VIDEO GAMES Want variety? 'Wario Ware' offers it

As your skill improves, the pace quickens.
By PETE METZGER
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Frantic. Maddening. Furious. Stupid. Strange. And a whole lot of fun.
"Wario Ware Inc. Mega Party Game$" is a collection of more than 200 "minigames" jammed onto one little disc. The play is simple: Solve one fast-paced little puzzle to move on to the next. And the next. And the next. They keep coming, and get faster and faster and more and more bizarre and ...
Whew.
Let's review in slow motion. At the start of each randomly selected puzzle, gamers get a word or two of instructions, such as "Bounce!" or "Grab!" or "Shoot!" Then a crude little game appears. It might be an early Atari-esque stick-figure basketball player that requires perfect timing to sink a jump shot. Or it might be shooting an arrow at a target on a spinning disk. Or maybe you get the one where you have to grab a rod dropped from one hand to the other.
Whatever the little task, players get about four seconds to figure out what to do and how to do it. But the more puzzles they solve, the faster the clock ticks and the more furious the music gets. That initial four-second deadline feels leisurely compared with the two-second pressure at the end.
A little odd? Sure. Dangerously enjoyable? You bet.
Some are strange
Some of the games, such as "Apple Shrapnel," are downright strange. Players have to repeatedly tap the A button to get the giant hand to smash the Granny Smith apple into little bits. Or there's "Alien Laser Hero," where players control a giant metal robot head that uses eye rays to zap rocks before they fall to the planet below. The object of "Crash Test Dummy" is to deploy the air bag before the dummy's head bounces off the steering wheel. Strange and replayable.
We found a few we liked and played them over and over and over.
And because this is a "party" game, the multiplayer modes mean you and your buddies can be confused and bewildered simultaneously. As many as 16 players can toss around a single controller in an elimination round. Or connect as many as four controllers and spice up game-play with variations such as "Outta My Way." In this one, a gamer solves the puzzles with an opponent's character dancing around on the screen to block his view -- which is particularly difficult when your opponent is the character "Jimmy," the tall guy with an opaque blue afro.
In a nice touch uncommon these days, all 213 of the little games are unlocked at the outset so players can practice their grabbing or jumping or whatever is called for.