WarioWare Smooth Moves (Nintendo Wii)

I'm totally ignorant when it comes to WarioWare games... in fact, I'm totally ignorant when it comes to Wario in general. Well, let's face it, if I've only recently played Super Mario Bros. properly, I'm hardly likely to have bothered with Wario.

I picked this one up for Aidan as a little Christmas bonus, for the princely sum of six pounds. I thought it would be rude not to... it looked and sounded like silly fun that we might all be able to enjoy, and the Wii could do with a bit more of a run-out.

And, indeed, it's just as you'd expect. It's packed with silly mini-games... or maybe you'd call some of them micro-games, as they might only last a second! The games are appealingly presented, and imaginitive in their use of the Wiimote, although the attempt at passing off the controls almost as ancient mystical kung-fu techniques comes across as a cross between a Marks & Spencer ad and a 70s porn film!


You might be waiting a while... he's only got four!

Porn overtures notwithstanding, bite-size gaming like this is quite appealing, and with the games lasting such short periods of time and being so silly, WarioWare Smooth Moves could be ideal for parties or gatherings. So what kind of ridiculous idea is it to have multiplayer locked from the beginning?

That's right, a single player has to play right through the game to unlock multiplayer. That's ridiculous, and was quite a disappointment for Aidan. Luckily, you don't really have to do an enormous amount of playing to get your multiplayer component unlocked, and it is fun getting there, but it's just an unnecessary frustration.

WarioWare Smooth Moves is not a game I'd ever play for hours on end. It doesn't particularly lend itself well to prolonged playing, but I don't think that intention was ever in the minds of the designers. It's more of a daft distraction than a game, but there's plenty of room in the world for silly toys, and I think I did quite well in picking this one up for that price.

Shaun White Snowboarding (Wii)

I got home at 2:45pm today, having left work earlier than usual because of the heavy snow. Thirty years ago, if school had been closed because of the snow, I'd have been straight out in it, not coming home until I was in tears due to my wellies being packed full of snow. Nowadays, I'd rather be inside where it's warm. But it seemed only right today to have some kind of snow-related fun, and so I fired up Shaun White Snowboarding for the first time.

You can probably guess that I bought Wii Fit with my Wii: my wife, Lorraine, quite fancied it at the time, and I'd promised the family a Wii when we moved into our house. Of course, we've both used it once each, and the balance board sits and gathers dust under our coffee table.

But with the purchase of Shaun White Snowboarding, it looks as though the balance board might finally get a bit more use. Unfortunately, I have a bit of a problem with the balance board, namely that I can't actually balance. I don't know if it's because my feet are too big for the board, or if I've got an as-yet-undiagnosed inner ear condition, or if I'm just hopeless. So what you'll usually see is me leaning forward like Eddie The Eagle in a crosswind, just to have my character go straight on. And as soon as I stand normally, the character goes veering off to the left, usually into a tree or obstacle, or away from the reward or stunt that I was heading straight towards.

It's a bit of a shame, but I'm sure that a quick recalibration of the board will sort that out. And even with this problem, I still find Shaun White Snowboarding to be a lot of fun. It's not going to give you anything like the workout that Wii Fit does, but if you fancy a bit of SSX-type fun, albeit gentler and less extreme, and you've got a balance board sitting idle, then you really ought to pick this up.