Editor’s Note: Yesterday, Mark gave us his look into the biggest titles of the console generation, but it’s also important to remember the other massive evolution in gaming happened on more casual consoles. With that in mind, Anne Marie gives us a look into the forgotten, but no less influential side of gaming. 

There is a fine line in the sand when it comes to casual and hardcore gamers, the definitions of both are almost finite with very few occasions where both can play a game and find great amusement out of it or both sit there and say at the same time this is shit. Usually a game has to be basic enough and take as minimal time as possible for the casual to get hooked, while have complexities and planning to grab the hardcore gamer and leave them highly addicted.

1. Farmville by Zynga

Farmville was an overnight success, not a terrible game, just not a challenging game. Created for Facebook users to have something to do other than stare at their walls for posts, Farmville was highly addicting and a level playing field for gamers of all ages and experiences. It requires you to play with friends, meaning if you need a pail to milk your cow you have to ask for it and someone has to be kind enough to give it to you. You also perfect time management as you prepare to wait how ever long your plants, animals, and trees take to be ready for harvesting. Yes, I know players who have their days literally planned around how long it takes for their roses to bloom, in conjunction to their cows ready for milking, and lets not forget the sheep need shearing. It’s addictingly adorable graphics and it’s user friendly interface allows casual gamers to figure out the game as quickly as the most hardened and advanced hardcore gamer.

2. Angry Birds by Rovio

Phones and tablets everywhere have at least one version or one demo of this game at one point in time. There are several different versions of Angry Birds, they’re rumored to be scheduled for the consoles, and they have a plushy toy line that could make anyone but the Teddy Bear envious. It’s literally a game where you slingshot little birds of varying “powers” at horribly made bases filled with green piggies to retrieve their eggs back. Kiss was used heavily when developing this game! (Kiss= Keep It Simple Stupid!) You can earn stars and bonus points for saving as many of the birds as possible, taking out as many piggies as possible with one bird, and all kinds of craziness.

3. Fruit Ninja!

Fruit Ninja is one of the few games that makes declaring war on delicious and healthy fruits as much fun. On your phone or tablet they shoot fruit and bombs in the air, you must slice across the screen cutting the fruit and missing the bombs. If a fruit does not get sliced you get an x, three x’s and your done. My current score is 354 sliced fruits and yes, I’m quite proud of this. Now, this isn’t a game I’m going to tell you to stop playing Call of Duty for, I’d do that without a replacement game, but it’s definitely fun for when you’re on the road (not driving of course) and need something to do. This is probably one of the most casual games on the list.

4. Words with Friends by Zynga

When we were younger, who didn’t love a game of scrabble? Now the game has gone electronic and the addicting fun of out witting a person with 7 selected letters has returned. So, the real question to the gamers, hardcore and casual alike, what words can you make with Q W R E T Y A? This game is a beloved challenge by all in who is the smartest.

5. Song Pop by Fresh Planet Inc.

What do you get when you mix a challenge and music together? That’s right, SongPop! Challenge not just your friends and family, but people from anywhere to a game of who knows more music than who! Which, while it’s fun to see the various music selections they have (and there is a very long list), the novelty runs thin very quickly because not all the music played is necessarily good music (I hate Glee even more because of this game now). It’s not a terrible game, but it’s very easy to memorize the lists that you receive of songs for each genre and win on pure speed alone. Very much a casual gamer game, definitely not something to keep the attention of a hardcore gamer by any means except the good music and the video game music genre.