WTF: Work Time Fun

Worth it? Just maybe. So strange, it's worth a close look.

The game's premise is ingratiating and deliciously creative, and so is the delivery.

WTF has plenty of content to uncover, aside from the main challenges, but much of the fun escapes too quickly. It does have a wicked sense of style, so anyone looking for a funky game with pick-up-and-play content may want to check it out.

It's possible that this will end up being the high end of the scores for the game [Ed: not even, Sam!] -- and Lord knows it could have gone lower, but in the midst of realizing I'd wasted as much time as I did playing, I remembered too that, for a time, I had fun doing it.

Most of the games are fun, but not all of them are winners, and the presentation isn't as blown-out crazy as the forthcoming Hot PXL or the Wario Ware games.

Depending on whether or not you think the game is laughing with you or at you, you're either going to appreciate the joke or feel like one of Pavlov's dogs as you helplessly salivate at each turn of the vending machine crank.

But even though the game shares some DNA with gems like the WarioWare series or the trippy Katamari Damacy, WTF got the short end of the genetic stick. If you’re going to spend your free time doing something that’s ultimately pointless and repetitive, you might as well get a real job.

If you think about this game too much, then playing it can be disheartening, as it takes the feeling that you're completely wasting your time and really drives it home. However, some of the simple little mini-games are oddly addicting.

There are some mini-games that were genuinely fun, but they couldn't hold the rest of the game on their shoulders. What could've been a fresh, original, and funny game, is unfortunately a formulaic and dull middling title.

WTF: Work Time Fun can be summarized by saying "Waste of Time, Fool." The game is pointlessness incarnated, even more than "WarioWare, Inc." or "Ape Escape Academy."

Had there been a shorter time limit imposed on many of the games, or some sense of progression where different jobs kept coming then WTF would have been easy to recommend. As it is, only those that really enjoy the weird sense of humor that comes out of Japan will “get” the game and want to continue playing it for longer than it takes to get 8 mushrooms across the street.

Why my laziness? Because some of the "minigames" here are actually mind-numbing test of mental endurance, about as fun as working in an Indonesian sweatshop. [Nov. 2006, p.134]