Reviews

It seems to be the week for brain teasers doesn't it? First Rayman, then Mario Party 8 and now we have WarioWare: Smooth Moves. It's an odd title but then again WarioWare is an odd series of games, full of wacky animation, sly in-jokes and bizarre characters that have a distinctive eastern flavour to them. It's a battle of wits as you must hold your Wii remote in a specified way to complete time-trial challenges.

Wario is one of the lesser characters in the Mario universe - a fat, evil version of Mario himself - but he's managed to rack up quite a few releases, the first of which was a starring role in Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land. The WarioWare series of interactive challenges first appeared on Gameboy Advance before moving on to Gamecube, DS and then Wii.

Who needs Wii Fit?

The introduction to the game shows Wario relaxing at home, when his food is stolen by Splunk. Wario chases the little creature to a temple where the Form Baton is kept as a religious icon (the Form Baton is actually a Wii remote discovered many centuries ago: a nod to the 2001: A Space Odyssey monolith). Wario steals it, outruns a giant boulder (sounds familiar) and then uses the Baton to complete the first in a series of challenges. Initially you play with the remote held normally, mimicking shaving stubble off a face or capturing a bug, but as you enter each new Wario cast section, the position you hold the remote changes with each challenge.

For example: there's the Chauffeur position where you hold the remote horizontal in both hands with the buttons facing you. This can be put to use in driving tests, as well as pumping up balloons until they pop, or high-fiving someone hard enough to shove them on their ass. The Umbrella position requires holding the remote vertically so you can drink a glass of water by tilting it, or pumping your arms to run a race. There's even an Elephant position where you hold it to your face like a trunk to pick apples off a tree and place them in a basket.