The Globe and Mail

• Reviewed on:

  Nintendo Wii

• Also available for:

  N/A
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• The Good:

  Features more than 200 excellent microgames, each of which uses the Wii Remote in novel ways; continually amusing and surprising

• The Bad:

  Ridiculously short; multiplayer mode can be confusing for newcomers and lacks support for more than one Wii Remote

• The Verdict:

  It would be hard to recommend a game that's so short if it wasn't so consistently brilliant
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Though the original Wario Ware made its debut on the original Game Boy Advance with little fanfare, the series quickly became Nintendo's "cult hit," with its idiosyncratic humor, absurd situations and surprising, quick-fire gameplay.

It's perhaps in this spirit that each game since Wario Ware, Inc.: Mega Party Games (a re-release of the original title on the Gamecube) has worked as highly unusual demonstration of Nintendo's new technologies.

Wario Ware: Twisted! Featured a special cartridge and was entirely controlled by the cartridge's special rotation sensor, and while Wario Ware: Touched! On the Nintendo DS isn't considered the best of the series, the game's unique combination of microphone and stylus usage set it apart as a game that could only work on the Nintendo DS.

In this vein, Wario Ware: Smooth Moves, more so than any other game on the system, is a title that could only work on the Wii.

"The Janitor"

I can't, for example, imagine placing the Playstation 3's Sixaxis controller on my head and performing squat thrusts frantically (can you?) Nor could I imagine being asked to grip the Sixaxis by my side and gyrate my hips lewdly.

However these are only some of the possible "forms" that Wario Ware: Smooth Moves asks you to take, with an astonishing 18 positions that you could conceivably be asked to place the Wii Remote in during an average game, with countless ways to move the Remote once it's in position. From the position "The Janitor", with your hands clasped tightly around the Remote as if it was a broom, it's hard to guess if the next game is going to ask you to sweep, shake, twist or turn, and it's part of the joy of the Wii that any of these things are possible.

Wario Ware: Smooth Moves features more than 200 rapid-fire microgames, which, in classic Wario Ware style, are to be experienced through a collection of loosely story-based levels that each contain a near random selection of the games.

Each game lasts mere seconds as you're asked to perform a strange action, from something as seemingly mundane as scribbling with a biro to get it to work, to pulling a lunatic's nose hairs out, as quickly as possible, with the difficulty, and the harsh time limit, increasing as the game goes on.

"The Elephant"

With the new input method, it's an obvious worry that the game, as it stacks more and more complex manipulations of the Wii Remote up, could become horribly confusing and obtuse. However, quickly you realize that the new forms of use are introduced logically throughout the single-player mode, and each micro-game clearly shows which form is to be taken before it begins, so by the time you reach the elephant buildings (which throw any of the 200 micro-games at you at incredible speed) you should know the game's possibilities inside out.

Not to say, however, that the odd game won't catch you out; I still have problems with one which asks the player to shuffle papers, and the multiplayer game (which allows an astonishing 12 people to take part!) will initially be bamboozling to new players to the game, and even more so to players new to the Wii.

"The Remote Control"

All of this, however, doesn't matter at all if the individual microgames aren't any good, and it's my pleasure to reveal that they are very good indeed. In fact, they're so joyfully crazy and varied that the three or four hours that you'll whiz through the single player mode in will feel like even less time.

Which is a bit of a problem, really. You see, the game rather stupidly won't unlock the multiplayer mode until you've completed the single player, which will probably drive the average player to rocket through the single player mode as quickly as possible, to the point, perhaps, of not really appreciating it.

Of course, there is plenty of reason to go back and try and beat your scores and unlock the extra bonuses, but there are a surprisingly limited number of extras that it will take almost no time to unlock. While the Wario Ware games have always been short, this one is astoundingly so.

Admittedly, however, some of the extras (such as the proto-duck hunt "Can Shooter") are fantastically playable.

"The Tug of War"

Unfortunately the multiplayer modes aren't quite as good as you could hope either. While the game does put Nintendo's much loved Miis to good use (featuring them across the entire game in a variety of amusing situations) the multiplayer, by the game's very nature, requires a lot of turn-taking, and even more absurdly only allow the game to be played with one Wii Remote!

With the frantic nature of the microgames, it's all too easy to forget to slip on the wrist strap against Nintendo's (very stern) wishes, which seems entirely foolish on Nintendo's part.

"The Big Cheese"

While Wario Ware: Smooth Moves may well be astonishingly short and have some terrible design oversights in the multiplayer mode, it is, without a doubt, the most fun I've had on the Nintendo Wii so far, and shows off the machine's potential remakably.

Perhaps it merely had to be over so quickly to maintain such a concentrated level of joy, I don't know; but if you cherish quality over quantity, Wario Ware: Smooth Moves is essential.