Game review: Wario Ware – Smooth Moves


The Nintendo Wii game, Wario Ware – Smooth Moves, is a unique game that’s made up of over 200 microgames (smaller and quicker than minigames ^^) in which you use the Wii remote in different “poses” to mimic how you would do the games’ actions in real life. This game takes full advantage of the amazing flexibility, sensitivity, and wireless action of the Wii remote. Though the microgames are only a few seconds each (except for the boss stages), there’s an incredible amount and variety of them, and any Wii fan should find themselves addicted to this seemingly simple but fun game before they know it ^^

Plot/Story

There isn’t really much else to this game besides mastering the 19 different Wii remote poses and using them skillfully to complete the over 200 microgames. When you first start the game, only the single player option is available. You’re shown a map of the game’s setting, Diamond City, and the different characters’ locations on the map. Each character has his, her, or their own minigame, with a simple but cute and amusing story behind it. You need to complete a bunch of microgames (usually learning new Wii remote poses as you go) in order to finish their story. As you complete character stories, new stories and other places on the map open up. Once you complete all the characters’ games, and thus learn all the different possible poses (including the 19th one, using the Nunchuck), the multiplayer option becomes available. You can also keep playing the character games in order to unlock all the possible microgames and rack up a high score. There’s also extra minigames that are longer and a bit more difficult than the mircogames that involve a lot of skill with a certain pose. Yeah, that’s pretty much Smooth Moves in a nutshell. Reading a description of it probably makes it sound boring, but actually playing it is anything but boring. So let me expand more on the things that make it so fun and addicting…

Gameplay

First of all, the sheer number of microgames to play and unlock is amazing. They involve all sorts of actions, from driving a car, vacuuming, grinding tea leaves, doing dance moves, answering the phone, sawing a log, unlocking a door, fighting a samurai…and all sorts of other things! The 19 different poses you use in order to play the microgames are also more fun to master than they seem, and they match the microgames so well, you almost feel like you’re really doing that action. Though descriptions of the microgames may sound easy, for example, using the “umbrella” pose of holding the Wii remote vertically upright, and then shaking it from side to side in order to mimic using your hand to fan away smoke in the air, or another pose, such as the “handlebar,” in which you grip both ends of the Wii remote like a handlebar, and quickly moving the pose up and down in order to pump air into a balloon, or the “chauffeur” pose, in which you hold the sides of the remote and use it for steering games, such as driving a car or guiding a paper airplane. But what makes these games challenging is that each has a time limit of just a few seconds. Right before each microgame starts, you’re told which pose to use, then a quick word clue as to what to do with the pose appears before it starts. For example, with the “umbrella” pose I described earlier, for one game the word clue will be “Swat!” and then it’ll start with a flyswatter and fly buzzing on the screen. Then you’ll have just a few seconds to figure out how to manipulate the “umbrella” pose in order to make the flyswatter swat the fly. And as you progress, the game will keep speeding up and you’ll have even less time between microgames and less time to figure out how to do each one accurately. Also, each microgame has 3 levels of difficulty, and those will increase as well. For example, in the fly swatting game, you’ll have to swat a faster moving fly, or more than one fly, etc,. Eventually the more difficult microgames and shifting between poses will come at you extremely fast. You get four tries, and each time you fail to successfully complete a microgame, you lose a try. So what starts off easy soon becomes fast-paced fun as you try and see how quickly your mind can figure out how to use each pose to complete the microgames before time runs out.

Another fun thing about this game is that a lot of Nintendo characters make cameo appearances in some of the microgames. Mario, Link, Nintendogs, Pikmin, the Star Fox crew…they’re all involved in at least one of the microgames. You can also put your Mii into this game, and he or she will also appear in many of the microgames.

In addition to playing the different character games over and over in order to rack up a higher score and unlock all the possible microgames, there are lots of other things to do. You can go to The Temple of Form and practice any of the microgames you’ve unlocked as many times as you like. You can also go to The Elephant Buildings which mix up all the microgames you’ve unlocked and challenges you to see how far you can go without losing your four tries. Then there’s Dr. Crygor’s lab, where you play as many microgames in a row as you can and it’ll show you how many calories you burn as a result. There’s also a few more difficult minigames, such as Tower Tennis, in which you use the “remote control” pose to see how long you can guide a ball to the top of the tower without dropping it. There’s also the Block Star game, similar to Tetris in which you use the “waiter” pose (open palm) to try and stack a certain number of different shaped blocks in your hand without any of them falling off. Balloon Trip, Can Shooter, and Tortoise & Hare are also similar games that are longer and more challenging than any one microgame.

Graphics

As far as graphics go, most of the character designs and graphics in Smooth Moves are very cartoony looking. They’re not bad, but if you’re looking for realism, you’re gonna be disappointed. However, the graphics of the microgames are extremely diverse, just like the actions of the games themselves. Some of the microgames are cartoonish, some are realistic, using actual real photos and images, some are 3D, some are crudely and humorously drawn…there’s as much a variety of microgame graphics as there are microgames, another thing that keeps this game from getting boring ^^ The music in the game is also good, with different tunes to match the character games and sped-up music to match the speed and difficulty of the game.

Conclusion

Well, that’s about all I’ve got to say for Smooth Moves. It’s difficult to make this game sound as fun as it really is, but trust me, if you’re a video game and/or Wii fan, I’m sure you’ll find this game at least a little addicting. But if you’re more into realistic, complex, and/or serious games, then you might not like this one. But in my opinion, Nintendo has outdone themselves with inventing so many unique microgames and Wii remote poses. The sheer number of microgames to play and poses to master, together with the incredible gameplay speed that you’re challenged to keep up with, makes this game with such a simple premise, extremely fun and challenging ^_^

My rating for this game: 4 out of 5

Ups: – Great Wii remote action
– Incredible variety of fun microgames
– Increasing speed and difficulty makes it always challenging

Downs: – Could be boring and repetitive for fans of serious, complex games
– Graphics are good but very cartoonish

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