Gamers just wanna have fun

There is a reason why games such as Minesweeper and Freecell are so damn popular. It's because they're easy to just pick up and play.

The wonderfully serious sounding site, The Game Chair, has a great article on why games are too hard. Not for the hardcore gamer. If you're reading this, that's most likely you. It means for the casual person to pick up and play. After all, todays casual player is tomorrows hardcore gamer.

It makes a good point. Remember the old days? The Atari 2600 had a staggering ONE BUTTON to press. Then slowly controllers started evolving. In 20 years, we've gone from one button doing everything, to games where you have to "Push left, swooping down and around to the right, while hitting X, O, L1, R2, while holding R1, all the while wearing a rubber chicken on your head" to simply kick someone in a clever fashion. While I'm a big beat 'em up fan, the fact is, controls for games are just getting silly. And to the person who felt that a gamepad was a perfectly acceptable method for controlling a first person shooter: What the hell were you thinking?

There is most definitely something to be said for the simplicity of Mario games.