Wario Land: Shake It! - Wii
Introduction
Wario, everyone's favourite fat bastard (only surpassed by Chicken and Berk, obviously) is back. This time, Wario gets asked for help by Captain Maple Syrup, the greedy pirate from wich Wario nicked some stuff in the first Wario land. It seems that in the Shake Dimension, wich is situated on a model globe, an evil pirate called the shake king has kidnapped the queen and all her erm... things, called Merfles, and stolen the nation's most important treasure, a bottomless bag of coins. Obviously, Wario agrees to help, if only to get the bag, because that's the kind of fat greedy bastard he is. A nice touch to this is that it is all told through a cartoon (anime, if you will) intro, wich certainly adds to the general feel of the game. Next thing you know you are introduced to Wario's wobbling bum, wich is strangely hypnotic, and off you go.
Gameplay
The entire game is in 2D, so you control Wario by holding your Wiimote sideways, wich makes it easier since you don't have to wave your arms about all the time like most Wii games. You jump by pressing the 2 button, dash by pressing the 1 button, and move about (and crawl) using the D-pad.
Naturally, the motion sensitivity of the Wii is put to use, and pretty good use this time. You can pound the floor by moving your Wiimote up and down once, and is used to stun enemies and activate certain moving pillars. It is also used to move your unibucket about, wich is a big red bucket on a unicycle, wich you have to keep in balance by moving your Wiimote left and right, your subwarine (a submarine, in case it wasn't obvious enough), wich moves forth automatically but has to be moved diagonally up and down by tilting the Wiimote sideways up and down, and a variation on the unibucket that flies, and is pretty frustrating to handle.
And last but certainly not the least: the shaking. Shaking is used to steal your enemies's garlic, wich replenishes your heart meter, and more importantly, to shake money out of money bags, wich you need to buy more hearts, maps and potions. The drawback of the money shaking though, is that your precious coins fly in all different directions, making you lose half the content of the bag. So here's a tip for you: when you grab a money bag, carry it to the nearest entrance/exit, and face it. Now when you shake the bag, all the money will bounce of the ceiling onto you, stopping it from going places it shouldn't go. That's all there is to know, it's pretty simple and easy.
Sights and Sounds
The style in wich this game is made can be called unique to say the least.
The intro, wich i mentioned earlier, is made by Production I.G, and the style of said intro is carried out throughout the entire game, wich means that all the levels, backgrounds, character animations and menus consist of hand made drawings, fleuntly combined by a cell shading technique, wich probably has been done before but i doubt it has been done this great.
The sounds are pretty good, nothing special, nothing horrible, the only bad thing that i can say about it is that it can get pretty repetitive, but that's a given.
Stuff that sucks
Ah yes, the stuff that sucks.
Each map (5 in total) consists of 5 levels, wich you have to complete by fighting and plundering your way to the end of the level, freeing a Merfle, and making your way all the way back to the start of the level on a time limit. To make this less of a chore, there are always max. fastosity dasherators (at least, that's what it's called in my manual) available, wich is a special device that lets you run at a very high speed, until you are put to a stop (by running face-first into a wall or sliding to a halt) This makes the journey back into an instant game of Sonic. But there is nothing wrong with that, since it makes it indeed less of a chore and adds some fun to the game, since you can chrash through pretty much anything. What sucks though, is that you are given certain missions on each level, wich has the standard 'collect x number of coins' and 'make it back in a certain amount of time', but sometimes you are given frustratingly hard missions like 'don't get hurt', 'don't break your unicycle', 'don't kill a single enemy' (!) and the one i hate the most: 'don't fall into the water.' On top of these missions, you have to collect three treasures on each level, and this often means that you have to either fail one or several of your missions, or let go of the treasures, if you want to complete certain missions. You can, however, always come back for a treasure or a mission, since the game remembers what you did so far. Often, some treasures can only be reached on the returning bit of the game, and more than once you simply dash by it, meaning you have to restart the level every goddamn time. (well, there is a checkpoint at the end of the level to makes things easier, but still...) These missions and treasure collection however, are a necessity, since without them the game would be too short and too easy. I only have the game for two days and i'm already at the last map. (but still need to do most of the challenges) For me this is not a bad thing though, since i tend to get bored with games easily if they take too long.
Conclusion
Wario Land: Shake It: Is not the best game ever; It's pretty short, it doesn't have a good story, the treasure hunting and the missions can be controller-eating difficult, and the protagonist is a fat greedy bastard that sounds like a peadophile.
But it's fun. Alot of games forget to be fun nowadays, and instead promise you fun when you work hard enough. This game is not like that, it lets you do exactly what it says on the tin (it's actually plastic but meh) and looks really, really great doing it.
Score :
On a side note i'd also like to add that Wario Land: Shake It! has a pretty nifty manual. Inside the manual you get some stickers wich you can use on a number of pages to make your own Wario adventure, wich isn't that spectacular but i thought it was worth mentioning.
EDIT:ninja'd for pictures.
