Super Happy Fun Time

Let's Tap

This Wii title is being brought to us by Yuji Naka, otherwise known as Sonic the Hedgehog's Dad. As reported by Joystiq, he's billing it as "the game that even penguins could play". Eurogamer has yet to test this claim, but I can tell you it was the best bit of wacky old nonsense I saw at TGS.

I got the chance to go hands-on at SEGA's booth. The Wii remote rests face-down on a flat surface. At the booth, this meant special cardboard boxes about the size of a book, which were filled with dense but slightly springy material. Not having bothered to learn any foreign words at all, I couldn't establish whether these will come bundled with the game.

Presented with a screen full of brightly coloured balls, I tentatively started patting the book thing. The nice SEGA lady, dressed in knee-high white boots and hotpants hotter than the surface of the sun, smiled encouragingly. I patted harder and the balls started bouncing into the air.

Next thing I knew the screen was filled with a blank canvas. I hit the book and a splodge of paint appeared. I repeated this until the screen was filled with paint, at which point the image dissolved into a watercolour painting of a mouse.

Then the screen filled some wireframe drawings of skyscrapers. Hitting the pad made fireworks explode above them. An underwater scene followed, where hitting the pad made bubbles appear and fish move about. At no point did I understand what any of this was supposed to mean, or what the objective of any of it was, but it was quite pretty.

Then the SEGA lady and I moved to a different pod and she showed me a game where you race little wireframe characters. You tap the mat rapidly but gently to get them to move along the neon tracks, and remove your hands completely to make them jump. This is how you navigate obstacles such as electric fences. There are other environmental objects along the way, such as balloons you have to blow up by tapping rhythmically.

It all made much more sense than the bouncy balls and watercolour mouse stuff, and the SEGA lady and I managed to transcend the barriers of language by laughing at how rubbish I was. It remains to be seen whether Let's Tap will be suitable for penguins, or whether SEGA will ever release it outside of Japan, but here's hoping.