kirun's Journal: Wario Ware, Inc.

As the topic suggests, my latest GBA purchase is Wario Ware, Inc. The soreness of my thumbs shows this is extremely playable.

If you're not familiar with the game, it works like this: Instead of one big game, there are over 200 little ones. Most of them last five seconds, literally.

This makes the game play very fast - you hardly have time to realise what game it is, and what you should be pressing, before it's gone. Quite the opposite of the at-your-own-pace feel of Mario games.

The games are grouped into themed collections. When you're playing a collection, they come at you randomly until enough have been beaten to access the slightly-longer "boss games".

Once a section's done, you can go back to it any time. And you don't have to stop at the boss — instead, the games get a bit harder and you go round again.

Any games thrown at you in the collections become available on the "game grid". This lets you practice them, gives a little information on what to do, and maybe a bit of history as well.

There are various other things to unlock, such as Dr. Wario, and the games in the grid can be "cleared" with enough score. I've yet to notice an effect with that, so hopefully more stuff is due.

This truly has something for everyone - if you don't like a game, don't worry, another will be along in a few seconds. Give the shopkeeper your money!