Explanation of what Elebits actually is (and sorta reviewish)
This game is hard to describe. Basically, it controls like the gravity gun in HalfLife 2 (think of it as a subtle rip off of Garry's Mod, since it's hard not to) and the game play flows like Katamari Damacy, in that you collect things which gradually lets you move bigger things to collect more things which let you move bigger things etc.
You point the reticule at the screen, and pressing/holding either button activates the beam. You move with the nunchuck, and use C and Z to crouch down low and stand up high. This is the only control there is. But it's amazing how much is done with it.
The beam is supposed to capture Elebits, and all you have to do is simply point it at an Elebit and fire and it'll become wrapped in a bubble and fly into your gun. But the cool thing is, if you shoot the gun at anything that isn't an elebit, it'll still wrap it in an antigravity bubble, but it wont be pulled into your gun. Instead you can lift it and manipulate it. You can pick up chairs (and eventually, houses) and toss them around. You can do complex human tasks (that are not automated functions, but rather, things you have to do manually) like putting toast in a toaster, washing clothes, and winding a clock. Doing these things will release elebits.
There are also quite a few power ups, all of them are kind of like glass objects that, when smashed against the ground, create some kind of effect. Some of them will create a movable object in their place, like the Elebits Cookie, which will draw Elebits out of hiding--sometimes the Elebits are so eager to get the cookie they'll knock over things too heavy for you to lift on your own. Another item that leaves a movable thing behind is the EMP, which lets you move this sparky EMP ball thing around that puts Elebits to sleep. The Homing Laser will make it you simply have to 'mouse over' an elebit to target them, and then when you press A they all get sucked up at once.
Basically, you capture elebits and the wattage goes up. Each device requires a certain wattage level before it will work. So when you move the reticule past the DVD player, it'll say "X watts", and once you capture enough Elebits to have X watts, the HUD will say "The DVD player has activated!" and then you can go the DVD player, and now when you mouse over it will say "insert", and you have to find the DVD (which you probably lost because you thought it'd be fun to through the entertainment center at the china cabinet) and then pick it up and place it inside the DVD slot. Then the DVD player will say "switch" and pressing the play button will activate it and more Elebits come out. So, you use energy to create more energy. Take that Newton.
There are lots of little puzzles like this, usually items will only say "switch", where pressing a certain part of it (which is usually a glowing green switch) will activate it, "insert" where you have to find the matching item and place it inside this item, in the right angle and direction (toast is harder than you'd think) and "twist" where you have to wist your arm to wind a clock or turn a knob. These basic elements combine into different kinds of puzzles, the neatest of which is probably finding the right thing to "insert" into the other thing, as you'll have to use your Home Ec skills to figure out where the laundry goes and where the hamper is. Also, to open doors, you have to twist the knob and pull or push. This feels really good.
Also, as you get more watts, your gun will level up in jumps. At certain checkpoints your gun's level will increment and you'll be able to lift heavier stuff. Unlike devices and watts, which work on a more specific numbering system (each device needs like 2670 watts or 560 watts) weight seems to go up in great leaps. I think each object has it's own weight, but your gun seems to go up in jumps, so basically, you'll only be able to lift certain things, then after you get enough Elebits, you'll level up and you can now lift like 20 more kinds of things, but need to wait until the next level before you can lift anything else. So even if a piece of furniture that's blocking your path is only a gram too heavy, you can't just get a few more Elebits to lift it, you need to wait until your next level increase.
The goal of each stage is to get a target amount of watts within a certain time limit. But other restrictions can be added in each stage. You can restrict the amount of noise the player can make (there's a decibels bar, you can set how loud is 'too loud' and how many times the player is allowed to go over this bar), a limit on how many breakable things the player can break (like dishes and potted plants). I say "you" because there's a level editor, but I'll get in to that later.
The sound thing is pretty difficult. One of the power ups will neutralize noise for 30 seconds, so you can make as much noise as you want. All objects seem to be made out of a material that knows how to react to other materials. If you hit a pot against a pan you'll probably max out the sound meter instantly. Some things seem curious though, like shattering plates often don't seem to produce much sound at all. Luckily, the sound meter ignores the adorable squeaks that the Elebits make.
The breaking things limit is also cool. A lot of clever puzzles are designed around this in story mode. For example, in the bathroom there is an uneven and precarious stack of rolls of toilet paper, with an Elebit smushed between each roll (meaning a cookie could knock the whole thing over) and a very breakable vase teetering on the top. Another door has potted plants placed in front of it (which, for a while, are too heavy to move out of the way) so you have to open the door carefully every time or you'll knock them over. One of the coolest parts about this, is that you can catch things in mid air as they fall and gently place them on the ground, like what Spiderman did in just about every episode.
Every once in a while there is a boss fight. I think there are four, but I've only done the first one against the Sea Elebit. She's more elaborate than a normal Elebit and about the size of a ...Pikachu... whereas normal Elebits are about the size of Stuart Little. ... Or I guess just a mouse. Sure, they're the size of mice. Anyway, she splits herself up into small pieces, and you have to suck up each piece, and you'll only get part of it then it'll evaporate into water and come back together and she'll go hide in the rafters or something. She has an health bar. Each time you suck ...water? out of her it drains her health. I'm not even sure it's a girl. But the cool part about this fight is that you do it in the living room, and your beam is at 100% power, so you can lift anything. And she'll create the orbs of ice around her, that'll prevent you from capturing her, but you can pick up a coffee table and smash the ice open and then capture her. It's a really cool fight. But she doesn't try to attack you.
After that fight, HP is introduced. You get, I think 6 hits before you fail the mission automatically. I think this number can be adjusted in the level editor. There are spikey black elebits where, if you try to capture them, they'll hurt you, and sometimes they jump at you and you have to duck. You can knock them out by smashing them with stuff. But there's also these toy tanks and soldiers that shoot real missiles at you, and you have to like pick up a chair and block it, or like put a bathtub over them to stop them from shooting.
That's basically how the gameplay goes. It's one of those games where, if it weren't for the time limit, it wouldn't even be a 'game' so much as sand box. Most things (not getting hit, not breaking stuff, not making noise) are all made challenging by the fact that you can't just sit around and poke things in a room. You have to keep moving around, and keep activating the newly energized items, and lifting new stuff each power level. If you waste too much time trying to figure out how to get one elebit who is sleeping behind a glass door that's being blocked by a moose head or something, you'll end up wasting time and not getting enough watts before the time is up. I've had to retry almost every level at least once so far. It's not "hard" but an element of challenged exists by the mere fact that you have to keep it together and be productive consistently. Usually I'll complete levels within a minute or two of their time limit, and levels tend to have time limits that range between 5-15 minutes (once you go outside after about the 7th mission it gets longer and is usually within 10-20). There are something like 25 missions in story mode, so, it's got some meat to it. In addition to the normal mission, each level has like time attack and score attack modes. So, whatever.
Oh. "Story Mode"... Before I go on. I'm going to have to warn you. These cut scenes are painful. This game is a prime example of an awesome game concept being overly kiddified for a Nintendo system. The main character looks like a precious moments doll. While his dad looks slightly more interesting and possibly Russian, his mom looks identical to him but with blond hair. These are the only characters in the game, and they are only scene in cutscenes, never in the game engine. The cutscenes, despite the disappointingly kiddy looking character designs, are beautiful. The art is all done in watercolors, and static images seem to fade in and out with alternately colored versions to make it seem really surreal and liquidy, even though the actual animation is sparse. The voice acting is horrible. Every line is spoken slowly, over acted, and sounds like the main character on a Nick Junior show talking to the camera. It's just bad. Also, the main kid, Kai, is like a 10 year old boy, but he looks like Buster Brown From Space and sounds like a 8 year old girl. It's weird.
Anyway, pretend the story doesn't exist. Luckily you can even skip the cutscenes. I suggest you complete story mode in a dark lonely room so you can play multiplayer and edit mode with your friends without them knowing this game's deep dark secret. Oh, also, the story, I almost forgot. Elebits are Akira, basically. Elebits are little spirits (not unlike those creepy fucking things in Princess Mononoke) that live in trees, and LCD TVs, and rocks. Especially rocks. Elebits are the creature state of electricity. When electricity slows down it becomes dormant in the form of an Elebit. There are now power plants or batteries or anything in this world. It's almost exactly like our world but nothing is plugged to the wall, instead, each house is inhabited by thousands of little Elebits which happily live in your appliances and make things work. The story starts when a bolt of lightning causes a power outage (it, apparently, scared the Elebits away and now they're hiding under toilet paper and stuff) and the hero, Kai, thinks it's his fault, because it happened right after he said he hates Elebits and wishes they'd go away. He hates them because his parents are Elebits scientists, and emotionally distant because their work is so involving. EMOTION!
Kai 'borrows' his dad's Capture Gun so he can capture enough Elebits to watch TV. You turn on the TV (to watch the Energy Rangers I think) in probably the first 40 seconds of the game, none of Kai's actions or motivations are explained after this point, but ultimately he destroys his house, then goes on a rampage down the street, throwing houses at other houses and probably killing many families. Eventually you get to a theme park, but I haven't gotten there yet. It's sort of pointing in the direction that the final battle will somehow involve a power rangers parody.
Anyway, the main attraction to this game is the level editor and WiiConnect24 features. This is the first game to use WiiConnect24, and it uses it really well. You can make your own level, by basically choosing a pre-existing level (only it's bare bones walls) and then choosing 3 'sets' of items (like 'bathroom set' and 'theme park set') and placing the items in the room. If you want, you can just take a big empty stage and build your own walls out of boxes and furniture and stuff, so it's not as limited as it sounds. Every stage in the story mode seems to be made with this editor; there are no features that the developer had that are not at your disposal for level editing. It's pretty technical, but you basically place things the same way you would move them around with the gravity gun, and you select stuff with the D-pad. Each thing has a 'cost', which has to do with how much it's going to take to render that object (there are no checks and balances in terms of gameplay) and you can fill a room with as many things as you want, as long as you still have enough, uh 'cost' for them. You can put a lot of stuff in there. It's easy to fill a room with thousands of elebits if you want.
Aside from building the actual structure of the level, you can make up the rules as to how much noise the player can make, how much things they can break, how many watts they need, how much weight they can lift from the outset, etc. You can even edit variables that are never adjusted in story mode, such as gravity. You can create a room full of furniture and Elebits and then shake things up and it looks like a snow globe or space ship.
You can save something like 40 levels of your own to your Wii. But the coolest part is, you can send these levels to other people with Elebits over WiiConnect24. You can do some creative levels, the tools are there to make rube goldberg machines, hedge mazes, obstacle courses, and pretty much anything you could do in Garry's Mod in Half Life 2. Except incestial poses.
You can also save something like 20 levels from friends that have been sent to you. If your inbox gets full, you can't get any more levels, but you can delete old ones and save your favorites over to your own 40 level allocation.
Oh, you can also take a screen shot at any time. When you pause the game there is a "take screen shot" option, and it's saved to your Elebits game file (not the Wii Photo Channel), and you can then view it later or send it to friends over WiiConnect24.
There's also an offline multiplayer mode. It's really just like single player mode, player 1 has a nunchuck and controls one beam and the character. Every other player just needs a wiimote (no nunchuck) and can shoot on the same screen. You're competing to see who can capture the elebits the fastest, but since you're also this horrible 4 armed monster you have to work together to get anything done.
That's basically it. I doubt any of this info or my opinion on it will change or anything once I beat it, but so far it's an awesome game. It's definitely worth getting if you have a Wii. In fact, I'd go as far as to say it's the most complete Wii exclusive game out so far. The first game you should buy for your Wii (after Twilight Princess, because, c'mon) should be Elebits. It's just awesome.