Let's Tap (Wii)

Intrigue, excitement, disappointment, exasperation. The emotional roller coaster of yet another novelty Wii game.
6/29/2009 2:50 PM | 3 Comments | Page 1 of 2

Let's tap!

Let's put the Wii Remote on an empty cereal box and drum our fingers. That's the only way to control Let's Tap, after all. And hey, it actually works! The Wii controller is more sensitive than we thought. Who needs MotionPlus?

Let's take the tutorial. This is fun. We're passing with flying colors. This is going to be easy. This is the greatest game ever. We are in love.

Let's play one of the mini-games. How about Tap Runner? We'll just go ahead and choose it from the menu. Tap once to scroll, and double-tap to select. Oops, it didn't work. Let's try again. Oops, it didn't work. Let's try again. Oops, it didn't work. We're working out the kinks.

Let's play Tap Runner, for real now. We got it to work. We had to grab a new cereal box after we got a little violent with the last one. We learned our lesson. So did the cereal box. OK, ready, set, go. We're running. Kind of. Sometimes we're jumping by accident. It's hard to tell what constitutes a "light tap" and what constitutes a "medium tap." At least, it's hard for us to tell. The game seems to think there's a huge difference. We're trying to finish the obstacle course, but the finish line seems farther and farther away, like one of those dreams where you forget how to run.

Let's do another mini-game. Tap Runner wasn't so bad. We had some laughs; we bonded. We're starting to imagine that this would be a fun party game. Surely Rhythm Tap will be even better. It's a rhythm game, with tapping. We probably should have guessed. It feels a lot like Taiko no Tatsujin. I'll throw in a YouTube link to some Japanese dude freaking out on a Taiko no Tatsujin machine in case the nice people haven't heard of it before. And also because it's pretty funny.

Let's take a break. Our arms are tired. We figured tapping would be pretty low-impact. But now my forearms feel like I've been using the chunky keyboard at work for too long, the one that has crumbs stuck under the keys so you have to press really hard. How do your arms feel? The same? Yeah. Tapping is harder than it looks. Can't believe it's only been 10 minutes. We're shaking it out and forging ahead. That's the spirit.

Let's play the next mini-game, Silent Blocks. The nice people are counting on us. This one is like Jenga. With tapping. Naturally. We're gently pulling out the discs so the colors match up. It's match-three. No, I don't know why your pile keeps collapsing. You're just not doing it right, I guess. I've been going strong for 20 minutes. Just watch how I carefully -- oh, for the love of … THIS STUPID GAME DOESN'T MAKE ANY FREAKING --

Let's get a new cereal box.

Let's go on a Bubble Voyage now. Because we have to play all of the mini-games for the review, that's why. Hey, I'm as tired of tapping as you are. I don't want to see any sort of tap ever again. We'll drink our beer from a bottle. We'll dance soft-shoe. Just as soon as we finish this Bubble Voyage. Look, it's starting. We're squirting through the ether, shooting missiles at each other and avoiding spiky things, at least when Let's Tap decides to detect our tapping. It's like Asteroids minus any vestige of joy. Plus pain. Hope all this carpal-tunnel damage is worth it for you, nice people.