What do Warioware, Katamari Damacy, and Feel The Magic all have in common? Gamespot puts them in the Puzzle genre. None of these games have anything to do with puzzles. Up to a while ago, rythm games like Amplitude and DDR were also called puzzle games (now they get their own genre. DDR is classified as a Rythm --> Music game. As opposed to a rythm game that doesn't have music? Yeah I'm used to playing rythm games where they just play a metronome in the background.) They aren't anything like traditional puzzle games and they certainly don't fit in with the definition of puzzle:

1 : to offer or represent to (as a person) a problem difficult to solve or a situation difficult to resolve : challenge mentally; also : to exert (as oneself) over such a problem or situation puzzled their wits to find a solution>
2 archaic : COMPLICATE, ENTANGLE
3 : to solve with difficulty or ingenuity <puzzle out an answer to a riddle>

I guess the games "challenge mentally", but so does every game (except sports games). WarioWare GBA is best described as a fast-paced action game, WarioWare GC is more of a party game, and Katamari Damacy is.. well, sort of a platform game, except you can't jump which takes most of the platforming out of it, but it's not a "puzzle" that is "difficult to solve". There are tons of adventure games that have elements more difficult to solve than Katamari Damacy.

If I were to guess, this is how Gamespot determines whether or not a game is a puzzle game:

• Surrealist graphics
• Minimalist storyline
• At least somewhat innovative gameplay
• OR it doesn't fit well with other genres
  

Here's where it gets interesting. Space Invaders for the Playstation. I rented this (it wasn't great, but still like a 5.0 at least, and pretty far removed from the original), and noticed that is much more of a puzzle game than Warioware and Damacy combined. There were lots of different types of ships, and if you destroy enough of the same colour in a row you get a super shot. you had to actually think to figure out what order it was best to shoot these aliens. Gerstmann even said it gives the game a puzzle like feel, but added that it feels like a puzzle game only "at times" because it's based on Space Invaders so it MUST be a shooter. Katamari Damacy has nothing to do with figuring stuff out (unless you find it difficult to run into object smaller than you), but since it has the three points I mentioned above, it's a puzzle. I'll bet that if the PDA game in Alien Hominid was a standalone game, they'd call that a puzzle game.

In my opinion, there are two types of puzzle games. In the first type, there are fixed levels that were made by the designers of the game and it is your job to solve them (like Bomberman I guess). I hate that type. The second type, which I like, is the one where there's random stuff (ie Tetris, Puyo Pop), and you have to figure out the best course of action. The second type are puzzle games just because there is usually an optimal placement and you are given a set amount of time to find it (like in Tetris, when you have X amount of time before the piece lands). The reason Tetris is a puzzle game and a racing game isn't is because in a racing game you have to follow a smooth line, not just make one good placement every so often.

It is narrow minded to call a game a "puzzle" game just because it has a style of gameplay you've never played before. Calling action-oriented games like WarioWare "puzzle" games is partly the reason people are scared of them. They don't like a game that's all about taxing the mind finding complex solutions, and if they don't read the review, all they see is "puzzle" in the genre field and move on.