Nintendo DS

Do games need to be easier to attract a wider audience? Or are games too easy as it is? Where did all the hard games go? What role does culture play? Will "Autoplay" features reduce frustration or just make gamers lazier than ever? With your help, we attack these questions from all directions. Also: quick hits on Scribblenauts and Muramasa: The Demon Blade. With Chi Kong Lui, Brad Gallaway, and Tim "If You Lose at Candy Land You're Banished to the Woods" Spaeth.

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Topic and Game References:

• Gamasutra: Are Games Too Much Like Work? by Lew Pulsipher
• Scribblenauts
• Muramasa: The Demon Blade
• Sorcerian
  

Please send feedback and mailbag questions to podcast (at) gamecritics (dot) com.

While I think Nintendo's Demo Play feature would be great for skipping the boring or poorly-designed bits of a mostly-good game, some people wonder if games getting their own players "unstuck" is the end of gaming as we know it. Others point out that this feature may be very useful for players with disabilities, who may find parts of a game completely impossible.

Don't go in the attic

HIGH Giant alien heads! In three dimensions!

LOW Fighting a missile-shooting freezer, only to have my game lock up more-than-several times.

WTF The natural enemy of extra-terrestrials? Potatoes.

It's like a profane version of Triad Election on the Nintendo DS

HIGH Losing a maxxed out wanted level by smashing cops into every bridge abutment in sight is surprisingly entertaining.

LOW The end of the story feels rushed and isn't even remotely satisfying.

WTF The bisexual stepson of the triad boss keeps trying to get me to have a threesome with him—and another dude.

With the September release date inching ever closer, Atlus is starting to really dole out the goodies when it comes to their PlayStation Portable re-imagining of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona. Earlier in the week we saw website updates (with more promised) and now we've got a lengthy video highlighting how the game has been upgraded, what's been added, and how the experience has been streamlined from the original PlayStation version from the '90s.

Bustin' makes me feel really, really good

HIGH It feels exactly like playing a never-released Ghostbusters movie.

LOW Bill Murray has a few good lines, but mostly phones in his performance.

WTF The last level is the weakest, most trite in the entire game.