You bat a smiling, sentient tangerine through walls of blocks. Seriously.
Span Smasher is one of the Big N's surprise showing here at E3 2009, a game we didn't really know anything about in advance of the show -- but, after having spend a while with it here on the show floor, we can tell you pretty much everything. It's all summed up in that intro sentence up there -- Span Smasher is a game where you play as a bouncing piece of fruit, and you use the Wii Remote to swipe, slap and knock him around the screen and blast through barriers built of breakable blocks.
This is a Wii MotionPlus-only game, developed by
Artoon and set to be published by Nintendo sometime in the to-be-announced future. But however long the wait is, it might be worth it -- this little design is simple, but can get addictive.
One swipe of the Remote gets your character, The Smasher, rolling. He'll hit a barrier, break it, and then bounce back the opposite way -- ricocheting off the wall in a manner similar to arcade classic Arkanoid. You'll then swipe at him again, sending him at another block, to break it. Rinse and repeat.
You can swipe at The Smasher multiple times in a row if you want, course-correcting him in mid-flight to send him soaring around unbreakable obstacles. You don't want to constantly waggle the Wiimote, though, because waiting a few seconds in-between swipes allows him to power-up -- glowing with white, fruity rage. Then your next swipe will be super-powered, able to break through multiple blocks at a time without bounce back.
Also, the stage constantly scrolls. So you've got to move fast.
The E3 demo on display here on the show floor offered up three full levels and a boss battle. The levels were pretty snazzy, including some pinball-like slides that sent the Smasher spinning around the screen, keys you had to grab to unlock doors, multiple paths to progress and collectible items galore. Grabbing fruit pieces activated power-ups, like a Multi Ball and Fire Ball mode that each lasted 15 seconds or so before fading away. There were also special medals to collect along the way, and those determined your overall success in each stage -- grab three, and you passed the level. Grab less than three, and you failed.
The boss was a big, bad blowfish unrelated to Hootie and the band. His attacks were pretty visually impressive, as he puffs himself up with air and then exhaled a wave of flying blocks meant to impede you. You've just got to power through, though, and wail on that whale. Eventually, he deflates and dies. Game over, demo complete.
Overall, Span Smasher was a fun surprise here at the show, and really just a good example of the kinds of MotionPlus projects Nintendo has in mind to launch through the rest of 2009 and into next year. Span Smasher won't be your most anticipated title over the span of time between now and its release, but once you finally get your hands on it yourself you'll have a good amount of fun.
And really, you can't beat a game where the main character is, literally, a fruit.
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I am. Looks like I am going to need to update my Endless Ocean themed Backloggery (link in sig) and change my avatar.
So everyone else is generic w/o her. 
ing crazy.