Gnomz Review

There's apparently been an interesting PC game making the rounds on the Internet through the past few years called Super Mario War – it's essentially a version of Super Smash Bros. that removes all of the fighting techniques and forces you to kill your opponents simply by jumping on their heads. Swarms and swarms of respawning Marios, each of them trying to jump and stomp on each other. Sounds pretty fun, right? It's the kind of fan game that you'd think could inspire a legitimate release.

And so it has. Gnomz for WiiWare doesn't use Nintendo's Mario license, of course, but the core gameplay idea here is just the same as Super Mario War has been providing for years (to those who don't really care about going through the proper channels to use a copyrighted character). Gnomz's bearded garden gnomes are much more generic, but at least they're legal.

This idea loses a lot of its fun without the unlicensed Mario connection, though, as Mario defeating enemies by stomping on their heads has always been a key part of his character – it makes a lot less sense to see a bunch of garden gnomes trying to do the same thing. The control here also feels like it's missing something, as matches against opponents (either your friends or A.I.-controlled) always seem to descend into chaos and force multiple deaths upon you before you respawn in a favorable enough position to be able to reasonably retaliate.

There are three different game modes in Gnomz, each one a little different. Smash Match is your basic deathmatch scenario, the winner being the ones who earns more frags than anyone else. "Socker" is a mad dash to collect more sock icons on the screen than your foes, and "Capture the Sock" puts the focus on one single, golden sock that awards victory to whomever carries it the longest out of all challengers. Each one can be fun, and Gnomz could potentially be a good option to try out the next time you're got enough friends over at your place to get a full four-player game going.

• More Wii Reviews
• Latest Wii News, Reviews, and Videos