Welcome to Monday Update. Also, I’m not here right now. And also, it’s the first Monday Update of a new year. Yay!
WarioWare: Smooth Moves – This is what I would call a “fun” game. It’s not here to challenge the “core gamer” (whoever those people are, I’d like to meet them). In “new”Nintendo style, it’s an instantly accesible bout of fun for fun’s sake without the pretense of being a great game with mechanics that astound.
Also, it’s truly and utterly weird.
The Wii has its own load of shovelware – games that are horrible that no one should like – but Nintendo, of course, gives us the notable exceptions to such a rule. In fact, all the other developers making minigame collections should have just called it a day when WarioWare: Smooth Moves came out near the system’s launch. It’s a perfect blend of Japanese weirdness, fast and furious game mechanics, wildly inventive usage of the Wiimote controller, and just a fun game in general.
When I use the word “fun” I don’t mean it lightly. This isn’t serious, and it isn’t adult in any way – anybody could play this, and why not? It even has a 12 player multiplayer mode which works perfectly with this style. For those not familiar, WarioWare’s full of small, short minigames that require recognition of the rules (usually splayed on screen for about a second), implementation of said rule, and victory/defeat, all within the span of a few seconds. It’s a challenge even if you’d tried all the games before, primarily because the game will throw any of its 200+ games at you in random order with JUST enough slight variation to throw you off. More often than not, the game succeeds in keeping the challenge high due to the randomness.
Oh, and you will be doing the weirdest things. Picking a nose has to be my favorite – in what other game would this be an objective, and then lions with party hats emerge to celebrate your victory? It’s in the pattern recognition that lies the fun of the game. Even if the task is weird, you also need to figure out how to manipulate the controller to fuflill the task. A little endorphin rush every few seconds doesn’t hurt, I wager! Would I say any of this is particularly hard? Not really! But it’s fun, and that’s exactly what it was designed to do. If you go in expecting a normal collection of Mario Party style minigames, you’ll probably be incredibly disappointed. Me? I was surprised to find myself enjoying it so much! It removes that board game barrier to entry that those games had in spades while keeping thing accessible, quick, yet still challenging on some level.
Yes, I am six years behind the curve on this one, but if you have a Wii or Wii U, there’s no excuse not to pick this up now; it’s dirt cheap, and if you have a few Wiimotes, a perfect party game. I imagine you might get bored after a while, but it’s the perfect game to shop around with others.
From Russia with Love – Not the movie, the game! What kind of website do I run here (one where it’s justifiable to talk about Tolkien, given last week).
A dollar for a game? Sign me up, Used Book Superstore! I was surprised to discover a PS2 rack in my local used bookstore, and I found this on it. Yes, it’s seven years old, but who wanted to buy this game when it came out? Anybody?
If anything, it resembles the previous year’s Bond Game by EA (TM) Everything or Nothing. Rather than trying to emulate the first person shooter Goldeneye’s brilliant formula, EA takes a distinctly Western experiential approach to the franchise. After Nightfire (horrible, horrible game) you’d expect nothing less, I’m sure. In that respect, they’ve made the game into a third person shooter with cover mechanics, limited ammo stocks, and some cinematic Bond moments throughout. Plus, it’s hilarious to see how they rendered Sean Connery Bond so accurate; it must have taken many, many man hours to get the movements and mannerisms down pat. Plus, Connery even does his own voice (along with most of the original cast, from what I can tell); he might sound a little gruff, but it still works better than you’d imagine.
Anyway, regarding the game itself, shooting works similarly to Metroid Prime – that is, you hold a lock-on button, then shoot repeatedly until the enemy dies. However, the game adds something called “Bond Focus”. On one level, this is basically a zoom-in function for the player to either hit specific points on the body (which garner you research points – more on that later), or to go for a headshot. On higher difficulties, you’re more than likely to go for the headshot, as enemies take a LOT of damage if you go solely for the chest. Shooting the grenade off their belt, or the radio (with which they can call reinforces) always satisfies, though! That probably wouldn’t be possible in a straight FPS format. It;s much, MUCH more fast-paced because of this, even when it has a cover system. You also get melee attacks that trigger in a weird context sensitive way – if enemies are close, you’ll simply start punching them in the face, which is initially jarring but often funny. Press a button, take down and you get a Red Star! I don’t know what these mean, but they make me feel awesome! Enemies frequently run towards cover if you stay there too long, so you may find yourself in melee combat often.
Of course, there’s bound to be caveats, and those come from some WEIRD design decisions. Who decided, for example, that cars should control like this? My recommendation? Don’t move the analog sticks too much, or you’ll drive yourself into a wall. The minimap’s useless with a key! I have no idea what’s the difference between red dot, blue dot, and green dot. Are they objectives, enemies? I have no idea. Suffice to say the manual, barebones as it is, doesn’t even tell you what is what, and neither does the game. Missions have lots of space but repetitive environments that are hard to distinguish; you’ll get lost frequently, as I did.
So, is it good? Was a worth a dollar? Barring the pricepoint, I’d say it is good, lighthearted fun that doesn’t tax you too hard. It’s definitely made for a mainstream audience – I was playing on 00 Agent and completing levels in one try, only dying when I had no idea what the objective was or what I was supposed to do.
For God’s sake, there’s a jetpack. I mean, how can you hate a game with a jetpack?
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Up next: some truly weird articles (kidding!)
