Previews// Hands On: WarioWare Smooth Moves (Wii)

Perhaps one of the greatest joys of this game, which SPOnG soon picked up on from playing the few tech demos on show last week, is that it is equally as fun to watch others play as it is to play yourself. This is because, if played correctly (and we’ll come onto this) players are forced to make a whole different range of frankly silly-looking moves in order to progress through the game. So you will soon find yourself winding, squatting, hoola-hooping, spinning and swinging the WiiMote around like a crazy man on strong mind-bending hallucinogens (a bit like our Stefan after ten pints of strong, continental lager, basically).

The experience is intense, fun, hilarious and over in seconds. This writer's girlfriends tried to make some joke when told about this, saying that it sounded very much like sex, but we can't see the funny side in that! How can you have a joke without a punchline!?

Just as you can’t pop a Fruit Pastel in your mouth without chewing it, SPOnG challenges anyone to play this game and not grin like the village idiot on strong ecstasy. We tried it, and our pretend straight face lasted less than five seconds. It’s physically impossible not to be happy whilst playing this game. Hospitals should prescribe it as an instant cure for depression, and stop dishing out the Prozac!

Here’s the full list of beautifully literal sounding micro-games we had a quick blast on last week – all of which are pretty much self-explanatory in terms of how they work with the WiiMote – Running, Paper Shredder, Hula Hoop, Squat, Driving, Tennis Raquet Keepy Uppy, Get Marble in the Hole, Sautee Frying Pan, Push someone over, Pump the Balloon Up, Turn Key in Lock, Dumbell Weight lift, Balance a Brush in Your Hand, Cookie Cutter, Insert False Teeth, Samurai Slash a Log, Tracing, Shake the Flies off a Banana... See what we mean by 'beautifully literal sounding'?

Smooth Moves makes use of the WiiMote’s rumble and speaker features – so, for example, when you are playing Tennis Racquet Keepy Uppy you feel and hear the ball just as if you were holding a real tennis racquet. This is one of the coolest features in the game, and SPOnG is keen to see how the developers implement it into the hundreds of other madcap games in this bundle of fun.

Now of course, we must try to find potential fault with games, no matter how much we like them and want everyone in the world to play them. It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it. So, we wracked our brains and thought about this one for around a minute (which, in WarioWare time is like, for ever!).

“Surely it’s very easy to ‘cheat’?” We asked the PR fella who was kindly demonstrating the game to us.

“Err, what do you mean?” He answered, seeming to be genuinely baffled.

“Well, instead of using the WiiMote as the game directs, so that your body has to move in various ways, such as spinning a hoola-hoop, surely you could just wang it around so you don’t move your body but you still ‘win’ the game – thus expending less energy?”

“Sure, but why would you want to do that? That’s just not as much fun?!” he answered.

And that, dear reader, both stumped us and reconfirmed for us that Nintendo’s Wii strategy of pure fun for all is most perfectly executed in the hugely fun micro-games of WarioWare: Smooth Moves.