Having a hard time with that level? Nintendo's Demo Play finishes the game for you

June 18, 9:35 AMDallas Video Game ExaminerAnjelica Deanda

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She's happy she can finally beat Ganondorf.

Nintendo has been getting a lot of hate these days. Ever since the launch of the Nintendo Wii and the birth of casual market titles galore, hardcore gamers have felt that their beloved company has been leaving them behind for "new money." Many think that their lack of hardcore titles and overabundance of mediocre titles that are chock full of regurgitated mini games shows that they are far more interested in pulling in new customers instead of making their hardcore fans satisfied.

Even though I was constantly buried in shovelware, I was one of the few people who tried to stick up for my favorite company by standing by the fact that Nintendo hasn't changed, we have. I never wanted to believe that Nintendo had turned their backs on the hardcore gamers who have been paying copious amounts of money to them for the past twenty years. I had faith that Nintendo game designer, Shigeru Miyamoto had something up his sleeve for all of us loyal gamers.

It's getting so much more harder to have faith, these days.

Nintendo recently announced a new mode in their games called "Demo Play." Miyamoto has revealed in an interview that this new mode is to be built into upcoming Nintendo Wii titles, a system whereby the game plays for you at your command.

"In New Super Mario Bros. Wii, if a player is experiencing an area of difficulty, this will allow them to clear troubled areas and take over when they're ready," Miyamoto says. "And yes, we're looking into this for future games, too."

I get where Miyamoto is coming from. He doesn't want people to get frustrated with a certain level and have to play it multiple times before just giving up on the game all together. I understand that but honestly, where is the drive? Why even play a game if you can just breeze through the majority of it if you wanted with "Demo Play?" Where's the challenge of continuously trying to exceed a tough boss and feeling immensely victorious afterwards?

The good news is that this mode will be optional.

There is not enough information to draw conclusions about how this mode is exactly going to work, just yet. Even if there was, no one really knows how it will fit into a game until they actually use it. Hopefully, what is really going to happen is that this isn't going to make games easier, but instead make them harder. With this new feature, Nintendo has the opportunity to make super hard games in which everyone can play. Casual gamers will skip the hard parts while hardcore gamers play them. Maybe, this will just work out for everybody.