Nintendo
Warioware: Twisted (GBA)
From: Nintendo
For: Handheld
Genre: Card, Puzzle
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Warioware: Twisted (GBA)
Since hardware limitations render all Game Boy Advance games incapable of pushing any technological envelopes, all that's left to push are gameplay innovations. As it happens, this is where Nintendo reigns supreme, as WarioWare: Twisted will attest.
As we've come to expect from the WarioWare series, Twisted offers a massive, 200+ collection of mini- and micro-games of the quick-win or sudden-death variety, each never lasting more than a minute and most of them just a few seconds.
While graphics lean more toward the dazzling-like-a-pocket-calculator end of the spectrum, they do so knowingly, letting the alternately frenzied, fiendish and funny charm of each game shine though unadorned.
On the innovation side of things, the game cartridge itself houses a gyroscopic sensor thingy which is the game's main controller interface. As such, you treat GBA in entirely like a rotary dialer, twisting and steering it gently or vigorously to move, guide or maintain position of the given characters, objects, icons etc.
It's instantly accessible and thereafter incessantly repetitive, but the sheer volume of variants on the twisted theme and the rapidity at which they're delivered makes WarioWare: Twisted the consummate quick-fix, interactive distraction whenever you need one. Or, better said, many. Naturally, if you're never in need, don't bother.