Talk about a complete and utter waste of time…

If Nintendo were to make an iPhone game, it would be Game & Wario. It’s an extremely shallow, buggy, and flawed experience that becomes completely obsolete thanks to Nintendo Land. The game literally has no reason to exist. But okay, let’s get all this hate out of the way first. You’re here for impressions, not hate mail.

Let’s start with the first demo I played: Ski. In it, you play as Jimmy T on a pair of, well, skis and your job is to race down the hill as fast as possible. The game is played completely on the touch screen and uses the Wii U GamePad’s gryroscope sensor to move. The screen itself is an overhead view of Jimmy T, and a shake of the GamePad will make Jimmy perform some cool tricks. The television itself shows a live view of your character, sort of like a live replay camera. It’s a nice touch, but it also means you can’t play the game by just looking at the TV.

Did I have fun? No. Why? Because I’ve played this game before… in 1991. Yes, Game & Wario’s “Ski” is basically a short 20-second version of SkiFree that was built in with Windows over two decades ago. And yes, SkiFree is the better game (where are the yetis?).

You can watch me die of boredom from "Ski" in the video below.

So, following my terrib – err, disappointing experience with Ski, the rep decided to let me play some Arrow, or as he called it, “his favorite game.” The game is also played with the GamePad’s gyro controls, but this time you’re pointing your GamePad at the screen and using your hand to pull back on arrows from the touch screen. The goal is to shoot as many bad guys as possible, and if they get too close to you, you have to take them out one by one whack-a-mole style on the GamePad. It’s an interesting concept that should have worked very well…

… but unfortunately, it didn’t. Those who have seen the game online will know that Game & Wario has severe calibration issues, to the point where I was shooting sidewise in order to shoot forward. The worst part? The rep didn’t even bother fixing it for me until I vocally told him “I think the GamePad needs some calibration.” I’m also done with this gyroscope crap that Nintendo keeps on putting out. Let’s face it; the gyroscope is too inaccurate to work. Please, I beg you, stop making games that rely on the gyroscope, or at least the games that require you to POINT at the screen with the gyroscope. It just doesn’t work. Thanks.

Game & Wario comes out some time during the Wii U launch window.

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