WarioWare: Touched!

The Good
-Very Addictive -Lot's of unlockables -Easy to pick up, long time to master

The Bad
-Only one two player game (Ping Pong), and it's not that great. -Main game over too quickly.

The Bottom Line
Warioware Touched is not so much a game, as it is a collection of experiments in using the DS touchscreen.

The WarioWare idea is simple. Lots of simple and quick 'Micro-Games' (compared to the minigames from the MarioParty series, which are much larger), played in quick succession. Minigames are split into a variety of styles, based on the stylus techniques used in the games. Jimmy's games require you to rub the stylus on the screen, with games that involve petting a dog, or cleaning a window. Mona's game have you performing a quick cut motion on the screen, to do things chop watermelons in two, or cutting down the middle of a straw. Mic the Robot's games have you blowing into the DS's microphone to keep paper airplanes in the air and race small boats.

To finish the game, you have to beat each characters series of minigames. This involves having to play through several randomly selected games from that characters stable, ending with a boss microgame. As levels are beat, and repeat with higher scores, extras are unlocked. The biggest set of extra is in the form of minigames and objects that can be collected in the Toy Room.

At this point, this is as much fun you have with the DS. The game keeps itself fresh by keeping you out of a routine, and tempts you into mastering it with a long stream of extras.

The Good
The term "minigame" settled on many games a long time ago. They were a perfect accompaniment as extras in many games and raised the replayability of them, including a better experience for the player and much more hours of fun. Nintendo always bet on that kind of games, and exploited them in many ways. You can find, as WarioWare Touched! is, many games only dedicated to minigames. One of the most remarkable series are the Mario Party games, featuring a lot of really simple minigames to be enjoyed (better with friends). Nintendo was trying to change the concept of gaming. For a long time, people required games with incredible graphics, which were one of the most important things in many years for the gamers. A lot of games made during the 16-Bit era only focused in graphics (Rise of the robots is a good example) and they strayed their attention of gameplay. People said that one game is better than another one just because it has better graphics.

Something curious has happened. When the graphics of the games started to be improved to better graphics, people started to demand something more. People wanted balanced games, they'll be satisfied with poor graphics and a good gameplay instead of the opposite. Nintendo realized about that and started their new policy about video games systems, giving birth to the Nintendo DS or Wii.

WarioWare Touched! is one of those games featuring an amount of minigames playable by everyone. You don't need to spend all of your life learning how to play videogames to play this one and enjoy it. Anyone can play this game and that's one of its stronger points. The game is simple and uses all the technology available for the Nintendo DS. You'll have to do many things, and do it fast because the game is sheer madness. When you start to play it for the first time, you'll become mad because you're not sure about what you have to do, just do it and then nothing more. It's a complete nonsense game, but it's really funny, no doubt.

The game uses the term "microgame", because the games are really simple, they're fast (and they're going to get faster as you advance in the game), you'll receive an order and you'll have to do it. You'll have to run, cut, circle, blow, climb and many other things with your stylus.

Beside the "story", you can play all the microgames that you've unlocked. In fact, you'll have to do that if you want to unlock all of the toys that the game includes by reaching the default hi-score proposed.

The Bad
The game has its weak points. When you finish it maybe you don't want to play it again, because you'll have to repeat many times the microgames if you want to unlock the locked toys. You'll have to play for the first time just to advance in the game, you'll have to repeat that to reach the score proposed with every character. After that, you'll have to play one more time (or maybe two or three) to play all the games included in each character to be available in the "album" mode, and once there you'll have to play each game many times to reach the score to win the gold crowns. All this things must be done with every character if you want to unlock everything and finish the game 100%.

There's no multiplayer mode, and it's something really bad in a game like that. Some games could be up to two players but there is no multiplayer mode.

To finish with, some games are the same ones with different graphics because you'll have to do the same thing. Sometimes you'll feel that you're playing a tech demo instead of a real game because it tests the DS characteristics and nothing more.

The Bottom Line
WarioWare Touched! is a good game focused on the DS capacities with a lot of microgames playable by anyone. It could be much better with a multiplayer mode or another timeless system to unlock all the extras, but it's a good game especially if you love the minigames.