WarioWare: Smooth Moves Import Hands-On

The WarioWare series is the best thing to happen to Nintendo's not-quite-Bowser-level bad guy. The evil version of Mario has been starring in platformers for some time, but at this point it's safe to say that he's more famous for delivering the most insane minigame collection around. The series started out back on the Game Boy Advance, and then it got two sequels for the GBA and Nintendo DS and a multiplayer-focused update on the GameCube. Now the series is available on the Wii, and from what we've seen so far, this appears to be the best and most complete use of the Wii's unique control options so far.

The basic setup of Smooth Moves is the same as it's been all along. You select one of several stages and then take on very, very simple minigames. These games really only have you doing one simple action, and no one game is very difficult on its own. The catch is that each game lasts about five seconds, and the game flings the next game at you almost immediately. To make matters more insane, the pace increases as you play, making an already furious game even more ridiculous. So you need to look at the game, figure out which one it is, accomplish the task, and then prepare yourself for the next game.

Much like the DS game took advantage of the touch screen and microphone, Smooth Moves is built around the Wii Remote. You'll have to hold that remote in different ways for each game. There are 18 different positions for the Wii Remote. The basic stance just has you point the remote at the screen. Others ask you to hold the remote at your hips (for hula-hoop or jump-rope motions), at your waist like a sheathed samurai sword, sideways like a steering wheel, or up to your nose like, well, a long nose. In the seconds you get between games, the screen will show you which stance you're to use for the next game. This adds an extra layer of crazy to the proceedings and is sure to make you look ridiculous in front of your friends. In addition to the 18 basic stances, there's a separate section filled with games that require the Nunchuk attachment.

The games themselves won't seem too out of place to anyone who's played WarioWare before. You'll be sticking big, polygonal fingers into even bigger polygonal noses. Another game has you scaring away cartoon children by waving around a skunk on a stick. You'll shake the remote to get bugs off of a banana. And, of course, there's an entire section of the game devoted to re-creations of Nintendo classics. While previous WarioWare games have focused on NES and SNES games, Smooth Moves sticks in some references to GameCube games, like Super Mario Sunshine, where you have to aim your water cannon at burning windows. A Pikmin-themed game has you rolling a big bug to crush tiny Pikmin. A Metroid Prime game rolls Samus up into a ball, and you have to tilt the remote to get her over to a barrel and knock it over. But there are still some NES games in there, like a Punch-Out!! game where you, as referee Mario, have to count out the likes of Von Kaiser and Bald Bull. With well over 100 minigames, it's likely that you'll finish the game's single-player stages well before you've seen every minigame, giving you an incentive to go back through and seek out the games you've missed.

As you play through the single-player and unlock new stages, you'll also unlock a few longer versions of the minigames found in the normal game. One such game puts you in control of a disembodied hand holding a ping-pong paddle. You must continually bounce a ping-pong ball and rise up a shaft, breaking blocks along the way. If you don't break the scrolling blocks, your paddle might get stuck underneath them, ending your game. Another game is a shooting gallery with a timer that counts down, but you can earn more time by shooting specific targets.

Another hallmark of the WarioWare series has been its wild visual style. Each game has its own look to it, and you're never sure if the next game is going to feature cutout photos of real objects, scribbled 2D line drawings, full polygonal renderings, or some mixture of all of these. But the one cohesive visual theme throughout the game comes in the cutscenes that play when you begin and finish a single-player stage. Each of these vignettes introduces (or, in most cases, reintroduces) you to the characters involved in that stage. These bits are very nice-looking 2D animations that look like really, really great Flash cartoons. The Wii displays these cartoons really well, especially in 480p--the edges on the character sprites are nice and smooth. Overall, the game's visuals are really impressive from an artistic perspective, mainly because a ton of different styles are used yet it all still feels like part of the same package. The audio is also quite sharp, with maddening music that speeds up alongside the action, helping feed the game's frenzied feel.

With its numerous uses of the Wii Remote and Nunchuk and its great sense of style, WarioWare: Smooth Moves appears to be a big part of what Nintendo was talking about when it proclaimed that the Wii was going to be trying something different. Yes, the game's mechanics are firmly rooted in the conventions of the WarioWare series, but it also goes out of its way to make you use the Wii Remote in new and interesting ways. Be sure to check for it when it's released in North America this January.