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Review In Altered States: Wario Land Shake It By: PoisonRamune, the Apathetic Lizardman
The Wario Land series is a strange series of platformers. While there are elements from classic platforming games such as: jumping on enemies, figuring out jump sequences to advance, et al. The gameplay is at a much slower pace you’re made to explore every nook and cranny of the level maps trying to find all the coins you can find. But that’s why the game is Wario Land and not the land of some other fat mustached man. Wario’s main objective in the game is not to save the princess (though, you are asked to do in the game), he’s after the treasure and solely after the treasure. Wario Land Shake It plays much like its prequels. You are given unlimited time to explore a level, trying to find all the gold and hidden treasure that you can. The game plays much like a standard Mario platformer. However, Wario is a lot slower and definitely moves appropriately for someone of his bulk (except when he dashes… Fat people can’t even roll downhill as fast as that man sprints). Eventually working your way to the “end” of the level you come across a checkpoint and a large metal holding canister (for some reason they remind me of those Robo Eggs Robotnik uses to capture the animals in the Sonic games). Once you grab the canister an alarm sounds; you’re to shake the little bird creature inside free and get out of there, ASAP. The level then goes from puzzle platformer level to the rolling ball scene in Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark. Having sometimes less than a couple minutes to escape, you must make a mad dash back to the first screen of the level in time or lose all your hard earned treasure. Once you make it back the game gives you a score based on: how much treasure you collected and how fast it took you. However, the replayability of this game is not only in trying to go for the highest score. There are many specific bonus objectives in each level such as completing the level without taking damage or beating a level under a certain amount of time. To further add to the replay some of the objectives are totally contradictory to other objectives forcing you to play a level at least twice (ie: one level has both beat 5 of a certain enemy in a row and beat no enemies as its bonus objectives).
The bosses are pretty standard and all of them are very patterned based (even the last boss). Never will a boss do something that just comes out of the blue like a random Super Macho Man haymaker. I’d even go as far to say that the bosses are very fun and even though there’s no incentive in replaying them (unlike in the normal levels), you’ll find yourself wanting to just for the heck of it. By far my favorite is the second world boss, but just because you chase him in the Wario street rod using some really innovative motion controls (yeah, Nintendo proved me wrong in this game). I won’t go into more detail on that battle, since I don’t want to spoil the fun. The graphics are great. I really feel that we are on the brink of a 2-D video game Renaissance and with recent releases such as: this game, Kirby Super Star Ultra, and Megaman 9 my feelings are all the more solidified. For being a morbidly obese, middle aged man with bad flatulence, Wario looks pretty good in this game and moves even better. His newly cel-shaded design makes it seem as if you’re controlling a cartoon, rather than playing a game (even more so than Wind Waker and No More Heroes). In fact, the whole game looks awesome cel-shaded. Most notable are the intro cartoon (naturally, but this really is amazing, as you’re treated to about 10 minutes of beautiful anime styled animation) and the fight with Bloomsday (one of the later bosses). The music is simply great too. Most of the music while you explore is pretty “chill” and mostly consists of: funk, jazz, trip-hop, and reggae songs. They totally set the mood and make me want to just wander around aimlessly; in hopes of finding a giant diamond or treasure bag I missed somewhere. The sound effects are also of very good quality. They sound appropriate and work very well, this is evident in the off screen noises especially. When something happens out of camera view you can pretty much guess what it is, not only to the point of helpful or harmful but you can almost see the effect of the sound (like if you were on LSD). The gameplay and control is pretty good. I like the fact that the controls are so simple that they’re able to be shown as pictographs. However, some of the actions have subtle nuances that should have been explained in text somewhere such as: throwing a ball/enemy accurately, which I found out how to do the right way on accident almost halfway through the game. However, the fact that I progressed so far without needing to know that subtlety shows that the control scheme is still pretty simple. As the name implies you do quite a bit of Wiimote shaking. Though many games in the past use the Wiimote waggle as a sort of gimmick, the motion sensing in this game is very fun. As mentioned before you shake the Wiimote to free your little captive friends and also to shake free the treasure from their bags. While these actions could have been mapped to a button, they still add a cute and quirky sort of interaction with the game. Often times I find myself freaking out because the little bird guy is not coming out of that cage fast enough and even more frantic shaking ensues.
I’m going to change the pace a little and suggest that you don’t play this game while totally drunk. I’d suggest that you play Toejam and Earl if you’re so drunk that it feels like your brain is soaking in booze. However, after a couple beers or while nursing a tall can this game can be quite enjoyable. It gives you that “come on, let’s go!” buzz that’ll make you want to explore, plus the game is forgiving enough where you can take a quite few hits before you die (like over 5).
If you have a bong and a baggie of some “goods,” now is their time to shine. What is originally a crude and surreal game based on a crude and surreal character, becomes a tripfest as you work your way through the game. The colorful, amazingly designed characters will make you appreciate how your visual sensations are enhanced. The selection of music is totally made for people who smoke grass, it’s mellow yet playful and just beacons you walk around and check out the landscape. Even the jokes cater to the blazing crowd, as they’re totally “high school.” There are tons of fart jokes and cleverly named items that make you laugh like it was your first time smoking. Final Verdict:
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