Welcome to DS on DS. This is where I'm going to be taking a look at the Nintendo DS and all of it's games. And when I say all, I mean it. We will be going from Metroid Prime: Hunters to Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends. From Tetris DS to Barbie 12 Dancing Princesses. Yes, I said Barbie.  Every Friday, I will write a review on the game I have chosen for the week.

This week I am going to be taking a look at WarioWare Touched!.

To no big surprise to anyone who has met me, I have ADD.  So when the GameBoy Advance game WarioWare Mega Microgames was released, I was in twitch heaven.  So when they announced WarioWare Touched! for the Nintendo DS, I was ecstatic.  Well, at first I was a little leery about the whole idea of the DS.  Then Scott got one and brought it over to my place.  I got one just a few days later, and with it I got WarioWare Touched!

The idea behind the WarioWare games is that Wario is trying to get rich.  In this one, Wario is walking down the sidewalk holding a GBA and a GBA SP when he trips and drops both of them in an open manhole.  Out pops an angel, because apparently they have Old Man Sewer Angels in Japan, and he is holding a GBA and a DS.  He asks Wario which one he dropped, and Wario attacks him to get both of them from him.  After climbing back out of the sewer with the DS, Wario tries to play a game on it.  Of course, he can't play it with the buttons on the system so he starts getting pissed off and starts shaking the crap out of the handheld.  Out pops a stylus, Wario uses it to play the game, and then decides that with twice the number of screens he can make twice the amount of money.

From here, you get to start playing the mini games, but you are limited to playing through Wario's set.  Of course, after you beat that you unlock more characters, and with them different types of mini games.  Mona's games, for instance, are all played by sliding the stylus on the touchscreen.  You can go from plucking some hairs to slicing a big hanging snot off of a girl.  Some of the other styles formini games include spinning things, tapping things, and even using the system's microphone.

As you play through the various mini games, which come at you with no real instructions other than "dodge" or "connect" leaving you rushing to figure out what is going on, they will get both harder and faster. Unfortunately, stronger is nowhere to be found, and better would be very subjective here.  If you fail the mini game , which you will, mostly out of confusion the first few times around, you lose a life.  Lose all 4 lives, and it's game over.  After every six or somini games, they will get faster.  Play a few more and you have to play the Boss Stage, which is a slightly longer mini game .  These range from exploring a nose for treasure to bowling, and are all generally pretty good.  The only one I don't really like is the one where you rub the rainbow.  If this is your first time playing through a character's games, you will be done after the Boss Stage, pass or fail (unless you were on your last life).  If you are playing through to unlock stuff (like some of the bonus toys and moremini games) and you beat the Boss Stage, you will earn an extra life.

The graphics for this game is something that is really something hard to rate, because for every mini game there is in this game, there are just as many different art styles.  One mini game will look like it was drawn by a second grader, and the very next one you play will be photo-realistic.  It all works perfectly though because the entire game is so random that you need a completely eclectic look to the game.  This game also has some good music in it.  Nothing groundbreaking by any means, but it is all pretty good.  Nothing made me want to turn my speakers off.

WarioWare Touched was one of the earliest releases on the DS, and the fact that it is still one of the best at this point in the DS's lifespan really says a lot for it.  If you haven't played this game yet, you need to at least give it a try.  And it doesn't hurt if you have ADD.

Final Score: 9/10