Reviewed: January 2, 2007
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
D3Pubisher

Developer
SCE Studios Japan

Released: October 17, 2006
Genre: Action
Players: 1-8
ESRB: Teen

3
3
3
5
3.2

Supported Features:

WTF isn't so much a game as it is a "time waster" - not to be confused with a waste of time, but very close. The closest thing I could even hope to compare this game to without having you actually play it would be those Mario or Wario mini-games.

The premise is simple. You apply for a job, create a profile and go to work. Your assignments are any of four randomly selected mini-games ranging from absurd tasks like sorting male, female, and dead baby chicks, to chopping wood. You earn a paycheck based on your performance for each task and you spend your cumulative salary to purchase new mini-game, silly collectibles, and crazy tools and utility programs.

To enhance the office-like atmosphere you will receive periodic emails, bonuses, and new titles. You can even get virtual spam and lose some of your hard-earned cash if you aren't careful. And when you are ready to share the misery with friends you can even delegate the workload via wireless multiplayer and Game Sharing.

My biggest complaint with most of these games is that they are just so stupid. I feel my IQ draining as I play this game, and I can't help but wonder what else I could be doing. For a game that is supposed to distract you from your real job (like Tetris or Solitaire), WTF makes me want to do real work. Admittedly, my real work is playing games (usually good games), but WTF is lame enough to make a janitor want to get back to scrubbing toilets.

Most of the games (there are 40 in all) are embarrassingly bad, the sort of java script games you might play on your cell phone or possibly an interactive ad banner on a web page (punch the monkey). Everybody I show this game to thinks it's some sort of joke or app I've downloaded to my memory stick. Only when I pop out the UMD do they realize this is an actual retail release. Of course you couldn't prove it by finding this game in any stores. I've never seen WTF in a store and I'm pretty sure I have the only copy in Indiana, perhaps the entire Midwest. Lucky me!

There are far too many mini-games to cover them all in detail, plus I am rather embarrassed to admit to playing any of them, let alone enjoying one or two...okay five. Give me a break…I'm a sucker for a manicured hand and an ice pick.

Of course I am referring to just one of your many odd (and I do mean odd) jobs called 4 Fingers where you must tap the X button to stab a moving ice pick between the fingers of a stretched-out hand. There is no blood when you fail or even a painful cry, but the sickly squish of pick in flesh is penalty enough.

Mushroom King is one game I can't get enough of, probably because I'm so good at it. It's basically a generic looking Frogger knockoff where you move a crude stick figure across six lanes of traffic trying to collect mushrooms along the way. Pendemonium has you putting caps on ballpoint pens in an assembly line operation. The catch is that some pens need to be rotated before snapping the cap on. Another game puts you in a car and has you drag racing a moose toward a cliff. The goal is to hit the brakes so you get closer to the edge without going over.

Lumberjack has you rhythmically tapping the X button to chop wood only you have to be ready to stop the chop when cute stuffed animals are tossed onto the chopping block. Another game has all sorts of cars, toys, creatures, and people moving across the screen in both directions and you must count off only the humans. Copycat is a sick version of Simon where these four trolls belch and you have to match their pattern of burps with the face buttons. The longer this goes on the more saliva splatters and drips down the screen making it harder to see.

Perhaps the most heinous of all these games is the Baseball Superstar where you must catch or field 1000 fly or ground balls without missing more than three. This particular mini-game is anything but "mini", and can take nearly an entire lunch hour before you fail or simply give up from sheer boredom. Games like the aforementioned Penemonium don't even have an end. You simply do them until your PSP battery dies or your throw the system against the nearest wall and call your therapist.

And therein lies my biggest complaint with WTF. Unlike the Wario-Ware games that are 2-4 seconds long, some of the games in WTF either have no end or take far too long to complete. Obviously, the goal is to do your best, earn as much cash as you can, and buy more content, but for people who actually like to win or at least finish a game, WTF will prove frustrating and unsatisfying.

To add some non-gameplay diversity to the already-wacky mix of content there are a collection of tools you can also unlock (at random) from the vending machines. These include a Restaurant Bill Splitter so you can divvy up the check fairly and a utility that turns your PSP into a multi-colored flashlight - actually more useful for detecting dead or stuck pixels.

It gets even weirder with the Eye Spy tool that allows you to hold the PSP up to your face and display a variety of human, feline, and robot eyes. You can even move the pupils with the A-pad and blink with the triggers. And no college student can live without the handy Ramen Noodle timer. Just pick from 3-5 minutes and watch (and listen) as a sexy Asian swimsuit model or some ripped Asian stud strike various poses and talk you through the noodle-boiling process. Goodie...goodie!

If all of this sounds insane you are right, it is, and I'm only chipping away at the surface of the insanity. There is so much more, most of which you'd have to see (and hear) to believe. WTF even allows you to share the insanity with jobs created especially for Ad Hoc multiplayer. And for those looking to complete their collection of vending trinkets there is an Item Exchange mode so you can trade your unwanted junk for more desirable junk.

And even if you can't find anybody else with a copy of WTF you can still Outsource jobs to other people, let them play the assigned mini-game (do the work) then collect their earnings via the Wire Transfer option. After all, they can't use the money without their own game.

Lumberjack has some nice cartoon style art and almost all the games have some sort of Asian influence. Ramen Noodle Timer has FMV of Asian models and Cliffracer has a splash screen with a Japanese kid and his car.

The menus and interface are simple and easy to read, and emails look like real emails, some with attached photos of the person who sent it. The best way to sum up the games and their presentation is "Monty Python Goes to Japan".

Sound effect include chopping wood, car engines, ice picks stabbing wood (and fingers), and assorted blips, beeps, and buzzes that are as retro as the game they are assigned to. The same can be said for the music, which ranges from annoying midi to retro-synth you might hear on an Atari 2600.

Then again, for some, WTF might fall into that category (much like some movies) that are so bad they become cult hits. That combined with the limited retail availability might have this game surprise us all.

If you are interested in owning a piece of PSP gaming history then get a copy of WTF, but don't open it. Much like Pandora's Box, once opened the evil that lurks inside can never be put back and it will surely consume us all.