Game & Wario

So, in case you haven't heard, Club Nintendo is shutting down. ("Awwww...") But that's okay! The end of the program is actually forcing me to use all those sweet sweet coins I've compiled over the years, which is a good thing. For instance, I was able to download Game & Wario, a game still selling for $30 on Amazon, for no charge at all - and I've still got half my coins left!

Game & Wario was initially conceived as a Wii U GamePad demo to be bundled with every Wii U. (Granted that's essentially what Nintendo Land became.) At some point, there were just too many minigames or something, and the game turned into a full blown retail release. Let's step through it, one minigame at a time. First, the one-player experiences.

Arrow

A "stationary rail shooter" in which you've got to defend a strawberry patch from an advancing army of robots. Hold the GamePad sideways and drag and release on the touchscreen in order to fire an arrow. A plain concept with decent execution, but really wonky aiming controls.

Shutter

One of my favorites. You're a detective doing some surveillance and snapping pictures of suspects in a crowded and changing scene. The TV has the entire view to peruse, but the GamePad is your camera lens, all zoomed in and shaky. Use both to find (and photograph) the suspects before time runs out.

Ski

No replay value at all. Hold the GamePad vertically and "steer" it left and right to guide a skiier down a mountain.

Patchwork

A series of tiny puzzles where you need to piece together different cuts of fabric in order to create simple low-definition pixel images. I did lots of these, but they grew monotonous.

Kung Fu

The name's a misnomer and the game was really dumb. You hop around from platform to platform using the GamePad for a top-down view. You steer in midair by tilting the GamePad around.

Gamer

Easily the most memorable game in the package. The concept here is that you're a kid playing his DS-like system in his bedroom after Mom calls for lights out. The GamePad represents the DS-like system, loaded with typical WarioWare micro-games like "dodge the foot" and "up up down." Meanwhile, on the TV, you need to be on the lookout for Mom, who could pop the door open at any time (or look through the window, or come from a few other unexpected places) and bust you. It's a hell of a balancing act with a legitimately startling and unsettling atmosphere and all kinds of inherent hilarious absurdity.

Design

You just get told to do things like "draw a 3.5 inch line" and then you get evaluated based on how well you did. The visually-oriented engineer inside me appreciated the concept, but it was boring and simple and quickly grew stale.

Ashley

One of the lesser games. Witch on a broomstick is flying through a level, tilt the GamePad left or right to make her go up or down. Boring.

Taxi

Another highlight. Think Crazy Taxi, with farm animals as your passengers, but with an added alien abduction component... and there's a cannon for shooting UFOs out of the sky. Delightfully absurd!

Pirate

Couldn't really get the hang of this one. There are four pirate ships around you firing volleys off and you've got to rotate around and use your GamePad as a shield in order to block their shots. The whole thing is set to a rhythm. I... got hit a lot.

Bowling

Credits roll after you've beaten "Pirate," so this seems like a tacked on gravy game. And it is. It's bowling. With the GamePad.

Bird

I never even unlocked this one. Stupid bowling, tying me up. Oh well! Game beaten, all the same.

I also had a chance to play all four multiplayer games with Keith and Corey. They were fun. They were:

Disco

A rhythm tapping game played between two people exclusively with the GamePad. My least favorite of the four.

Fruit

In this one, one player controls a thief who walks around a crowded scene stealing four pieces of fruit. The other players try to ID the thief in a lineup at the end. I'm sure it has some replay value, but not as much as the next two games.

Islands

Kind of a slingshot-based curling game. Launch your little dudes at a target and get points based on where they land - but know that other players can knock your little dudes off the targets entirely with well-placed shots. Fun with three players, chaotic with four. Apparently five is an option. Oh boy!

Sketch

It's Pictionary with the GamePad.

And that's Game & Wario. Probably not worth thirty bucks, but if you've got Club Nintendo coins to burn, what else are you gonna get?