The WarioWare series has been one of Nintendo’s many third-leg’s for their star performers. During the days of the Nintendo64, Nintendo saw it wise to expand upon their most successful franchises, with off-shoots inspired by the success of the Mario Kart series. Yoshi, obviously has since starred in many of his own titles, including the recent Yoshi’s IslandDS, Tingle – the annoying “onesy” wearing runt from the esteemed The Legend Of Zelda series - is about to appear in his own NintendoDS adventure, and even Mario’s cause-for-catastrophe, Princess Peach, had her own release in the form of Super Princess Peach. Wario, however, is the unsung hero of Nintendo’s much-loved new trend.

            Originating on the Game Boy with his own instalment in the Super Mario Land series, Wario has since appeared on every Nintendo console, except the Nintendo64, in a title of his own merit. However, he still remains an elusive attraction to the non-Nintendo gamers. The WarioWare series, whilst being praised for it’s immediacy and ingenuity, has slowly established barriers between the ease of first-play and the intrinsic rewards the title has to offer; whilst the Game Boy Advance (and later GameCube) release was intuitive, the later WarioWare: Touched! For the NintendoDS distanced itself from those who hadn’t experienced the first title more-so than perhaps Nintendo would have liked. However, Wii has now arrived. And with it, Wii brings wholly new concepts for gameplay, and a wholly new audience to experience them.

            WarioWare: Smooth Moves follows the tried-and-tested formula of it’s predecessors. The Single-Player offering revolves around completing a pre-set number of Micro-Games under a specified theme. A variety of characters hold short-stories of genuinely comical value, each of which provide the separate themes for the Micro-Games. Twelve basic character choices appear as progression is made, with the final character being a random assortment of all the unlocked Micro-Games. As progression is made, each character will require completion of an increased amount of Micro-Games, within a limit of four Lives, whilst each is finalised with a Boss Stage.

            Regulars of the series will find the title easy to adapt to, with the overarching theme remaining fundamentally similar. However, the immediacy remains, with instant-analysis for newcomers. Whilst WarioWare: Touched! briskly whipped through the actions required for the immense amount of challenges involved, WarioWare: Smooth Moves intends on holding the player’s hand at every opportunity. Each possible different grip on the Wii Remote is explained with oft-humorous stills (whilst not necessarily explaining the action required), and given endearing names such as The Mohawk, The Chauffeur, The Samurai, The Handlebar, Finger Food, The Umbrella, The Janitor and The Remote Control, amongst many others.

            Many of the Micro-Games available are comparable to the best that the series – or any other title in the same genre, for that matter – has ever produced. However, along with this, there are of course many games that are not only seemingly incomprehensible to newcomers, but also to those well-established in the aberrant ways of the WarioWare series. Indulging in the Single-Player is an incredibly rewarding experience, with longevity remaining buoyant thanks to the series tradition of requiring completists to play through each character’s short-story several times, not only for High-Scores, but also to play through and unlock each of the randomly selected games under each character. Further to this there are additional rewards to unlock – akin to this in WarioWare: Touched! – designed to harness the abilities of the Wii Remote, whilst not necessarily fitting-in with the general gameplay style.

            WarioWare: Smooth Moves certainly does not push any graphical boundaries. As part of the last sweep of the first-wave of titles for Wii, a conclusion has been drawn that little has attempted to better the Last-Generation’s output, with perhaps exceptions for ExciteTruck and Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz. However, this certainly isn’t as much of a disadvantage to WarioWare: Smooth Moves as would be otherwise thought. The title’s immense sense of style simply cannot be ignored, nor knocked. Alongside Amped 3, WarioWare: Smooth Moves competes for the most stylish title on the Current-Generation machines; genuinely comedic moments, vivid colours and impeccable character design complete a package with which the development team clearly acknowledge they are on top-form.

            WarioWare: Smooth Moves once again brings Wario to the forefront of idiosyncratic videogaming. Those with a minor interest in the industry will already have the title penned-in to replace Wii Sports and Wii Play as the game they use to introduce their friends to the system, but more-than-this, WarioWare: Smooth Moves is also the title to demonstrate the capabilities of Wii to the Xbox360 and PlayStation3-owning naysayer’s. Wario may still not have become a star in his-own-right, but he has done much to further his cause as Nintendo’s most unsung hero.