Wario World Impressions

Let's just say it up front: Wario World is a pretty weird game. Just as Wario's handheld platformers have been quirky cash-collecting adventures, Wario World is an off-kilter game that focuses on smash-and-grab coin thievery.

Wario's adventure is broken up into worlds and levels. Each level appears to have a boss fight at the end of it, and you'll be able to go back through completed levels multiple times to collect hidden items that you may have missed.

Wario's moves are a little crazy, but they're fun to use. Aside from the obvious jumping, butt-stomping, and punching, you can also execute Wario's famous shoulder charge. Run-of-the-mill enemies die with one smack, but larger ones fall over and get dizzy for a few seconds. When this happens, you can use them as a springboard to get a little extra lift, or you can pick them up. Once you're holding an enemy over your head, you can execute a mega toss, which is a charged throw that can take out other enemies. Or you can pull off a spin attack by swirling the control stick around, causing you to do a giant swing with the enemy, bowling over other enemies in your path. But the coolest of Wario's monster-bustin' moves is a big spinning pile driver that drives enemies into the ground headfirst, causing a burst that eliminates surrounding enemies. The game is all about collecting coins, but it also counts things like the height of your last pile driver (you'll be rewarded if you execute pile drivers while jumping from greater and greater heights) and the number of enemies you've eliminated. At the end of a level, these numbers are turned into extra coins.

As you move around the levels, you'll occasionally come across trap doors. You can butt-stomp or pile-drive your way through these doors, which lead down to small treasure rooms that often take the form of platforming puzzles of varying difficulty. In some, you'll have to destroy the right blocks in order to create a path up to a platform containing coins or one of the diamonds you'll need to open up the path out of the level. Other platform puzzles include floating balls that you can jump up and cling to. The balls can be stationary or float along a fixed path. You'll have to crawl around to the proper spot on a ball when you want to jump off to the next spot. The game's second level has you hopping from ball to ball.

The game may be a little crazy, but it's definitely an interesting crazy. Nintendo is planning to ship Wario World in June.