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VIDEO GAME REVIEW
Wario Land: Shake It! Video Game Review - In Stores Now
Wario is back in this latest 2D game from Nintendo. But it's not all about Wario as this game features a new way to hold and use the Wii Remote control - sideways.
- Wario™ Interview - LISTEN!
- Wario™ Game Trailer!
- Wario™ Screengrabs
Here's the story: The Shake King has arrived in a magical new land and stolen the Bottomless Coin Sack. The Sack happens to have an endless supply of money! What's worse is the Shake King has captured the great Queen Merelda. Wario enters the picture to save the Queen, but first he is met by Captain Maple Syrup the female pirate, who asks Wario to enter a world called Shake Dimension using a variety of maps to find treasure and find Queen Merelda. But a subject of Queen Merelda escapes and finds Wario in time to convince Wario to save the Queen and create a peaceful world again. So Wario uses his greedy nature to help him collect the money and bounce off his enemies' heads to free up garlic health along the way.
This 2D adventure is a combination of old-school gaming, amazing graphics and animation. Wario is goofy and silly the whole way and the voice of Wario is filled with wise-cracking humor and funny sound effects. Wario will crack you up when you hear him say "Oh Yeeeaaaah!" as he often does as you move through the world known as Shake Dimension and shake your Wii Remote when you capture a bottomless sack of gold and silver coins. You must get Wario through 5 stages on the way to freeing the captured Queen Merelda. Right from the beginning you will practice your Wii remote moves on your own as you first must go through a short tutorial to learn the moves that get you through the game. The Wii Remote is held horizontally and the main action is to shake the remote up and down enabling you to crash through walls, stomp on the ground to crumble a wall or obstacle, and shake your sacks for gold on your way to victory and more money and garlic power! You will also find you can tilt the Wii Remote at different angles to jump and throw objects, which is new. So even though you have a 2D setting your actions and moves are multi-dimension making for a great game experience. The Wii Remote action allows you to jump, duck, crawl, climb and dash about using the d-pad, while buttons 1 and 2 allow you to select, jump and throw your way to victory. By far though, the coolest action of the remote is to shake your Wii Remote in one big up/down motion to create what the game calls the 'Earthquake Punch' which sends a big shockwave into a wall, crumbling it, or stunning your enemies as you battle through stages. Crumbling walls will allow a passage to open, the key to moving on. When your enemy is stunned you can shake the garlic loose, or grab a sack and shake your coins to add to your treasure. Garlic cloves build back your health and the coins are the only way you can buy a new map to unlock a new area of the game. Before each game you will get a set of instructions, but if you can't follow instructions you have to replay the stage.
The biggest goal you face is simple: collect those coins!! You need coins to buy the stuff you need in the store: level maps, health, treasures
Challenges: You have to finish certain stages in a time limit. You will also have to collect a certain amount of coins, and if you don't, you have to replay the stage. You will have to master certain tasks like finishing a stage without falling into water or taking any health damage. You may have to detonate multiple bombs at the same time or jump on the heads of three consecutive enemies in order to move to the next stage. You won't really ever get lost in the game, but you may have trouble trying to figure out a few obstacles which could frustrate you. Hint: remember when in doubt shake your money maker !!!! Create a little shockwave to get that wall to crumble! One last thing, the game gets harder the further you go through the stages. At first, getting back in time before the stage time limit is up is fairly easy, but as you move through the game this becomes much harder and the rewards given out are harder to get.
Cool Stages: There are 5 main map areas and 5 important stages, and after each stage you have to face a boss, followed by the final stage and the final boss. Note that in each stage there are secrets that if you take your time, you will be rewarded with the needed coin money, treasure or health food you need to advance in time. Sometimes you will have to swing on a rope the opposite direction to uncover some coin or way that you didn't see at first.
Cool Looking Graphics / Animations: Graphics and animations are very well done and unique: different than other Wii games and probably the best so far. Someone took a lot of time to do the hand-drawn art work and backgrounds. This makes the game feel like you are playing and living in a real cartoon and you wish that there were more games with this much personal touch. This is possibly one of the best-looking Wii games so far. Other art features and cool animations you will see include: an Old West looking train, cannons that you can aim, timed explosions, deep caverns and caves on land and underwater, tropical jungles and forests, wintry and icy hills, volcanic worlds, underwater worlds where you navigate in a submarine, and swinging on ropes and poles. Wario even drives vehicles! Every stage looks different and the passages are each done differently so you really feel like you've entered a new zone. Wario himself is very detailed and well-drawn.
Coolest Game Actions:
Butt Stomp - The Butt Stomp allows you to pound the ground, create the earthquate shockwave to stun an enemy.
Super Sprint - Super Sprint happens when you get Wario's big butt into a super charger sprint machine which jettisons you into a "super-sprint" which crashes downs walls and barriers and exposes passages to unlock secret treasures.
My negative: The reloading time for the game between stages and certain passages happens often which can be a bit annoying to the flow of the game. But, that could just be that I've become greedy and impatient for more money - just like Wario!
Paul's RATING: 9 out of 10
