Let’s Tap Nintendo Wii review

Could Sega's Let's Tap be the most casual of casual games to date?

If, as some will argue, the problem that holds gaming back from being a 100% mainstream endeavour is the control system that a console employs, then Sega could just have lobbed a grenade slap bang into the middle of the argument. Because even by the standards of the casual-gamer-friendly Wii, it’s come up with something so ridiculously easy to control, that it’s hard for anyone not to quickly pick it up with its latest, Let’s Tap.

The magic bullet in Sega’s mind? Cardboard boxes. Specifically, the two cardboard boxes that come with the retail pack. This reviewer, not knowing much about the title in advance, naturally nearly threw them in the bin, before realising their place in life. And the thinking is this: you place your Wiimote face down on said cardboard box, and the on-screen action is controlled by you simply tapping the box. Don’t worry if you don’t get a version with a, er, free cardboard box. A tissue box or something of that ilk can be easily substituted.

The game, then, can register how hard or how frequently you tap, and it’s those measures that affect the five mini-games that Let’s Tap includes. The first is a kind of hurdles race, where you must tap very lightly to run, and then harder to jump. If you tap too heavily, then the game tells you off, but – once you’ve got the timing sussed, it’s very easy, and very forgettable.

The Jenga-a-like game of removing blocks is better, and – as with all of the games in the pack – it works better with a crowd of people. At the very least, that ratchets up a fair bit of tension. There’s then a space shooting game, one where you need to tap to the rhythm of the tune being played (although there’s no SingStar-esque list of hit songs to flesh this out), and some visualiser thing that actually proved to be no game at all.

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You can see the conclusion here coming a country mile off. Given that the little minigames have about as much depth as a puddle, a single player will be lucky – once the novelty has worn off – to still be interested even an hour down the line. Grab a group of people, get them a little merry and settle down for the night, and Let’s Tap suddenly finds its vocation.

It’s very accessible (save for trying to control the menus by tapping – we gave up, and picked up the Wiimote for that bit), and that’s very much in its favour. But if this doubles as the kind of game to bring new people into videogames who haven’t been endeared to them before, then they may just end up wondering what all the fuss was about.

Rating:

2 out of 5