This will expand my thoughts on video game endings that can be found under critical elements.

I just recently bought and beat Mario Kart: Double Dash and noticed something very peculiar in the ending. I won't spoil anything, but after receiveing the last reward in the game, it says, "here's for all the hard work you put into this game."

Now, wait a second. I thought I was playing his game for fun. It's not supposed to be a tedious effort!

When you beat certain portions of MarioKart you get new karts and characters, which is great and gives me a reason to play (I mean work?) through the game. As fun as it was, that line got me thinking.

I complained about Mario Sunshine in my last foray, and the hunt for the blue coins did seem like work and not fun. That's why I seemed so disappointed when there wasn't anything great offered in the ending for all my effort. (Again, Mariokart offered a nice digital picture and a new start screen in addition to the credits for beating the most difficult portion of the game . . . how annoying. It's only saving grace was the reward at the end . . .)

Then I started reflecting back on my game experience to decide what games were fun and what games were work. In some areas the Zelda series was work because it was just tedious and time consuming to figure out the puzzles. This is why many gamers turn to player's guides to simply get it done.

Often times, as in the Lost Vikings series, I knew what I had to do but I couldn't do it because of the difficulty. The fun of figuring out the puzzle was disrupted by the work of finishing it.

Am I simply going through games for something to do, or is there still an element of fun involved?

The answer for me is finding innovation. Smash Bros. for the N64 was a great game that was polished and perfected in Melee. This game tops my favorites list because of its innovation and just plain fun. It was fun to learn every character's moves and pit myself againt impossible odds. Wario Ware is another innovative title that I found playing over and over again. I wanted to unlock games and master each of them separately in each character's subsection of the game, allowing me to unlock other games. The rewards in that game never seemed to end.

MarioKart was fun because of the rewards and variety of gameplay. Though it's "just another sequel," few Nintendo-made titles simply churn out an uniteresting copycat like what I've seen with a lot of other characters (Spyro and Crash Bandicoot both have surprisingly bad sequels because they were passed to other companies and the innovation stopped there).

We as gamers always want to work to get that great reward or that super item that makes the game easier. I recently replayed Final Fantasy VII straight through without any of the sidequests and found it almost more rewarding than the first time when I got everything. It's fun to say that I spent the time to get everything in that game, but I was able to more closely follow the plot and challenge myself by focusing on the prime directive. In essence, I cut out the work and simply played the game for fun. I wasn't trying to prove anything to anyone or get that high score, I just played the game.

I believe it's better to offer the rewards through simply playing the games rather than having gamers pulled away from the action to see if they can't get that great item so they can see an extra frame in the ending.

I've just never felt that I've had time to fully explore a lot of games because of the time constraints involved with real life, but then again, the elements I missed were just work and not play. There seems to be a push to add pointless extras in games, especially RPGs, maybe to justify selling games at $50 a piece. I'm a huge believer in the replay value of games, and typically if any portion of the game feels like work, I won't replay it and sometimes I'll even put it down. These days I have to be more cautious about what games I buy for monetary and time issues, so I don't have time to do the tedious work anymore. I make time for a great game like SSB: Melee or Wario Ware becuase it's fun and the extras make sense.