Metareview -- Wario Land: Shake It! (Wii)

Mario's evil Twinner, Wario, would have been right at home in the "Me Generation" of the '80s, where, as Charlie Sheen's Gordon Gekko pronounces in Wall Street, "Greed is good!"

The rotund, gassy, gold-obsessed anti-hero spends his latest adventure – and first platforming outing on Wii – seeking out riches with the aid of several Wiimote-centric play mechanics, including – you guessed it – shaking the controller. Here's how its mix of novel controls and 2D visuals (which you can see for yourself in these videos) shook reviewers:

• IGN (84/100): "A really fun experience thanks to excellent control and fantastic level designs, not to mention a beautiful visual presentation."

• Nintendo Power (80/100): "There's some great puzzle solving and a lot of visual and gameplay variety among the levels, and it has the kind of fun controls that make you want to pick up the controller just to run around. In a gaming season that appears short on epic hardcore games, Wario's latest-and possibly best-treasure hunt is worth its weight in gold."

• Eurogamer (70/100): "A game which is good, but not great, and certainly not up to the standard of Nintendo's best 2D platformers."

• Edge (60/100): "Nintendo is famed for sprinkling around mechanics other developers would build entire games on, but here the effect is quite irritating."