TGS 2008: Hard Working People Hands-On

TOKYO--Imagine a scenario in which the Earth is threatened by a gigantic meteor on a course to wipe out everything on this planet. How could we possibly save ourselves from such a menacing danger? Try this: Do your job. Are you a farmer? Do your job. Bodybuilder? Do your job. That's the premise behind Hudson's upcoming minigame collection Hard Working People (or Job Island in the EU), a game in which the whole of humanity pools together the money it earns doing its nine-to-five duties in order to build a superweapon to destroy the meteor threatening our planet. Earlier today, we did our civic duty by playing Hard Working People at Hudson's Tokyo Game Show booth.

Hard Working People's listing of occupation clocks in at an impressive 50. While only nine jobs were on display in the TGS demo we played, they spanned quite a wide gap between the glamorous and the everyday. Besides the aforementioned farmer and bodybuilder occupations, you can also play as a grill cook, clown, haunted house crew, fisherman, or stunt car driver. Some of the other jobs that weren't playable include skydiving cameraman, interpreter, astronaut, and airplane cleaner.

Each occupation is represented by a simple minigame that relies heavily on the Wii's motion controls. As a farmer, you'll need to hold the Wii Remote and Nunchuk vertical and alternate between gesturing downward with each controller while pulling the trigger to simulate milking a cow's udder. As a clown, you'll flick upward with your left and right hand to juggle a steadily increasing number of rubber balls. The bodybuilder responds to pose prompts that flash up on the screen, the grill cook needs to flip meat skewers before they burn, and the haunted house crew needs to pop out of a hidden door to scare visitors.

The game is sectioned into three different modes. There's Hard Working Theater, Job Battle, and Career Fair. The latter is a quickplay mode where you pick what job you want to play and get things going with an individual round of fun. Job Battle is the same, but with two players duking it out head-to-head. Hard Working Theater is the only one we didn't get to try, but we can't help but think it's the Story mode where your performance earns you money to build the aforementioned superweapon.

Hard Working People is simple, absurd, and a surprising amount of fun. This should be a minigame compilation to keep an eye on, from the ridiculous (and awesome) premise to the quirky controls. After all, how can you not love a game where playing as a sumo referee helps save the world from abject destruction? The game is currently scheduled for release in both Japan and Europe, but currently, there are no plans for a North American release. We'll keep you posted.