WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Party Game$!

"It should come with free friends."

So it's Wario Ware. The GBA Game. Ported to the GCN with multiplayer. That's all you need to know. And it's worth it.

Let's face it, conventional party games take way too long. In any given social gathering, nobody wants to be committed to a party game for upwards of an hour, and even if you find four people who are interested, most people lose interest after half an hour. That's where Wario Ware excels greatly: You can do an entire party game in about five minutes. That's all. The formula is: compete in the 200+ Wario Ware games in a variety of cooperative and competitive multiplayer formats. And for what it's worth, it's pretty darn good.

The main attraction of this game is Fever Mode. And it's stupifyingly simple: Four players play microgames, and if you fail three games you're out. Here's the fun part: once defeated, players assume the roles of tiny sprite-based characters who can then run amok on the screen, frustrating those who are still in the running.

The second best game is, hands-down, Doctor's Orders. In this game, players take turns doing microgames while executing one of the Doctor's Orders: i.e. "while patting your head" or "while saying another player's name". The orders get more embarassing as time goes on, but this mode is fun enough that we wish the game were rated M--or at least gave us the option to customize the Doctor's Orders to our own twisted liking.

Third on the list is Wobbly Bobbly, where the formula changes a little: Players compete in original simultaneous four-player microgames, and whoever wins gets to do a traditional single-player microgame--win this one, and your opponents get a turtle added to their stack. At the end of each turn, players balance on their turtles for about five seconds--obviously, more turtles make it harder to balance.

There are other neat modes too, like a cooperative mode where three players shine flashlights on the play area to allow one player to complete the games, or a game where three players run interference all over the screen while the odd man out completes them. Another favorite is one-controller survival, which is great with a crowd of people: toss a wavebird on the floor, and when your turn comes up, dive on it and complete the microgame. Fail and you're out. Last person standing wins.

In regard to bonus features, the game has a variety of completely drug-inspired cutscenes and intros that make no sense. The game also does stat-tracking for up to sixteen of your friends. You can also practice the games either in categories, or individually. There's also, um, a J-Pop video you can unlock. That was random.

The only real gripe is that the game's graphics and sound are straight-ported fron the GBA version. That's lazy. I mean, if you're working on a console like the GBA, I'm going to assume you work with full-resolution graphics and high-quality sound samples, and then sample them down to work with the cartridge format. It's just logical. I'm saying I don't get why they don't have the Wario Ware graphics and sound somewhere at full-resolution just waiting to be used. Even if that weren't the case, it seems like it would take about the same time to port the game as it would to redo the graphics and sound from scratch. It's lazy, is all I'm saying. The game wouldn't be WORSE with better graphics and sound, y'know?

So my score is an 8. It'd be a 9 if they redid the graphics and sound, and an easy 10 if they added a few more original microgames. Simple as that.

All in all, if you have any friends who like video games, get Wario Ware. For hardcore competitive gamers, get Wario Ware. If you have friends or girlfriends or younger siblings that aren't traditionally into video games, introduce them to Wario Ware.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/29/04