Great gameplay, many extras and 200 lightning-quick microgames make Wario Ware an instant classic.
User Rating: 9.2 | Wario Ware, Inc: Minigame Mania GBA
Wario Ware Inc. is not an adventure game, an RPG or a sports game. In fact, Wario Ware seems to be in a genre of its own. Mario's arch nemesis, Wario, sees an advertisement on TV about a popular video game. He then decides to create a video game to earn money. He gets bored fast, so he invites his friends to help. (Wario has friends?!) The storyline, as you can see, is anything but stellar, but that doesn't matter in this game. As soon as you select a character off the main menu, you'll be taken to a screen that shows how many lives you have, how many games you've cleared, etc. The screen is different for each character. And then WHAM, a microgame pops up. Jump! Avoid! Potato! One- or two-word instructions tell you what to do. All you'll use in the microgames is the Control Pad and the A Button. The microgames can be anything from destroying the Mother Brain from Metroid, sticking a finger up a nostril (blech), taking a picture of a bird, smashing aliens into the ground, following simple button commands, avoiding incoming vehicles from F-Zero, snacking on a banana, having Wario grab an umbrella, shooting arrows, squeezing an apple with your hand, blowing up Mars, and many, many more. After you clear a certain number of microgames, you'll have to take on a boss level. Depending on which genre of microgame you're playing (it can be anything from Sci-Fi to Anything Goes), the boss battle will be different. You may have to outwit an enemy in an RPG-like fashion. You might have to lead a frog to a pool of water. Whatever it is, you'll get an extra life if you can clear it. When you lose a microgame or a boss game, you'll lose a life. Lose all four and you're gone. There's also a Grid mode, where you can play any game you've played in a Stage Clear game and practice it. When you enter a new Stage Clear game, you may see games that you're not familiar with. You can practice those games and read the rules of the game in Grid mode. Along with Stage Clear mode and Grid mode, there are also a bunch of extras. Extras can be little mini-games like a jumping-rope game or Mario Paint's Fly Swatter. They can also be new modes, like Easy mode, Thrilling mode, Hard mode, and Total Boss mode. One lets you see the credits. Even after you've cleared all the Stage Clear games, you'll want to come back to the game to beat your own record and unlock new extras. The graphics of Wario Ware are good, especially in the microgames. Nintendo has put a lot of work into putting the old Nintendo classics onto the game, like old-school Super Mario Bros. and Metroid. Some microgames have worse graphics than others, however. The sound is also up to par, from Japanese music to spiffy techno sound effects. All in all, Wario Ware is a great game for anyone who has a Game Boy Advance. Some people wonder if the GameCube game is exactly the same as the Game Boy Advance game. If you're going to be playing more multiplayer, go for the GameCube version. The Game Boy Advance version is much better when it comes to single-player. If you're a big Mario Party fan, however, this game may affect how you think of the Mario Party games for the N64 and the GameCube. After you play Wario Ware's speedy microgames, you may feel that Mario Party's mini-games drag on forever, so play at your own risk. If you like this game, go ahead and look out for WarioWare Touched! for the DS, and WarioWare Twisted! for the GBA. Oh, and as the instruction manual says: "Do not feed this game to your dog. It will ruin your high score." 
