I would just love to dish some dirt on Nintendo. Not because I’m vindictive but to prove that the people running the company are human. These guys are good. Too good. I can’t seem to catch them tripping up anywhere, recently. I was fully expecting a coup when I learned of the development of WarioWare Touched for the DS. The press released stated that many of the same micro-games from the highly popular GBA game, WarioWare Inc., would be featured. I was ready for war if this game was going to be a GBA clone – only with the novelty of the touch screen to set it apart. Of course Nintendo outsmarted me once again and released what in my opinion is another instant classic. My day will come Nintendo, and when it does you will rue that day as your digital empire collapses into a heap of pixels – based solely on one scathing review by one crazed reviewer. WarioWare Touched consists of hundreds of micro-games. These are basically five-second games in which you are given a word or two as your objective and then left to fend for yourself. You’ll be jumping, popping, dragging, drawing, hitting, matching, swerving, shooting, driving, dropping, closing, opening, avoiding and just about every other activity that end in “ing,” with the exception of a few dirty ones that I won’t mention. In one game you’ll have to cross an ice bridge at the exact second an ice block floats into position. Other games will have you reel in a fish, navigate a slalom course, light birthday candles, stuff a tissue into a nose before it sneezes, rub a genie out of a lamp, and avoid Donkey Kong’s surprising projectiles. This is just a bunch of silly fun that doesn’t really tie together. The story is thin but who cares? The entire game is fun and that’s the bottom line. Very popular with the ADD crowd I’m told. Although these micro-games do repeat, they increase in difficulty as you progress. New games are interspersed with the old ones so you’re never sure what you’ll get next. Even when you’ve played through the entire game you’ll want to go back and try it again. It’s highly addicting. There are enough unlockables, such as the virtual toys, that extend the replay value significantly. One of the toys is an actual playable harmonica. You blow into the microphone and it generates a note. By pressing the different buttons you will generate different note pitches. It’s an actual playable musical instrument. It’s not only a great idea, but it’s a functional one as well. You will run into a few similar games from the GBA title such as the boxing boss game, but for the most part they’ve been upgraded specifically for the DS and not just ported or forced to fit. Many of the games have been extended, or elongated to take up both screens. The graphics are a great mix of crude outlines and nicely polished faux 3D effects. The tunes are bubbly and catchy without sounding overly sweet. It perfectly matches the fast-paced insanity of the gameplay. Overall the touch screen is a novelty. Less than half the games presented here would probably work better with the real controls, since the touch screen is actually simulating a button-based control system in the first place. You could get through the main game in a day but you’ll find plenty to keep you interested for weeks. If you have a DS, you will want to play WarioWare Touched. |