Can't I Be a Hardcore Gamer?

I know I mostly just post reviews of specific games and such, but yesterday we renewed our subscription to Game Informer and I was reading one of the letters to the magazine in the July 2010 issue that really got me thinking. I spend several hours a day playing games of different sorts, but I feel like the supposedly true hardcore gamers would say I am a casual gamer. The letter was complaining that Game Informer wrote about Farmville and the magazine should just be hardcore games like Halo.

Honestly, I do not care about 90% of the games they talk about in Game Informer. However, I still love to read it every month. The fact they have finally realized that they could change the balance to a little less of the supposed hardcore stuff in favor of just a little more supposedly casual game stuff is a plus to me. At the same time I do not like the label of hardcore because it seems to mean playing specific types of games and not quantity of gaming or variety of gaming.

I just do not see why cannot I be a hardcore gamer if I play a variety of genres that are all not the supposed hardcore games and also play those games very frequently. Sure, there has to always be limits to things like making the definition of hardcore, but I do not like limiting you to be a hardcore gaming to you playing specific types of games. Heck, you could play those games and actually be a casual gamer because you do not play regularly or at least in my opinion you could be. In contrast you could play none of those hardcore games and play only an hour a day of games of a variety of styles such as the scavenger hunt style of the Pacifico Webtrek, quick Facebook games like FarmVille, and the daily test on Brain Age; and I would consider that to be hardcore.

Nintendo Wii Screenshots: Madagascar Kartz

A couple weeks ago I played Madagascar Kartz on the Wii. I enjoyed it for about a week and then got tired of the racing. Part of the issue is it was too difficult to do well at some of the cups and it seemed like I crashed and ran into walls too often. The responsiveness seemed bad, but it actually had more to do with how I am used to holding the controller in a racing game. I usually hold it with the buttons towards me, but it works fine when I remembered to hold the remote with the buttons facing towards the ceiling.

Overall I really like the Madagascar Kartz racing. It is a lot like Mario Kart, but with the Madagascar characters and a few other Dreamworks characters that you unlock (such as Shrek and B.O.B.). I probably would buy this sometime if I saw it used at Gamestop, but it is not quite on my list of got to own right now.

Click the thumbnails below to see a larger version of the screenshots.