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> Results: Wario World
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Mama mia, whereﾒs Mario?It seems Nintendo decided to give its flagship video game hero a well-deserved rest. Not surprising, really, considering it has been 22 years since the barrel-hopping, turtle-stomping plumber made his debut in ﾓDonkey Kong.ﾔ Instead, the latest GameCube adventure stars Marioﾒs arch-nemesis, Wario, a plump, burly and greedy little creature who cherishes his riches above all else.  ﾓWario Worldﾔ isnﾒt the best ﾓplatformﾔ game on the console, but it has its charm. The story is typical Nintendo fare ﾖ Wario has finally built his dream castle but among his many stolen treasures lies a mysterious black jewel that begins to transform all the jewels into monsters. So it becomes Warioﾒs goal to recover his riches, piece by piece, and must do so by fighting against fierce creatures in a number of alternate worlds buried below his new abode. While the game is billed as a 3-D platformer ﾖ that is, arcade-like gameplay that challenges players to run around and attack bad guys, avoid environmental obstacles, collect items and jump from platform to platform ﾖ ﾓWario Worldﾔ is far more linear than recent games of this type. Instead of having the freedom to roam around huge environments as in the recent ﾓMario Sunshine,ﾔ Wario must run from the left-hand side of the screen to the right (such as in classic platformers), with limited freedom to move in other directions. Therefore, the game world is only ﾓquasi-3-D.ﾔ Some players may find this lack of freedom, with very limited manual camera control, a frustrating shortcoming. But brawling against weird creatures such as purple pterodactyls and club-wielding rhinoceroses is a lot of fun, especially since Wario has a handful of wrestling moves at his disposal (such as pile-drives and the ability to lift and toss an enemy into others). Similar to most platform games, tougher bosses await at the end of each of the four stages, which requires the player to study the enemy or its environment to find a weakness, and exploit it. As a clever throwback to the golden days of 2-D platformers such as ﾓSuper Mario Bros.,ﾔ Wario can jump up and smash down on wooden trapdoors to reveal secret underground rooms. Here, the goal is to figure out how to best access the treasure chest and red diamond hovering above the ground; the puzzles usually involve aligning crates to climb onto them, spinning an object the correct way or smashing through obstacles to find the prize. Aside from defeating the boss enemies, there are also secondary goals in the game: collecting eight pieces of a gold Wario statue and finding eight treasure pieces that will unlock a handful of Game Boy Advance trial games (Game Boy Advance and link cable sold separately). Warioﾒs health is restored throughout the game by buying garlic with collected coins. But this title is a rather easy one to complete, so players will rarely need to purchase these health boosts. Because ﾓWario Worldﾔ is a fairly straight-forward and relatively short platform adventure, this game may be a better weekend rental than a purchase ﾖ though Warioﾒs precious bank account may disagree with the suggestion. Kid Factor Wario is one of Nintendoﾒs ﾓfamilyﾔ characters (like Mario, Luigi, Peach, DK, aw heck, just look at the cast of Mario Kart) so even though you get to play the bad guy here, the game is family friendly and charming. Reviewerﾒs Recommended Ages: 10+ Genre: Platformer Developer: Treasure Publisher: Nintendo of America Reviewer: Marc Saltzman Score: 3.5 of 5 Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: Wario World |
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