| Gameplay | B |
|---|---|
| Controls | B+ |
| Graphics | B |
| Presentation | B+ |
| Audio | B |
| Value | C |
| Multiplayer | ++++++++++ |
| Vital Stats | |
| Publisher | SEGA |
| Developer | Prope |
| Price | $29.99 |
| buy from MotionGaming | |
| MetaCritic score | 70 |
review by David V
Let's Tap is a game I really wanted to like. Any time a developer tries to think outside of the box and do something new, something unique, and something only doable on the Wii (and possibly, the PS3), I want to encourage them. So I would like to tell the developers at Prope: great first effort! Unfortunately, I hesitate to recommend Let's Tap because it just doesn't seem to quite deliver the goods.
At it's heart, Let's Tap is a party game, with five mini-games that all center around tapping with your fingers. Rather than hold the Wii remote, you set it on a box of some sort -- the game comes with a set of cheap ones, but since I rented this from GameFly, I used an empty DVD box -- and then tap on the box with your fingers. It's an intriguing idea, and kudos for that. Even the menus, which are fully IR-enabled otherwise, can be controlled by tapping, which is just brilliant. A single tap cycles to the next available option, and a double tap selects the option. It reminded me of using Windows with the touchpad on my laptop computer.
It's in the actual games where Let's Tap starts to get in trouble. The first game, Tap Runner, lets you control a little runner through variously configured obstacle courses. Slow, soft taps result in your figure walking, and steadier, firmer taps get him running. A hard tap makes him jump, so you need to find a balance between too soft and too hard. Once you get that down, now you need to get through the courses, which involve tightropes, trampolines, giant crushing blocks, and electrosparks (which don't just knock your man down, they knock him unconsious, and watching him fold up limp onto the racetrack for the first time is guaranteed to make you laugh). The single player mode is kinda flat, as the AI for the other runners is all over the place. But in multiplayer mode the game comes alive.
The second game is Rhythm Tap, a rhythm music game with modified j-pop tunes instead of the standard Guitar Hero fare. This is just fine by me -- Japanese pop stars have for decades mastered the art of electro-disco, and all of the music is in that vein. It's limited though, only 20 songs, and since I don't know the originals, I don't know how faithful the renditions are. And it's not terribly difficult. You aren't penalized for tapping when there's no note, and while you are supposed to vary the strength of your taps, aside from varying amounts of points there's no real penalty for not doing so correctly. I personally enjoyed the music more than the game, and my tastes run strongly into electropop, so the rest of you aren't likely to appreciate this game mode much. Again, multiplayer mode works much better since you're playing for points.
Bubble Voyager is perhaps the most engaging single-player experience. You tap to keep a small spaceman afloat as he collects stars and power-ups. Every so often you encounter a landing spot, and you can go for a perfect landing, or you can skip it for a point bonus and try a later landing place if you can survive that long. You can also shoot missiles, but I never figured out the pattern for shooting them on command. They always seemed to just come out randomly. Multiplayer mode is a bit weaker, with up to four players going at it at once, it can get pretty chaotic and opaque.
Next we have Silent Blocks, in which you have a stack of blocks and you need to extract out of the middle and keep from knocking them over. The main unlimited mode, obviously meant for a room ful of partiers, I found rather boring. The one-player alchemist mode requires you to extract some colors in order to match 3 or more other colors, setting up cascades and point multipliers. This was more interesting, but I found the tapping game mechanic just didn't seem to fit this game well at all. I'd rather just pick up the Wii remote and point at the block and grab it.
The final mode is not a game at all. Visualizer is more of an eye toy, and it has various modes that respond to your tapping. There's Fireworks, which is my favorite, as well as Paint, Ink, Marbles, and several other modes. I can see this being a hit as a party activity, as it translates patterns of taps into different visuals, and certain predetermined patterns will trigger nice visual events when you discover them, but the appeal is limited since there's no end goal otherwise. I could see leaving it on at a party and letting people just putter with it.
One feeling that I couldn't get away from is one of the same criticisms that a lot of Wii games get when resorting to "waggle", pointless motion control that simply replaces a button press. What we've done here is remove the button entirely, but still press it. Call it "zen waggle" maybe, but there's not a lot of difference between pushing a button and tapping a finger. I suppose you can use multiple fingers, but the game can't distinguish between fingers.
The graphics are usually quite pleasantly modernist and somewhat minimalist, what you might get if the artists for Super Monkey Ball designed a dance club. Lots of glowing, pseudo-neon vectors dress up Tap Runner. The "Fireworks" mode of Visualizer looks like a high tech screen saver. Nothing here is really pushing the system, but I found the art style appealing. The only downside is that on occasion the text used in the game is a bit small and was difficult to read.
The audio is a mixed bag. Because it's pretty fiercely electronic, I found it personally appealing, especially the j-pop in Tap Rhythm. I found nothing out of place, but neither did anything really make me go "wow, that was really cool". There's something to be said for background music that truly stays in the background.
Ultimately, there's not a lot of gaming here. With only 5 mini-games, the single player modes can be played out pretty fast. The appeal here is that topping your previous performances will extend its life a little as you play for higher scores or quicker times, and the nature of the game makes it easy to pop in and play for short periods. But it wouldn't be worth your money to pay full price for this title. It's just not that fully featured. If it had twice as many games in it, and they were all solid chunks of fun, I could see paying $40 for it, but as it stands the appeal is somewhat limited.
If you're collecting unusual games on Wii, Let's Tap certainly would fit the bill. Its control scheme is original, if not always totally functional, and its premise is certainly original. The games try to be unique but ultimately fall short. Rent it first before you commit the money.
