Nintendo Australia Wario Ware: Smooth Moves

Mario's evil twin makes his triumphant debut on the Nintendo Wii, demonstrating that there are more fun ways to use your Wii Remote than you can count on both hands.

WarioWare: Smooth Moves will please fans of the yellow-clad doppelganger's series and will suck in gamers new to the WarioWare franchise.

WeirdoWare

Let's get this out of the way -- Smooth Moves is not Wii Sports. Although there are 200-plus "microgames" that you can participate in, the games in WarioWare: Smooth Moves are extremely simple and you're not going to be spending more than a few seconds playing them. But this is definitely not a bad thing. The rapid-fire pace of the game is one of the many things that makes it so enjoyable. It's nearly impossible to get tired of any one particular microgame because none of them stay long enough to wear out their welcome.

The game starts out with Wario relaxing on his sofa chair when all of a sudden a tiny being makes off with his junk food stash. The creature leads Wario to an ancient temple, harking back to Raiders of the Lost Ark, where he discovers the weird and wonderful "form baton".

That's about all the sense you can make of the story as it then goes on to explore the adventures of a blue afro-sporting maniac who likes to dance with kittens, a couple of cabbies named Dribble and Spitz, and even an army of miniaturised clones of Wario himself. When you're not entirely engrossed in WarioWare's addictive gameplay, often times you'll be laughing at the absurdity of what is on the screen.

You do what with your Wii Remote?

It's hard to imagine the sequel to Smooth Moves (or any game for that matter) being able to create more uses for the Wii Remote. You start off with The Remote Control form, which is when you point the controller's sensor towards the screen, but soon after this you will be using the Wii Remote in ways only someone as whacked out of their skull as Wario could think up.

The microgames you'll play in Smooth Moves force you to make a total ass of yourself, as you'll turn the Wii Remote into everything from an elephant trunk to a samurai sword. You'll use the controller to pick a massive nose, saw logs in half, wave a fart cloud away, and partake in tons of other nutty activities. In addition to the couple hundred microgames included in Smooth Moves, there are also a few more elaborate games that will keep you occupied for more than a few seconds, such as the NES-esque Can Shooter and a Breakout-type game that involves a ping pong paddle. These games have multiple levels and can keep you busy (and cursing at the TV) for hours.

Fun for one

Even though a "multiplayer" mode can be unlocked by beating the game, players must use the same controller. In one of the multiplayer games, one player uses the Wii Remote, while the other uses the Nunchuk to jump over potholes and hurdles in unison.

Using the same controller (or controller set) to play with friends increases the insanity of Smooth Moves' multiplayer games, but passing around the controller gets old fast and the game would have been that much better if it supported multiple controllers. Plus, this really isn't a multiplayer mode -- you can take turns using a controller with any video game. Another small snag in the game is that it can be completed in about an hour if you really zip through it, but the replay value more than makes up for this minor booboo.