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Non-Gamers Reviewing Games: Wait, What?

I don't know if it's intentional or not, but hallowed gamer webcomic Penny Arcade sometimes manages to deliver a perfect set-up and punchline in its first panel. Take, for example, this recent strip about Fable II and the reviewing thereof:

Gabe: "Peter Molyneux is telling reviewers they should get people who don't play games to play his game."

Tycho: "They don't play games, though."

Gabe: "He never said it would be easy."

Since the birth of the Wii, there's been an influx of "non-gamers" who are suddenly very interested in throwing around remotes. That's fine. In my opinion, that's great. I'm hoping that when established gamers are finished their pissing contests over "casual" versus "hardcore," we'll all realise the benefits of our elders having fun with consoles instead of cringing away from them like they're rabid animals. Then we'll be a big huggy family.

At the same time, I'm not naive. My father hadn't touched a video game since Duck Hunt (for which he had his own pronunciation, with special emphasis on the second syllable: "ducKHUNT") when he asked to come over and, um, play with our Wii. He's a golfer, so he went straight into Wii Sports' Golf game. No surprise: golf is relevant to his interests, and the Wii remote puts non-gamers at ease because it's primarily motion-based. He took to it with no problem at all.

On the other hand, when I tried to get him into Guitar Hero (he's also a guitarist), he didn't know what to make of the Fisher-Price guitar, the buttons, the menus, etc.

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.