When it comes to favorited Nintendo characters some people automically think “Mario right? Hey some might even say “Luigi”.

Not me though, no I'm a fan of Wario. Why? Because he’s the man! He’s rude and crude he's fat, he frequently picks his nose, and he always says whatever he wants.

Let's face it, as far as spin-off characters go, Wario's had a pretty good career; starring in some awesome games like WarioWare Smooth Moves. Well, now he's back with "Wario Land: Shake It!"(or Shake Dimension in the UK) a fun new platformer for the Wii.

All Shook Up

The big hook of "Wario Land Shake It!" is, of course, the ability to shake the Wii Remote (held sideways, NES-style using the D-Pad to move Wario and the 1 and 2 buttons to make him jump and perform all sorts of cool moves.) From swinging on bars to launching himself at enemies, to shaking moneybags. My favorite is a Hulk-style thunder crash move onto the ground, it is powerful enough to stun every enemy on the screen in a single hit. Suh-weet!

Wario travels to the Shake Dimension to rescue a princess from a pirate who calls himself the Shake King. Pretty heroic huh! OK, not really. Wario is actually after the Shake King's treasure-a magical Bottomless Coin Sack that could make him rich.

To find the Shake King, Wario must collect the five Boss Emblems by traveling through five different realms and rescuing the queen's subjects along the way. Wario must make it to the end of each level, free the subject, then race back to the beginning of the level before the timer runs out. Wow, five worlds and five bosses to conquer before you even make it to the big showdown, wow you won’t be done with this in just a few hours, that's for sure!

The developers have even added bonus side missions to every stage. Some are a bit obvious, your usual "don’t lose any health", "collect X amount of gold", "complete level within X amount of time"sort of thing ,but every so often they throw a seemingly impossible mission your way to mixes things up a bit. Such as not touching water in an aqua park and piloting a ship without crashing. Pretty neat. But did it make me want to return to a completed level? Umm, not really. In fact, I haven't felt the achieved any side missions yet. Because between you and me, who needs trinkets and treasures when you’ve got gold bags bursting with coins at almost every turn?

All That Glitters

Sure you've played plenty of platformers in your day but I can almost guarantee you've never seen a platformer that looks like this before! SideNote:Unless you're playing in 16:9, in which case you have to put up with ugly bars on either side of the screen.

"Beautiful" isn't usually a word one associates with Wario,but all the characters, from the tiniest of minions to the biggest bosses (not forgetting Wario himself of course) are very detailed and colorful with tons and tons of personality. Did I happen to mention that all the animations are hand drawn? Impressive! And that's exactly what I'm looking for when I buy a videogame; you know I'm a simple gal who doesn't really care about polygons, bump mapping and other technical mumbo jumbo!

Y'know, this new Wario Land isn't very innovative. There's almost nothing new aside from some shaking of the Wii remote that you haven't experienced in other platformers before. It doesn't have any cutting-edge technology but it's fun, it's simple and it's charming, So in the end, I would say Nintendo has ahem, shaken things up a bit!