"This game is insane. Insanely fun, yes, but insane."

Wario Ware Inc.: Mega Microgame$ is a fantastic game, but it is nowhere near a masterpiece. It is, however, a great choice for casual gamers, and hardcore gamers alike. In this game, you will do crazy things, such as help a lizard eat flies, command a skier to jump a slope at the right time, shoot the ducks from Duck Hunt again (and that dog's still there), as well as save the earth from a meteor. Well, enough with the introduction.

The story of this game is rather stupid. While sitting on the couch picking his nose, Wario sees an ad on TV for a new video game that was released. Wario figures that if he makes a game, he will become rich rather fast. He calls a bunch of his friends, and he wants you to test his games out. For some reason, the game development requires Wario to ditch his trademark costume for something a little crazier. While his new, biker-style suit would not be ideal for making games, it fits the mood of the game well, and personally, I like it better than his trademark wear.

Wario Ware is a game like no other. Within this game consists hundreds of games, most about 5 seconds long. While this may sound confusing at first, I will do my best to explain it. On the first level of the game, you will see Wario's face on a stereo, with four dials that represent your lives. Then, you will see a word on the screen ("Jump!", for example), and you will be faced with a task. The game requires you to press the A button at a certain time, or it may have you use to D-Pad to move something, and sometimes both. In the "Jump!" game I mentioned earlier, Wario waits for a shark on wheels to roll down the path. Wario must press the A button to jump over the shark, or he will lose. Then, you are taken back to the stereo screen, and soon another game will start. After a few games, you will get a message saying "speed up!". This lets you know that the pace of the games has increased. After a set number of turns, you will play a boss game. When you beat it for the first time, you will be taken back to the stage screen. More stages await you, each with their own theme. There's Jimmy, the disco-king who plays sports games on his cell phone, 9-Volt, the video game dork who plays Nintendo games on his Game Boy, Kat, the kindergartener who must deal with nature in order to save a castle, and many others. There's a lot of variety in this game, and you are sure to enjoy it.

One of the problems with this game is that it isn't long at all, only a few hours. Fortunately, it does have a ton of replay value. You will be going back through the stages, trying to unlock special games (they included Dr. Mar---WARio on here), showing off to your friends about how you can eat a hot dog within 1 second, and just plain having fun. It's a perfect game to show to your friends. It's a very pick-up-and-play kind of game thats sure to get a few laughs. Every once in a while, you will pick this game up, play it until you run out of lives, then just lie down because the high speeds during later levels will leave you dizzy.

If one of your big interests in games is the graphics and the music, you may be disappointed here. Wario Ware's graphics are very detailed and cartoony, but they don't push the system's limits at all. There are some photographs mixed in during certain games, but the animation on them is very poor. Other than that, the cartoon animation is pretty good. One thing I am impressed with this game is that it has a steady frame rate, even on the extremely high speeds. The low speeds aren't that special, but the frame rate is quite a marvel when games are going by quicker than the speed of light. As for sound, the music can get irritating to those around you. At the lower speeds, the music is quite catchy, and you may hum some of the music to the different games, but at high speed, it can really piss off those around you. Please, turn the volume down when it gets that high.

As for my final recommendation, I would say this game is a must-buy. It's nothing special, but it sure is fun. Good entertainment for a few hours, and maybe more, I would say. Besides, in what other game can you shake a dog's hand, time a nose pick properly, and blow up Mother Brain? Either that or you can wait for the new, Nintendo DS version to come out, since that looks very promising.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/24/04