Crack

WarioWare, Inc. Mega Party Game$

Nintendo continues their weird naming conventions and retreads of old videogame franchises in this title released in April. I'm a little late to the party, but man, it's addictive.

Take a bunch of old games like Zelda, Super Mario Bros., ExciteBike, LCD games, retro stuff that looks like it could have been on an Odyssey ^2, and a slew of original button mashers and throw them in a blender.

Each mini-game lasts about 3 seconds.

Yup.

3 seconds.

In that course of time you have to perform one simple task. It could be to jump over a moving object, dodge a car, shoot down a plane, move Link into a cave, cut a steak with a sawing motion, shake a tree, pick a nose, put Visine in an eye, curl, drop item into container... yada yada yada. You get the jist.

When you're done, it's on to the next thing--lighting fast for the shortest of attention spans.

It's frenetic. The type of hair trigger stuff I normally eschew, but somehow it works.

There's a GameBoy Advance version, but the 'Cube port adds multiplayer (not online) plus you can sit on the couch and stare at the pretty glow of the television.

Do I recommend going out and buying this? No. Rent it first. See how it jives. It's like orange creamsicle fudge... too sugary for some palates.