Published on: 7th June, 2009
There are a lot of minigame collections on the Wii, but none are quite like Help Wanted: 50 Wacky Jobs. For starters, it’s premise is pretty wacky. You have to save Earth from a meteor by working an assortment of odd jobs (read: minigames) in order to earn money so you can buy items from a television shopping network to postpone the meteor’s impact and eventually destroy it. Every weird element becomes progressively stranger as you play the game, ensuring that the game’s oddball charm holds up for a good long while. And surprisingly, Help Wanted is quite long. There is no shortage of intergalactic objects queued up to smash into Earth, and by working hard, you can level up in any of the 50 jobs and earn even more money. The result is a long-form minigame campaign, almost like the career mode in a sports game. This unique structure gives Help Wanted more longevity than many of its peers, but the exposition and activities between minigames can begin to drag. Though Help Wanted is still vulnerable to predictable pitfalls (even good minigames are fun only so many times), its robust structure and good-natured wackiness make it uniquely entertaining.
Job Island: Hard Working People Review
This vocational minigame collection provides some wacky fun, despite sometimes feeling like a chore.
The Good
The Bad
* Some minigames have control and design issues
* Campaign can get repetitive
* Frequent interruptions can drag on.
There are a lot of minigame collections on the Wii, but none are quite like Help Wanted: 50 Wacky Jobs. For starters, it’s premise is pretty wacky. You have to save Earth from a meteor by working an assortment of odd jobs (read: minigames) in order to earn money so you can buy items from a television shopping network to postpone the meteor’s impact and eventually destroy it. Every weird element becomes progressively stranger as you play the game, ensuring that the game’s oddball charm holds up for a good long while. And surprisingly, Help Wanted is quite long. There is no shortage of intergalactic objects queued up to smash into Earth, and by working hard, you can level up in any of the 50 jobs and earn even more money. The result is a long-form minigame campaign, almost like the career mode in a sports game. This unique structure gives Help Wanted more longevity than many of its peers, but the exposition and activities between minigames can begin to drag. Though Help Wanted is still vulnerable to predictable pitfalls (even good minigames are fun only so many times), its robust structure and good-natured wackiness make it uniquely entertaining.
Celebrity interviews and skydiving. Just another workaday week.
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Like most teenagers living with their parents and grandparents in the suburbs, your primary concern is to save Earth from imminent peril. Your gung-ho grandpa is the only other person who seems to care much about this impending crisis, and he serves as your guide throughout the game. Through him you learn that the items needed to delay and destroy the meteor can be purchased from a television shopping network. The goofy presenters are happy to sell you a variety of merchandise, but the disaster-averting items can only be purchased with points. To earn points, you must use money to buy other items on the network, including uniforms that unlock new jobs, support items that boost your job performance, and mementos that go in your trophy hall. To earn money, you must work jobs by playing minigames. One job is one minigame that takes up one day of the in-game calendar. As the days and weeks pass, you fall into the rhythm of working and shopping, working and shopping, taking breaks occasionally to socialize with your family or to use a defensive item on the meteor. You will likely manage to destroy the meteor in a few short weeks, at which point you’ll be greeted with a new threat from outer space. Back to work!
Though this cycle can get repetitive, there are a number of things that keep Help Wanted feeling fresh. First and foremost are the variety and availability of jobs. There are a whopping 50 different jobs in the game, but you can only unlock them as fast as they become available for purchase. This forces you to do some jobs more than once, introducing you to the concept of leveling up. The more money you earn in a given job, the closer you’ll get to becoming a professional in that job. Pro-level jobs are tougher, but you can earn much more per day. You get a maximum nine job opportunities to choose from per day, so your favorites may not always be available. Your work week becomes a diverse mix of working brand-new jobs, leveling up in your favorite jobs, and taking the best of what’s available. This helps keep you from overplaying one particular minigame, which is crucial, because like most minigames, there isn’t much to them.
This isn’t to say the job minigames are bad, however. Some of them are quite enjoyable. Cruising around a well-stocked patch of sea and throwing your fishing net with the Wii Remote is fun, and running around the red carpet and interviewing celebrities is odd
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