Wario Land: Shake It! -- Shakey Control In the Wii Generation.

Wario Land: Shake It didn't get any fanfare at Nintendo's abysmal E3 conference. It wasn't even shown in a B-roll capacity. Hell, it wasn't even mentioned at all. Animal Crossing and Wii Music are their seasonal focus. Shake It is a very good game, it might be a great game. It deserved more. We, the core gamers, deserved more. Especially considering this is our kind of game. Shake It! is a 2D platformer of old. Along the lines of Super Mario World and Sonic the Hedgehog with some added Wii Remote functionality. But even the presence of Wii Remote gimmickry can't detract from this game. And that's mainly because the controls are pretty much perfect. Wario runs and jumps and does the old time butt bounce attack and the rushing shoulder charge attack. He can pick up enemies and throw them just like Yoshi from Super Mario World 2, only with more control. The Wii Remote's tilt and shake functions are put to great use. And that's mainly because there isn't really any allowance for error. The remote isn't going to flake out on you because the designers have seemingly not allowed it to happen. There isn't any pointing in Shake It!. Only the aforementioned tilting and shaking. Wario has a ground pounding punch attack that's tied to shaking the remote. Other functions like swinging on poles like a gymnast  or shaking coins from bags or health giving garlic from enemies are tied to shaking in a context sensitive way. The same applies to the titling functions. Tilting allows Wario to aim where he throws the enemies or it'll move vehicles like a hotrod or submarine. The remote handles these without fail. Something you can't really say about most Wii titles. Wario Land: Shake It's controls are impressive. Everything is as fluid and responsive as the best 2D platformers from the 16-bit heyday of the genre. Now the question becomes just how good a game is Wario Land: Shake It? Next time...