Friday afternoon, and I'm in a world of my own. A nonsensical, marvellously twisted world comprised of spinning plates, petting small animals, and chopping wood. Demonstrating Nintendo's new handheld to my sceptical peers has proven simple, due to WarioWare Touched! and its simple charms. When I finally handed my lumpy plastic silver baby over to my friends, I watched with a smile as they poked, scribbled, span and blew their way through dozens of split second challenges. To play the game needed no explanation, as each challenge is blindingly obvious in terms of your required actions. It's effortless in its execution.

Describing the game to my associates, however, was a different story.

In order to describe the game, I had to stumble around that most awkward of questions. Which genre is it?

To be honest (not that I've ever lied to you, dear reader), I was flummoxed. How could I shoehorn this most indefinable of videogames into a genre? The WarioWare series is unique, undefined. Why should a square be crammed into a circular hole? Why should this game be crammed into a genre it does not truly belong to?

Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat had the same problem. It's not a platformer � in my eyes, it's an intense, acrobatic, perfectly timed stunt show. It's a puzzle game, a side scrolling platform adventure, and a beat-em-up, rolled together with the Nintendo Difference and a pair of bongos on the side. It's a flamboyant, manic, unparalleled experience that can't be summed up in a single word. So why categorise?

Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath has been labelled an FPS game by many, because it can be played from that perspective. They fail to realise that the game is a seamless blend of both FPS and platform action, throwing many of the traditional features of the genre out of the window to create a unique, perfectly executed videogame. And yet, like so many other games, it's flung into a genre that has been decided long before its existence, where each videogame must find a place, and yet doesn't quite belong.

There are many more such games, games which have been divided into genres which don't reflect the true purpose of the game. Catch! Touch! Yoshi! is one. Pikmin, another. Even the likes of Burnout 3 � racing game or battler? The genres have been set in stone � but videogames have not. Videogames should be an expression of creativity; it should be a creative industry � so when developers follow a set trend for their games, when they make a game like the hundreds of others that preceded it, videogames as a whole start to lose their appeal. The developers came up with a 'solution' to this dilemma, by saying to themselves "Let's cram three or four genres into one game, screwing them all up in the process!"

Well, they might as well have said that.

There is an answer to the problem � and at the risk of sounding like a Nintendo PR rep, it lies with the DS. You only need to look at the titles on offer to see that they truly offer something different. Electroplankton; Band Bros.; Animal Crossing; Nintendogs. The DS is not the home of traditional games � and is therefore not the home of traditional genres. It encourages developers to be creative, to take risks, to create something that doesn't fit in. The aforementioned games are not goal-orientated, but are great fun regardless. Pointless entertainment. The very best kind, by far.

Don't rely on words to describe a videogame, because everybody's experience is different. Just let them play.

[email protected]