Put that Wiimote down (upside down in fact) it's time to let your fingers do the talking.
Written By Predat0r & Wrecker
Have you ever considered that by tapping a box on which your Wii Remote was lying you’d be able to successfully control a game? Probably not, but that’s exactly what Sonic The Hedgehog creator Yuji Naka did, and with his newly formed studio 'Prope’ (in collaboration with Sega) has taken this novel idea and created Let’s Tap. Let’s Tap is a collection of mini-games which employs this new and unique control style by laying the remote upside down on a flat, hard surface (preferably a box) and then ‘tapping’ the surface, with the resulting vibrations being picked up by the Wiimote sensors and thus allowing the user to command onscreen activities.
Upon starting the Let’s Tap tutorials, the on-screen instructions suggest that you place the remote on a box of tissues (complete with tissue box graphic). Somewhat reluctantly complying, the most immediate realization, (after rushing out to invest in plastic Wii branded tissue box peripherals. Hey don’t laugh, some overseas versions do come with official Let’s Tap foldout cardboard boxes), is that this control method actually works very well. The combination of Wii Remote and tapping box says a lot for just how sensitive the accelerometers in the Wii Remote are and allows for game control via soft, medium, hard, rhythmic and speed-based tapping.
Let’s Tap consists of five mini-games - Tap Runner, Rhythm Tap, Silent Blocks, Bubble Voyager and Visualizer, which while all quite different, all make use of the aforementioned tapping technique. Interestingly even the games menus can be navigated by single and double taps which is quite satisfying and not unlike a laptop touch pad (albeit a lot cheaper). In fact you can play the entire game without even touching the Wii Remote. Tap Runner is a side-scrolling ‘platformer’ obstacle-laden running race, Rhythm Tap involves accurately tapping to a music track, Silent Blocks is a ‘Jenga’ style game, Bubble Voyager is a side-scrolling shooter and Visualizer consists of creative tap-based music visuals. The game is accessable to all ages and caters for one to four players.
Tap Runner is by far the best game included in
Let’s Tap and anyone who is old enough to remember similarly smashing joystick buttons playing
Daley Thompson’s Olympic Challenge will agree. Four coloured ‘running men’ (think of a cross between the faceless 'Bic' pen man and a jelly baby) race through the side-scrolling wire-framed obstacle course, which is rather Tron-like in apperance, by gently tapping with a constant rhythm. Runners can jump over obstacles or onto platforms by executing a harder tap and players are rewarded with a more efficient jump for carefully timed taps, such as off the edge of a downhill slide. There is something quite compelling and somewhat addictive about the pressure of maintaining this constant tapping rhythm, which is compounded when a few friends join in and will definitely make for a few laughs. The game maintains focus on all four players regardless of where their runner is on the course by slowly zooming out, which makes it all the more humiliating when you leave your friends squashed or electrified by obstacles behind you. While there can be some minor issues with the tap controls when switching from running to jumping, this often comes down to ‘user error’ and adds to the fun when an unexpected jump can be the difference between winning or coming last.
As the name suggests the second mini-game available, Rhythm Tap, is a rhythm-based game in the vein of Guitar Hero which requires players to time thier taps to the beat of music. Different symbols indicate when the player is required to tap softer, harder or with increasing intensity. While it would be easy to ‘write-off’ this mini-game in our current climate of billion dollar music games, Rhythm Tap incorporates the tapping controls exceptionally well and is actually smoother and responds more accurately than some other Wii music games, such as Samba De Amigo. It’s also much more fun when competing in multiplayer mode, where each player taps to a slightly different pattern. Rhythm Tap will also be enjoyed by anyone who sits in traffic listening to the radio drumming out a beat on their steering wheel.
Next is Bubble Voyager, a side-scrolling shooter perhaps borrowing from older games like
Delta or
R-Type, but most probably inspired by the incredibly addictive Adobe Flash ‘Helicopter Game’, responsible for hours and hours of lost productivity in offices around the nation. Players control a mechanized part-human/part-plane character by tapping to increase the lift/thrust allowing it to rise and ceasing tapping to allow it to fall as you travel constantly through a scrolling landscape. A sharper tap will activate rockets to dispatch enemies and obstacles impeding your progress. The single player Bubble Voyager levels definitely retain the addictive nature of the games that most certainly inspired it and it is hard to stop playing once you have started.
Curiously the multiplayer Bubble Voyager, named Battlefield, is completely different and is in fact based on the legendary arcade game Asteriods. Tapping still controls the thrust and missile firing, but there is little control on which direction the plane is facing, as it continues rotating until thrust is applied, making for a less responsive take on the arcade classic, which ultimately becomes more frustrating and confusing as more players join the mayhem.
Unfortunately the remaining two mini-games Silent Blocks and Visualizer are not nearly as engaging as Tap Runner, Rhythm Tap or Bubble Voyager and really don’t offer much more to the
Lets Tap collection.
Silent Blocks is essentially a very basic version of the successful Boom Blox title and probably would have been quite enjoyable in its own right had we not already been introduced to the EA & Spielberg hit. The game dynamics don’t really work as well for a tapping game, and although the controls respond well, it would have made far more sense to point and drag with the Wii Remote than to select blocks by tapping to highlight the on-screen cursor. While there are increasing difficulties and a colour-matching game mode, this mini-game appears rather dull, both gameplay wise and graphically, even in the shadow of the other Let’s Tap mini-games.
The final mini-game Visualizer is not really a game at all and doesn’t have a clearly defined goal, other than to tap along to a few of the Lets Tap music tracks. Players can tap through 'stages' such as Fireworks, Paint and Ink to visually splatter the screen with light and colour in time to the music, much like a user controlled graphic equalizer or a simpler version of Wii Music. While this doesn’t look too bad on the Wii and might satisfy the obsessive-compulsive music tappers amongst us, for the most part this mini-game will not provide much more entertainment than a passing curiosity.
The graphics in the
Let’s Tap mini-games are simple but modern and quite effective. Tap Runner and Rhythm Tap make use of colourful flared ‘wire-frame’ graphics, not unlike
Geometry Wars or
Audiosurf, while several of the games have multi-layered eye-catching background effects. With the exception of Silent Blocks, which is quite basic and bland, there is also a fair amount of attention to detail in the visuals of the game; in particular, the animations of the characters in Tap Runner are great and will get ‘exhausted’, hang their head in shame after losing and start stretching when idle.
Lets Tap features a good soundtrack which includes drum and bass, electonica and dance themed music, which works particularly well with the Tap Runner and Bubble Voyager games. A lot of the background music features as the sixteen or so tracks available in Rhythm Tap and is obviously well suited to tapping out a beat, but it may have been nice to see some licensed content here to spice up the offerings. The background music does seem in some cases to dominate over the actual sound effects, which seem to take a bit of a ‘back seat’ and are a bit lacklustre, but having said this there are still some nice touches, such as the ‘retro’ 8-bit style voices, including through the Wii Remote, at the start of each Tap Runner race.
The Final Verdict
Overall,
Let’s Tap is an intriguing collection of mini-games which takes advantage of an entirely unique method of playing the Wii, with no additional peripherals required – other than a tissue box! Unlike some other Wii control methods, the ‘tapping’ is surprisingly precise and is very well suited to most of the games, as well as the menu navigation. The five games included – Tap Runner, Rhythm Tap, Bubble Voyager, Silent Blocks and Visualizer - offer some very different ways of utilizing tapping, but tend to decrease in appeal in that order, with the last two adding little value. The other main criticism of
Let’s Tap is that the games are just too short; an accomplished gamer could complete most of the games in a couple of hours as each mini-game does not include nearly enough stages. The games are well designed and presented and the gameplay is reminiscent of older addictive classics, which is greatly enhanced with multiple human opponents. Tap Runner is certainly the best game here (Sega knows this as it features heavily in the game art) and they could have quite easily dropped some of the lesser games in favour of some more complex Tap Runner levels. The game had the potential to be great but feels rather incomplete, as it only 'skims the surface' and lacks any real depth. If you are like the many people who spend hours (at work) playing viral e-mail games such as ‘Chopper’ or ‘Line Runner’, then you are going to enjoy the
Let’s Tap mini-games – but here is hoping for a Tap Runner solo project.
Gameplay
7.0/10
A fun and uncomplicated family friendly party game that’s best played in small doses. Very unique gameplay with an innovative control method that actually works well. A couple of great mini-games along with a couple of poor ones.
Graphics
7.5/10
Bright and colourful funky graphics, logos and designs. Simplistic but pleasing effects and animation well suited to the games style.
Sound
7.5/10
Punchy modern synth-based arcade style soundtrack, with reasonable sound effects.
Value
5.5/10
Let’s Tap is almost worth it for Tap Runner alone, but, as with all of the other mini-games, is just way too short. There is some replay value in Tap Runner to obtain fastest times and ‘gold medals’, but even that's stretching it. Does contains some good competitive multiplayer action, however there’s no online play.
Overall
6.9/10