First off, I really hate using those terms, but for the sake of the argument, I pretty much have to. I also feel that the whole "debate" is pointless, and while I try not to bring it up, the following made me think a bit.

The question was first raised when I read two people debating over some message boards (as pointless as it can be). One said that GTA and Halo are "casual" games, as the mass market recognise these brands, are played by more than just "hardcore" players and are fairly straightforward (read: accessible). The person the other side of the fence says that GTA isn't "casual" because most "casuals" usually just shoot and run over people for the hell of it, but the meat of the game - the story, missions and secondary objectives - can't be handled by the "casuals," therefore, the game has to be "hardcore."

Upon that last reflection, I wondered how you could label GTA, as much as I can hate attributing labels. It hit me: what Debater #2 was saying, isn't that close to what Nintendo calls a "bridge game?"

After all, their idea of a "bridge game" is that two players of different skill levels can enjoy the same game, either cooperatively or competitively (like Mario Kart Wii). Granted, for the most part, GTA is a single-player affair, but it could be said that a forum-dweller will enjoy the game as much as the 13-year-old that tricked his parents into buying it and spends most of his time running over pedestrians. There's something for both players. Same thing with Super Mario Galaxy: the "casual" can beat the game with 60 stars, but the "hardcore" will go for all 120, then beat the game a second time with Luigi.

Sure, we been accustomed to a "bridge game" being as one that levels the playing field, and the term was coined fairly recently, but come to think of it, "bridge games" may have been around for longer than some think; it goes beyond selecting manual or automatic drifting. What about the handicap settings available in most fighting games? Or toned-down and/or multiple difficulty settings?

As the expanding market is made more obvious, maybe we should reflect upon the past. Maybe notice how these concepts that are relatively new to us gamers would have applied then, and rethink how we view games in general.

It might not be clear, but the point I'm trying to get to here is that if there were a "casual vs. hardcore" divide, there were also be a "bridge" connecting the two, and there may be many more games that stand on the bridge than we think. Which makes categorizing them based on loose definitions and opinions even more ridiculous than it already was, in my opinion.

What other games do you think could fit into the "bridge" category?