You know the painting of a pipe that allegedly isn't a pipe?
Well, I was thinking of it yesterday when Global Star Software product manager Andrew Brown told me that, "Carnival Games," the title his Take 2-owned publishing line is releasing next week for the Wii, is not a collection of mini-games.
"We don't like to characterize these as mini-games," Brown told me, before he gave me a chance to flick and twist the remote in such activities as balloon darts, skee-ball and a hammer-swinging test of strength that determined I was a "contender."
The "Carnival Games" box boasts that the Wii title includes "over 25 games." Yet I felt I had slightly offended Brown by using the "mini-game" moniker.
"Do you consider Rayman Raving Rabbids a mini-game compilation?" he asked me.
I told him I did. I didn't mention that I had already given that question a lot of thought when I started running the Stock Report on this blog (look at the blue block of text on the right on the front page of this blog... see?). The Stock Report includes a running tabulation of mini-games included in all the mini-game compilations released for the Nintendo's Wii. The figure stands at 466 and it includes the games in "Rayman" because, well, I consider it a mini-game collection.
My count doesn't include the mini-games -- or whatever you want to call them -- in "Cooking Mama" and "Big Brain Academy Wii Degree" because I don't view those titles as compilations. Rather, I see their distinct cooking challenges and brain puzzles as the levels (kind of!) of an overall game. My count of 466 does include the mini-games in "Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz" and that "Sonic" Wii game, even though those were compiled within games that weren't first and foremost mini-game collections. Anyone still with me? It's a good thing I didn't try that answer out on Brown, right?
I asked Brown how Global Star characterized "Carnival Games." He said that, internally, they called it a "family game" and a "casual game." What was wrong with the mini-game label? He said they thought of "mini-games" as extras that are bundled together to "justify a price."
I didn't know "mini-game collection" was a sensitive phrase with marketers and managers. But I did know it bothers many hardcore gamers who see the proliferation of such collections on the Wii as the start of a trend designed to attract consumers other than themselves. In the next few months, the Wii is going to get a few more of these collections: "EA Playground," Midway's "Game Party" and a second "Rayman Raving Rabbids."
So these .... games ... in "Carnival Games" were as fun as I expected, for better or worse. If tossing hoops on bottles, spritzing a clown-head full of water or dunking a guy in a bucket with a well-thrown pitch is what you want to do with the Wii remote, then this game isn't going to disappoint. The title was in development for six months at Washington State-based Cat Daddy Games. It retails for $39.99.
If you're in New York this Saturday, you can try the game out at the Nintendo World Store at Rockefeller Center. The Wii game will be playable, and real-life cotton candy and prizes will be awarded. Decide for yourself if the game is a mini-game collection.
Me? I'll be adding to that 466 tally as soon as I figure out exactly how many mini-games are in "Carnival Games." It's 20-something.
But I wonder, as we approach the Wii's 10th month, what people want out of the system's mini-game compilations. Is there an ideal amount of mini-games in such collections? Should there be a story stitching them together? Should the overall games be budget-priced? Should these things be distributed digitally, piecemeal, instead of or before their disc-based compilations come out?
And should I not call so many of them "mini-game collections"?
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