WTF: Work Time Fun

Everybody loves cheap, manual labor. Everybody loves vending machines. And everybody LOVES men in speedos flexing their muscles for you as you time your Ramen. Taking these three factors into consideration, D3 and SCEI have delivered the goods in the form of WTF: Work Time Fun, or Byte Hell 2000, depending on which of the many pushpins dotting my map of imaginary friend's houses you live under. Just imagine, as I know you have, a labor camp run by Wario and you start to understand what a bizarre title this one turned out to be.

WTF is essentially a collection of mini-games, but rather than collecting point scores, the real objective is to earn money that can be used toward the purchase of new mini-games, worthless trinkets, and tools that serve as little more than a cheap novelty. They ARE vending machines after all; they're not going to be dropping new Fergie CDs or whatever the hell you young people listen to these days( my knowledge of popular music died after Devo's "Smooth Noodle Maps". Ughh!). The games, or, "Jobs" you will be performing range from putting caps on pens, to seeing how many times you can stab a knife into a table without hitting your fingers, to sorting baby chicks from girl, boy, or dead, and moving them to their appropriate boxes. These are a few of my personal favorites, as you are limited only by your lack of job satisfaction, and can almost be done while you're watching TV or going through your roommate's belongings. Other jobs include racing toward the end of a cliff and trying to get closer to the edge than your opponent, hitting home runs in baseball, and maneuvering yourself out of a wrestling pin as near the count of three as you can; games of this nature usually only last about three rounds, but they do pay a bit more.

After collecting enough money, a trip to the vending machines will "reward" you with new swag, such as the plethora of tools. My personal favorite is the Ramen Timer, which is just that; you put the hot water into your cup of Ramen at the beginning, and watch a Japanese muscleman flex until they are ready. There is a female version as well, and while she's very cute, it just isn't as funny as muscleman flexing his "Ramen Muscles" for whoever walks into the room to misinterpret. Nothing creates relationship tension quite like your girlfriend catching your gaze firmly locked on the muscles of Ramen man; believe me!

WTF is really an allegory for the work life of a sixteen-year old; start working crappy job, quit job to receive paycheck, blow money on cheap, poorly made crap, and repeat. I had a very good time playing this one, and if your taste in games teeters toward the strange, this one should give you what you want; if you'll excuse me, I have to explain to my girlfriend and her little nephew what they just saw ...