‘too much choice’ theory as Mashed is all the same. Sure the tracks change, but the weapons and insults never do.

Mindless mini games I salute you, unless you are trying to hard, in which case sod off!