Kororinpa Marble Mania Improves Surgeons' Skills
Jan. 18The fact that Kororinpa: Marble Mania didn't make more of a splash in the US has always kind of bummed me out. This is a fantastic game that gets everything just so: not too long, not too short, not too easy, not too hard... it's something anyone can play and enjoy on many levels.
Shallow bastard that I am, my response to this scientific news was not "Wow! Surgeons perform better after playing Wii games!" but "All glory to Kororinpa!" That aside, the article's explanation for why this tilt-intensive Wii title helps a surgeon more than, say, Wii Sports is pretty interesting
Certain games, such as Marble Mania, in which players guide a marble through a 3D obstacle course, were found to be particularly good because they involved small, precise movements of the controller.
Others were less useful. Dr Kohel told New Scientist magazine: "The whole point about surgery is to execute small, finely controlled movements with your hands, and that is exactly what you get playing.
"But you don't gain a lot from swinging an imaginary tennis racket."
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Comments
I can't for the life of me understand why Kororinpa flopped the way it did. I didn't love love love the game, but I'd definitely have it in my library, and I seriously can't think of any good reason why it doesn't have an average score of at least 75% on metacritic.
"Too short" and "not enough modes" is good enough to knock a point or two off the game, but 50, 60 out of 100 for such a flawlessly realized world- and control-setting? It just makes no sense to me.
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