Why the hardcore/casual claims are nothing but a myth.

We have been hearing that this is casual, that that is hardcore and so on since all of the current generation of consoles were released. I never believed those claims. To be honest I didn't want to since I always fancied myself to be a hardcore gamer - but I wanted a Wii. In these current times hardcore and Wii don't go together in the same sentence unless it's in the negative. Two years since the launch of the Wii and the word casual is being used more often than the name of the console itself. 

Here's my story and how I came to the conclusion that in fact there is no such thing as a hardcore/casual game/gamer. 

Even though the Wii's launch line-up was anything but stellar and even though I had already purchased Twilight Princess on the GameCube I still bought the Wii - along with Twilight Princess and WiiPlay for the extra controller in February of 2007. After a good 5 hours with it I concluded that in fact I was not a hardcore gamer because I was having tons of fun with WiiSports. Plus my dad, who turns 69 in February, played WiiSports Tennis as well; the first time in his life he ever touched a videogame controller!

Although I noticed two major differences in the way my dad played WiiSports and the way I played it. My dad only touched it if he was playing against someone else and for 10-minute bursts only whereas I, on the other hand, played it to death. I got a 'Pro' level on every sport, unlocked every Training mode and beat my own high scores several times.

So is Wii Sports casual? If you only saw my dad play and how he played it then yes the game is casual. It is hardcore then? It could be since I played the crap out of it for hours on end. But it is neither casual nor hardcore - and for that matter no videogame is. It's in the way you play it.

Let's take another sports title as an example and I will elaborate more on my claim then. Electronic Arts releases yearly version of almost all popular sports for all available platforms. It's FIFA games are yearly top sellers despite have very minor differences from yesteryear's version. Last year I took the plunge and bought FIFA08 on the Wii without doing any research on it whatsoever before. If I did, I wouldn't have bought it. Why? It had one of it's most prominent modes missing - Manager Mode. I was pretty disappointed, barely playing it more that 30 minutes daily. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

See the difference? The way I played the games Wii Sports ended up being so called 'hardcore' whereas FIFA08 ended up being 'casual'. What we must understand is that the games themselves are not casual or hardcore, it's the way we play them. Even the most violent and complex of shooters can be casual. How you may ask? By playing it for a few minutes every once in a while without being obsessed on your score/perks etc.

Today I play WiiSports casually - only when my niece wants to have a round of WiiBowling. Same goes for Medal of Honor Heroes 2. When I bought it I used to spend hours online trying to go higher up in the leaderboards. Today I pop it in for a couple of deathmatches when I'm in the mood for some well timed headshots.

I am not denying the fact that some games are tailored for specific gamers. For example I would never buy Banjo Kazooie Nuts & Bolts but I'd love to buy LittleBigPlanet. Both are platformers, but LBP has that 'it' factor that appeals to me. Although I LOVE the Wii, I didn't, and don't plan to, buy Wii Fit. It doesn't appeal to me whatsoever. If it were simply a casual game it would have appealed to me since I loved other casual games like Wii Sports but I didn't.

Guitar Hero/Rock Band are excellent examples of how false the casual/hardcore mythe is. My girlfriend played Guitar Hero On Tour (DS version) for a couple of times, beating two or three songs and that's it. Where as I completed it on all difficulties with a 5 star rating. Other franchises spring to mind like Mario Kart and Animal Crossing. My girlfriend, or a "casual gamer" would never even try to get 3-star rating on the 150cc cups; so on and so forth.

I'll try not to sound too cheesy but if you are a true gamer, for you there should only be the games - not the systems. When I read comments like "I will never buy the Wii because it's too casual" I seriously get the urge to punch someone on the face. Don't let stubbornness, blind brand loyalty or the media distract you from what we all truly love - the games. You can play ANY game casually or in a hardcore way believe it or not.

Roo

PS: In 2002, Grand Theft Auto 3 was branded as a casual game played by casual gamers. Today, Grand Theft Auto 4 is hailed as a hardcore game where the only major difference between the too is the graphics. Funny that.