Gamers familiar with the Wario Ware franchise have come to expect a certain amount of craziness and bizarre sense of humor. For the anyone else, this is perhaps the perfect time to delve headfirst into one of the most bizarre and addicting game franchises of all time. This time around, Wario Ware: Smooth Moves take advantage of everything that is cool about the Wii controller, delivering a unique and interesting take on fast paced furious party game action.

The game begins with the anti-hero Wario crashing into a temple, where he discovers the Form Baton (Wii Remote) and the game is off! From here you pick a resident of Diamond City to help and their goals are completed by finishing a varying number of microgames, including a boss battle. The player gets 4 missed attempts on each level, with the choice to retry or quit a level after the first failed attempt. Those familiar with the previous Wario Ware games may see a few familiar games, but the new control treatment on the Wii adds a fresh take on many of them. The games are mixed bag of cute to bizarre. There are challenging but mundane games like unlocking a door, or balancing a broom, along with odd ones such as shaving, nose picking, and slapping Wario Awake. My favorite set of minigames is a series that deals with all Nintendo themed games, from Mario and Punch out to Metroid Prime and Wind Waker. It’s great trip down memory lane, and a welcome addition to the microgame series.

The controls in WarioWare are a breeze on the Wii, although not every game is intuitive right off the bat. There are many different ways to hold the controller and complete the microgames, defined as “Forms.” The basic Form is to hold the Form Baton as you would for most other games, but this quickly branches out to a steering wheel form (“The Chauffer”, held like other driving games for the Wii), “The Waiter” (where the player balances the Form Baton face up on their hand), and even weirder Forms such as “The Mohawk” (where the player holds the Form Baton atop their head like a Mohawk), and “The Elephant” (the player holds the form baton in front of their nose like an elephant). With 19 different Forms and a wide variety of minigames for each, it takes quite some time to master all of them. In addition to the regular levels that are broken up into sets of microgames, players can also unlock various single player minigames  such as a shooting gallery and a new take on the classic Balloon Fight. These can be played for high scores and bragging rights, and add an extra level of replay value to an already solid game. There are even a couple of unlockables after what seems like the end of the game, fleshing out the game nicely for those who can’t get enough WarioWare.

Multiplayer modes are unlocked once certain stages near the end of the single player game have been completed. Once the first multiplayer games are unlocked, players can take the bus outside of Diamond City to unlock even more multiplayer games . The games are broken up into stand alone games such as Darts, Star Nose, Bungee Buddies, along with Lifeline, Bomb, and Balloon that tie together microgames from the single player game. Darts is a traditional dart game where the player uses the Wii Remote to mimic holding a dart and throwing it. It takes a little practice, but it is pretty neat to see it in action. One of my favorites, Star Nose, is a bizarre 3D tunnel game where players guide a polygonal nose through an obstacle filled tunnel trying to collect 3 pieces of fruit. Bungee Buddies is also a fun take on multiplayer Wii gaming where one player holds the Form Baton (Wii Remote) and the other holds the Balance Stone (Nunchuck) while the avatars run forward on a street filled with mud pits and pot holes. The object is to get as far as possible down the street before the timer counts down. In order to dodge the mud pits and holes each player must jump the obstacles by moving the controller up to jump. There is a lot of fun to be had actually getting off the couch and actually jumping over each obstacle!

The other minigames such as Survival, Bomb, Lifeline, and Balloon involve passing the Form Baton back and forth between players as they play through various minigames from the single Player game. The multiplayer games have some really neat Mii interaction, including a few instances of more realistic Mii renderings, such as the angel bodies in Survival and the runners in the Lifeline race. Once again the unique Mii feature is used well here, a boon for those who spend time creating their Mii personas. It is still cool to see those Miis populating Wii games.

The graphics on WarioWare are an odd mix of polished 2D Flash-type animation for the cut scene intro and outros of each level, flat shaded polygons of faces, pencils and even noses to pick in various 3D games, coupled with even more strange (almost clip-art like) collages for the more wacky microgames. Somehow all of these seemingly disparate artistic styles work, perhaps because they are in such small doses. Certainly there is a trademark WarioWare style of controlled chaos that I am convinced can only come from Japan. On my first playthrough, I found myself chuckling and wondering if I really seen what had flashed before my eyes, wanting to replay some minigames just to make sure it wasn’t part of some fever dream. WarioWare isn’t going to wow HD TV owners, but that has never been what the game is about.

The sound is a nice to compliment to the crisp graphics and also ranges from smooth to manic, just like the rest of the game. My favorite sound bites are the soothing monotone explanations of the various forms. They balance out giving information with a subtle and bizarre sense of humor that compliments the wacky nature of the game, while operating as a counterpoint the frantic pace of the microgames.

Only a couple of issues marred my otherwise great journey through the land of Wario Ware and its insane take on gaming. The first being that because of the bizarre nature of some of the microgrames, the wide variety of forms that they use and the super fast time limit, it isn’t always immediately intuitive how to win a few of them. There are over 200 different microgames and many different forms to learn to complete them, so it stands to reason that there may be a few that don’t click immediately. This also adds a bit to the replayability of each section, but is a little frustrating when encountering a show stopper or two at the end of a particularly long sequence of games. Luckily, a quick trip to the cities “Temple of Form” allows players to revisit specific microgames after they have been played in order to learn how to win or improve their skills at a particular game. My other problem is one that most other party game entries to the Wii lineup have. In order to emphasize gameplay and replay value, the multiplayer games are not immediately unlocked. In the case of Wario Ware, the multiplayer games are not unlocked until well into the single player game. Since it is a game of fast paced microgames, the single player game is pretty short, and it is still possible to have fun passing the controller back and forth to friends for each story sequence (although it is a challenge if your friend hasn’t learned a particular form when they come to it). However, it would be nice to have a few multiplayer games unlocked from the beginning to get an instant party going.

When all is said and done, Wario Ware: Smooth Moves is definitely a welcome addition to the Wii lineup. The bizarre nature of the cut scenes and microgames may not be for everyone, but for me they are hilarious and crazy enough that I wanted to continue just to see what other wackiness was around the corner. The implementation of the Wii controllers is almost flawless and the sheer variety of microgames is enough to keep players occupied for quite a while, despite how short the single player game may seem. The multiplayer games are innovative and the unlockable single player games are challenging enough to revisit and try for high scores as well. While the game may not get players moving as much as Wii Sports (although the Bungee Buddies game can be a bit of a workout), it certainly pumps the adrenaline up due to the speed of each sequence, especially on some of the longer and faster rounds. If you are already a fan of the Wario Ware series, or if you just want to pick up another cool party game that uses the Wii interface well, Wario Ware: Smooth Moves is for you.