Hands On with Warioware: Snapped! on DSi

The Warioware mini-game series is a great barometer of what's possible on any new Nintendo console, not to mention providing great silly entertainment in its own right.

Back on the Gameboy Advance, WarioWare: Twisted! came on a special cartridge with a gyrometer requiring you to twist the console to play.

Then, on the original DS, Warioware: Touched! brought in the touchscreen and microphone allowing you to tap, stroke, swat and blow your way through its varied challenges, whilst the Wii-based WarioWare: Smooth Moves saw you waving, wiggling and balancing your Wiimote controller.

Fans of the series will be glad to know that WarioWare: Snapped! is no exception to the rule, managing to show off the new features of the DSi, and crucially being much fun in the process.

As the name suggests, this time round it's the DSi's camera that takes centre stage as your interactions come via hand and facial movements that are tracked on screen using your silhouette.

The technology is surprisingly accurate for such a small camera, although the success is also due to the elegance of the solution. Rather than trying to track the player in various positions, each level here demands a little preparation mode in which you have to line up your face and hands with a guide on the screen (think passport photo booth - albeit one that asks you to change poses every few minutes).

Once that's achieved, a typically colourful mini-game level appears with the silhouette of your relative body parts superimposed into the action and you have to carry out a simple action by moving your hands.

These tasks range from the relatively sane acts of massaging an onscreen back or waving goodbye, to slighty madder antics like sticking fingers up someone's nose.

The hand-drawn indie art style is as funky as in the previous titles, and from what we saw in the first few levels the challenges are both immediately intuitive and entertaining. Naturally the challenges are likely to get tougher (and faster) as the game progresses through its eight levels.

The entertainment doesn't end with the game itself, though. Once you've completed a level, you're presented with a host of annotated photos representing your performance and then a video showing what you looked like without the onscreen art.

These videos are a must for anyone who studies game faces and would make interesting uploads to YouTube or similar - although it's not clear at present if that functionality is available.

Warioware: Snapped! isn't entirely without snags, though. The fact that you have to stay seated and the DSi has to be placed on a level surface ensures this really isn't a game you'll be playing while waiting for a bus. But from what we've seen so far this could well be the star of the DSi's launch.