Tired of plastic guitars, drums, racing wheels and zapper guns cluttering your life? "Let's Tap" offers a solution: a gimmicky peripheral you can fold flat and even toss into the recycling bin once you're done playing with it.

The vast majority of "Tap" is played with the Wii remote not in your hand, but placed face down on a cardboard box of your choosing. ("Tap" recommends something akin to a tissue box, but the game's adjustable sensitivity settings make it easy to use whatever box is handy.) Playing the game, in case you haven't drawn the conclusion already, consists of you (and up to three other players with three other boxes) tapping the box like a cheap drum.

As stupid as this all sounds, "Tap" actually works. The game can sense three levels of tapping intensity, as well as single- and double taps, with remarkable accuracy. The accuracy is such, in fact, that one can navigate the menus using nothing but single and double taps and do so without aggravation. The traditional navigational method obviously works faster, and "Tap" is keen enough to pause game play the instant a player picks the remote up off the box, but it's still a cool trick.

The surprising degree of control on display allows "Tap" to dole out an impressively diverse, if small, collection of mini-games to support the concept.

"Tap's" arguable showpiece mini-game is "Tap Runner," which pits players against three human- or computer-controlled opponents in a race through an obstacle course. Tapping softly makes the onscreen character run, while a soft but fast tap sends him into a sprint and a hard tap makes him jump. Maintaining an optimal sprint without accidentally jumping is trickier (and more labor-intensive) than it sounds, and that's especially true as "Runner" piles on hazards and alternate paths in advanced levels.

"Tap's" other selections run the gamut in terms of surprise. "Rhythm Tap," which finds you tapping in time with various music tracks, makes perfect sense.

Ditto for an open-ended visualizer toy, which lets you tap at your leisure to launch fireworks, paint a canvas and more.

But "Silent Blocks," which combines tapping with what essentially is Jenga, is out there. And "Bubble Voyager," a side-scrolling shooter that adapts a "Joust"-style control scheme to tapping, might be the gem of the bunch, thanks in part to a wild multiplayer mode that's essentially tap "Asteroids."

Beyond its mere ability to work as advertised, what's especially nice about "Tap" is that each mini-game comes with multiple stages, options and modes designed separately around solo and social play.

For a game that revolves around a completely silly gimmick, "Tap" convincingly justifies its budget price.