Confronted with his ex-girlfriend's rather facile reduction of two experiences - travel and video games -to somewhat common traits, writer Jason Wilson's first reaction is an enlightened outrage. Flitting across the world in Street Fighter, he's convinced, is most assuredly not like one visiting those places for himself.

Yet then Wilson encounters a game on his Wii, plays it with his two sons, and finds himself taken to a place that feels eerily like ones he's visited before. Not for their scenery or people - but for what he experiences, and remembers.

Travel Channels - How is a Video Game Like Travel Writing? [The Smart Set, Sept. 2, 2009. This essay was also published in The Best American Travel Writing 2009]

Not too long after we'd broken up, I came across the essay she'd referenced, "Nintendo and the New World Travel Writing: A Dialogue," by Mary Fuller and Henry Jenkins. Fuller and Jenkins likened Nintendo's Mario Brothers' adventures in rescuing Princess Toadstool to the nonfictional New World travel narratives of John Smith, Virginia Dare, and Pocahontas in the lost colony of Roanoke. Both are "forms of narrative that privilege space over characterization or plot development" and "a different way of organizing narratives" that they call "spatial stories." At the time, it seemed like the sort of loopy scholarship that got debated over a bong in someone's dorm room. But now I'm not so sure.

I thought seriously about travel writing and video games this past year when reading hundreds of nominations for The Best American Travel Writing. I spent a lot of that period playing Wii with my two sons. We enjoyed a game called Endless Ocean, in which you play the role of a deep-sea diver who, along with a somewhat irritating companion, a marine biologist named Katherine, explores the fictional Manoa Lai Sea in a fictional South Pacific. The graphics are amazingly life-like, and over time a whole world with a diverse underwater ecosystem - full of whales, tropical fish, stingrays, sharks, and other sea life - slowly, gently emerges. In fact, calling Endless Ocean a "game" at all is stretching the definition. The challenges aren't very taxing - it's almost impossible to run out of air, and not even the sharks bite. There's only a light plot involving the legends of native peoples of fictional Pelago. Most of the time, you sort of swim around, unscripted, collecting new species of sea creatures and exploring coral reefs, sea caves, and sunken ruins, But after hours of leisurely navigating, a strange emotional experience begins to take hold. Suddenly, the discovery of a simple seahorse or a bit of an artifact is a cause for joy. Upon uncovering an ancient, fossilized whale whisker, I found myself looking forward to surfacing and celebrating with my kooky shipmate, whom I now called Kat. Virtual as it was, Endless Ocean was beginning to take on the recognizable rhythms of travel.

All of which mean that Endless Ocean was becoming a little scary. I wondered if someday in the not-so-distant future, fake gaming worlds like Manoa Lai might replace, say, the real South Pacific as an actual destination. If the current economic and energy crises continue, perhaps my boys will have to skip the old backpacking trip to Europe and instead experience that formative travel though some type of gaming. I guess if that unfortunate outcome truly does come to pass, at least I take solace that some form of travel narrative might still possibly thrive.

- Jason Wilson

Weekend Reader is Kotaku's look at the critical thinking in, and of video games. It appears Saturdays at noon. Please take the time to read the full article cited before getting involved in the debate here.

Sounds like a pretty sweet prize, I just hope that whoever wins this thing will actually go out and do some actual snorkeling between bouts of Endless Ocean. Otherwise it would just be kind of sad.

It seems to me that hardcore gamers are well aware of the futility of the games that they play. But they want the game's design to continuously distract them from this fact. It is the purest form of escapism: a game that absorbs you completely and doesn't allow your brain any time to reflect on what you're doing. Eurogamer literally complains about the fact that the designers of Endless Ocean are too gentle in this respect.

But what if you like being treated gently? What if you don't hate your life and you don't want to be knocked unconscious by your entertainment? What if you just want to relax in front of the television set, doing not much of anything, spending some time with your family, experiencing a story or looking at pretty moving pictures?

Does a game review prevent someone from enjoying a game? Does the fact that the New York Times film critics routinely pan huge summer blockbusters stop hordes of the movie going public from enjoying them? If you want to sit around with your family watching pretty pictures flit across the screen, there was this amazing technology of moving pictures invented in the 19th century. If you want to gently shake your Wiimote around while watching movie pictures, play Endless Ocean and ignore what Eurogamer has to say. I, too, enjoy a relaxing gaming experience - Harvest Moon is one of my beloved games for just chilling out - but to whine about the review structure for being focused on things like game play and design mechanics seems a little silly.

Clearly not all games are going to appeal to all people, and not all forms of the gaming press is going to be appropriate for everyone's needs; but there are plenty of sites catering to the more casual market, and even reviews of other types of media in more generalist publications tends to be more 'hardcore' than what the average audience member is after (how many panned-by-the-critics movies have gone on to be giant blockbusters? The answer: a lot).

Hardcore reviews of softcore games [Tale of Tales]

No More Heroes (WII)
Suda 51's surreal cel shaded adventures of Travis Touchdown.

Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (DS)
The follow up to the wildly popular Advance Wars hits with a new storyline and wi-fi.

Pirates of the Burning Sea (PC)
Arrrgh! Live the life of a pirate on land and sea in this new MMO.

Burnout Paradise (PS3, X360)
Drive, crash and burn!

Endless Ocean (WII)
Explore the mysterious world under the sea.

Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (DS)
Pit Mario against Sonic on your DS.

One Piece: Unlimited Adventure (WII)
Search for booty with Capt. Monkey.

Iridium Runners (PS2)
It's a space race!

Rainbow Islands Evolution (PSP)
Bub and Bob are back again in a new old adventure again.

If you haven't quite wrapped your noodle around what Arika's Forever Blue for the Wii is yet, this extended gameplay clip might shed some light. As you can see, it's all in Japanese, as the Western version (Endless Ocean) won't be released for months. Despite it's high Famitsu rating, I have a hard time believing this is going to be a purchase for me personally.

The game is due to hit North America later this year as Endless Ocean. While I consider it a safe bet that broader American audiences will pay little attention to it, if Japan puts stock in Famitsu reviews, I think my prediction that the game will natively sell "trillions" is looking more and more likely.

This Week's Japanese Magazines News [NeoGAF]

The very definition of non-game, Endless Ocean—also known as Forever Blue in Japan—will immerse Wii owners in a world of fish, undersea mammals, and saltwater. Similar to Arika's previous undersea adventures, the Everblue series, you'll experience relaxing SCUBA-filled gameplay as you look for treasure, take photos and frantically rub dolphins. There's also an intense deathmatch mode involving a speargun and a bazooka that launches carnivorous fish. Alright, I made that last part up.

This clip shows the three commercials currently running in Japan for the Wii release—no deathmatch footage. I'm sure it will sell trillions.