The Wii’s next big game has arrived, in the form of “Wario Ware: Smooth Moves,” a new entry in the recently born but prolific series marked by players completing a series of minigames afflicted with attention deficit disorder – they’re usually about three seconds long.
“Wario Ware: Touched!” for the Nintendo DS was one of the first AAA titles to come out for the fledgling handheld after its less-than-spectacular launch. The DS iteration was really the first game to show us what’s possible with the system’s touch screen interface. Does the Wii version to the same?
First off, the Wii is different – it had excellent titles like “Wii Sports” and “The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess” at its launch, as well as a wide array of pretty good third party titles, like “Rayman’s Raving Rabbids,” “Trauma Center: Second Opinion,” and an excellent port of “Call of Duty 3.”
Still, “Wario Ware” showcases the Wii remote’s capabilities like nothing else before it. The game introduces the player to various “stances” throughout the single player, like “The Umbrella,” wherein the player holds the Wii remote straight up “channeling the quiet dignity of a circus clown in a thunderstorm.” These just tell you how to hold the Wii remote during the crazy array of minigames that I won’t spoil here. It’s inspired, manic insanity – while it lasts.
This is the only problem with Wario Ware games. They really don’t have much in the way of replay value. You can go for high scores, or try to unlock every last minigame, but this is tedious, because the only way is to hope they randomly come up while playing. To be fair, there are about 200 of them in each title, and they’re all pretty awesome.
The problem is exacerbated by what I can only refer to as half-assedness of the multiplayer game here. The Gamecube port of Wario Ware had some of the most interesting multiplayer modes on the system. One mode had players completing a minigame while obeying the orders of a scary paper doctor. The hilarity resulting from, say, playing while making a duck face, or looking at another player, or any number of insane diagnoses, is immesurable and only made the minigames that much more fun. There were about 10 modes, and they ranged from “damn fun” to “fantastic.”
The Wii version is really disappointing here. Its multiplayer modes lack the creativity and variety present in the Gamecube version. You can’t even play simultaneously on all the ones based on the main minigames! You basically get survival and a few variants on it. None of the crazy ones from the Gamecube one make it over. Admittedly, it is cool you can play up to 12 people in the pass-the-remote survival mode, but come on! Make me regret that I can’t afford to drop $80 on two more Wii remotes. It really reeks of “better version with more minigames and multiplayer modes coming out in a year but we also wanted your money now.” (The preceding sentence was entirely cynical speculation.)
Another problem I had with the title was with a few of the stances. They tell you to hold the Wii remote in a crazy way, but it is not readily apparent that you need to keep it pointed at the television. This results in confusion when trying to pretend you’re an elephant and move apples around.
Overall, though, “Wario Ware: Smooth Moves” is the Wii’s third truly AAA title. Despite the lack of multiplayer options and expected short length, it’s a great deal of fun, even when you can only pass the remote around and can’t play together. Just be sure to rent it first.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 29th, 2007 at 9:36 am and is filed under games, reviews.