WarioWare: Touched! [DS]

Wario Ware DS's appearance at the Nintendo Gamers Summit today revealed two important details: one, the game has changed only slightly in appearance, and two, the game is still one of the wackiest game designs ever conceived.

Compared to the version first put on display at the Electronic Entertainment Expo last May, the game's presentation has altered slightly. In that version, Wario was on the upper screen throwing crates to the lower screen, which revealed the quick action mini-game of choice. This has changed in the new version. Now, the game uses a double high version of the familiar "squigglevision" elevator used in the Game Boy Advance and GameCube versions of Wario Ware, and when the door opens, it reveals the mini-game on the lower screen, with a generic "Made in Wario" set of image backgrounds...the text hint that pops up for each game appears on the lower screen first, but then slides up to the top screen so it's not in the way of the player's action.

Other than that, the collection of microgames is just as strange and bizarre as it has always been, but on the DS, they all use the touch screen in clever ways. Many of the games revealed before are still in the game; slice fruit as they fly across the screen, trap a duck as it walks under a cage. New challenges revealed in the Nintendo Gamers Summit version include: plucking a large facial hair by its root, spinning a toilet paper roll until it's bare, hitting a row of cats as they leap out.

Wario Ware is such a satisfyingly bizarre game design, and the DS game continues the tradition. Hopefully we'll be playing this game sooner more than later. It's set for a 2005 release in the US.

©2004, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved