I’m sick and tired of the debate surrounding the Wii remote. Is it a gimmick or revolution? None of that matters one iota after five seconds with Konami’s Elebits, because in the time it takes to grab your first virtual object with the remote, twist it push it, pull it and fling it away you realise that this game can only work with the Wii’s controls. For the first time ever you’re actually touching a virtual world and the uniqueness of that feeling is paradigm shifting in the same way that anyone who can remember using a mouse for the first time will understand.

Video A - Faucet fiddling

Of course the connection that Elebits forges between player and game world will be copied, refined and rinsed until we all wonder just how the hell we ever did without it. By being first to market there’s a certain cache surrounding Elebits, but underneath the sexy; perfect control Konami have crafted an equally unique gaming experience, that, whilst not having the instant simplicity and super slick presentation of Katamary Damashii, somehow manages to tap into the same nerve centres as Namco’s roll-em-up.

Shhh! Careful.

Some missions also layer on additional criteria in the form of a noise limit or a limit on the number of objects that can be broken - expect to see plates, glasses and vases precariously balanced just waiting for you or the Elebits to carelessly knock them over.

Whilst Katamary’ focused on rolling the world up into a nice neat ball, Elebits comes crashing through with the inverse of that concept, by placing the player in a tidy environment and letting them trash it all to hell in the sort of destructive displays of chaos that kids fantasise about. Indeed the whole first level takes place in a child’s bedroom letting you take out all those years of pent up frustration at having to “tidy your room”.

Video B - Powdered toast

The point to all the tossing of furniture and shaking-down of closets is to unearth and capture the pesky Elebits: tiny little pudgy creatures that have an annoying habit of hiding out inside or underneath items. Tracking the little buggers down and zapping them with your capture gun is the order of the day. Broadly the Elebits that can be captured fall into two types. There's your normal 'garden variety' Elebits that increases your ‘Watts’ count and then there are Power Elebits which increase the power of the capture gun allowing more and more massive objects to be manipulated. Power Elebits appear when you turn on items of electrical equipment like toasters, lathes, carousels and giant robots. However before an appliance can be turned on it must become 'energised' by reaching a specified number of Watts. The game then becomes a race to build Watts, turn on appliances, power up the capture gun and so on until either you run out of time or you reach the Watts quota required to clear the mission.

Video C - Microwave vs. gravity

Edit Mode

Downloadable level packs, pah, no thank you. Fully fledged level editor with sharing of levels over Wii connect 24. Yes please! A quick trip to youtube and a search for “elebits dominoes” reveals just how much fun can be had with this superb extra.

If that all sounds a bit ‘thin’ in gameplay terms then consider this: every Elebit has a mood and capturing them whilst they’re relaxed and happy yields a greater benefit. Conversely alarming them by chasing them around really pisses them off and capturing Elebits in this state gives the leanest return. This is where the power ups that are scattered around come into play. Want to draw some Elebits from their hiding place and enhance their mood? Then pick up an Elebit cookie and break it open to let the sweet smell waft out. Want to stun a room full of distressed Elebits? Then smash open an EMP bomb and wave it around like a giant morning-star. There are other power-ups too that dramatically alter the behaviour of the capture gun. One gives it a multiple lock-on capability vastly speeding up the capture rate, whilst the even more potent vacuum laser sucks up everything in its path for massive fun.

Video D - Pop the corn

Each mission is also peppered with environmental puzzles and successfully solving these spawns yet more Elebits. Mostly these puzzles revolve around putting an object into or onto something else for example putting the microwavable popcorn in the microwave. Obvious really, but there are some more esoteric examples that require a little more thought than that. Of course knowing what to do is only one half of the challenge as the necessary objects must be located (yet more frantic rummaging) and then manipulated into position.

Challenge Mode

Hunt down the elusive pink Elebits in the mission mode and a special challenge mode can be unlocked for each mission. Challenges are short, sharp, specially designed mini-games that are incredibly difficult. A welcome challenge compared with the more forgiving main game.

There’s plenty to keep the player engaged then, but the real star of the show (other than the controls) is the game engine which expertly models the physical behaviour of every single object in the environment. Objects have their own mass, inertia and momentum; cupboard doors and draws flop open realistically as a bedside unit spins and crashes into a book case, knocking off smaller lighter objects. The shear number of physical interactions going on at any one time is often bewildering.

Video E - Lucky vacuum

The game does have a couple of minor flaws. During particularly intense sections the frame-rate can become a little sluggish, not that this harms the gameplay significantly as movement throughout is fittingly pedestrian for the story’s child protagonist. The physics engine too has its own gremlins. Very occasionally an object can be seen to float in space once a supporting object has been removed from underneath it. These rare bugs open up a small fissure of fallibility in an otherwise totally coherent game world.

Elebits is the sort of innovative title that the Wii was designed for. It’s a clear case of hardware innovation providing the platform for a completely new type of as yet unseen gameplay. Short of donning a full virtual reality getup this is as close as we’re likely to get to being ‘in the game’ for a long while yet.