Wacky Waving I.A.F. Avatars Review

The name entices you, doesn’t it? I know, the name’s pretty funky, but I’m sure you’re all wondering if is actually worth your hard earned 80 Microsoft Points? Well, it may come as something of a surprise to you to hear that the Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Avatars don’t actually play a big role in the game, they serve as more of a (slightly) interactive background for a simple button pressing outing.

Upon playing, you’ll be faced with a number of button presses, say A, A then X for example. After the button presses disappear off the screen, it is your turn to duplicate them. It may be easy at first but it can get pretty darn devilish in the later stages. It’s all about remembering which button presses came in which order, and if you’re anything like me (I have the memory of a goldfish) then you’ll find it a bit of a challenge. Oh yes, and while all that’s going on, your Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Avatar will be dancing away in the background to some rather cheesy, yet strangely compelling tunes. The avatar can be turned either left or right by your left control stick, but other than that, all it does is just dance aimlessly away in the background.

To fail the game, you only have to press the wrong button or miss a key-press. Both become increasingly easy as the game progresses, with a huge amount of combinations flying your way and not enough brain cells in your head to process them. Gnarly.

The game’s graphics are somewhat strange. They don’t play an overly important role in the game, as all you really need is to see the button presses, but your Wacky Waving I.A.F. Avatar in the background follows the same graphical style as the avatar found on your Xbox Dashboard. The game’s music is pretty standard. There are two word-less soundtracks and both fall into the dance genre, just.

The only major gripe I had from this small, yet quite addictive, mini-game is its sensitivity when it comes to key presses. It’s quite easy to press a key only to have it press again in quick concession on-screen. So for the majority of the game, I was left slowly and gently pressing the buttons on my controller in order to avoid such an incident. Apart from that though, the game doesn’t appear to have any other major faults, although there’s not an awful lot that can go wrong in this small, brief game.

To finish, as much as Wacky Waving I.A.F. Avatars strives in what it was designed to do, it struggles to entertain or motivate you for any prolonged period of time. It’s a game that does well at what it’s supposed to do, but doesn’t do anything more. Perhaps it’s sufficient for a quick five minutes here or there, or to entertain a small child, but it’s not a big enough game to do anything more. A great novelty game, but as with most novelties, it will wear out soon enough.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Microsoft Xbox 360 code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.