E3 2008: Hands-on Wario Land: Shake It!
Old-school platforming comes back to Wii.
by
Matt Casamassina
July 16, 2008 - At E3 2008, we had the chance to go hands-on with the updated U.S. build of
Wario Land: Shake It! The title stars Mario's arch nemesis in a 2D style platformer complete with classic gameplay sensibilities. Hand-drawn animations. Scrolling platformer stages. And lots of running and jumping. To play the game, you simply hold the Wii remote classically; the D-Pad manipulates Wario and the 1 and 2 buttons enable him to dash and jump. Easy. And to mix things up, the Wii remote's accelerometer is also put to use to help Wario accomplish certain tasks, such as nabbing extra money and breaking through walls. This is where the 'shake' subtitle comes into play because that's exactly what you have to do with Nintendo's controller.
For some inexplainable reason, Nintendo has decided to journey back to the GameCube era with Shake It's presentation. The title officially displays in 16:9 mode, but all of the gameplay action is boxed into a 4:3 square. The leftover left/right regions show a static background graphic and are also used to display heads-up display information. It's a really lazy approach that offers the Big N the ability to say the game supports widescreen output when it really doesn't.
Thankfully, the overall graphical style of the game is very well done. The stages are varied in design and the hand-drawn animation, while definitely not as fluid as we would have hoped, still looks good and effectively conveys Wario's colorful abilities. Better still are the tight controls and fun challenges, all of which harken back to platformers of old. Wario is able to jump atop enemies, crash through brick barriers, jump-stomp through floors, and much more, and he does so with a sense of very responsive maneuverability.
Occasionally, Nintendo even tries something new. For example, Wario throw special items at certain trigger points throughout levels and to do this you'll hold down a button, twist the Wii remote like steering to set trajectory of the throw, and then send the projectile moving. When Wario stumbles upon a money bag, he can pick it up and you'll be able to literally shake the coins from the carrier using Nintendo's controller. You can also execute a devastating special move using the same technique. The game moves very quickly and has a very linear feel, two attributes that we can appreciate in an industry clogged by open-world projects that sometimes crawl along. Sadly, though, the E3 demo of Wario Land: Shake It! ends only minutes after it begins, a truth that left us wanting. We'll have much more on the Japanese build of Shake It, which is scheduled to ship later this month. Look out for a more extensive hands-on just as soon as we can explore Shake It! at length. But in the meantime, feel free to check out the E3 2008 screens and videos of the game in action that we've posted.
IGN: Wario Land: Shake It! Preview
07-16-2008, 04:42 PM
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