Nintendo Wii Fanboy

If you've been digging the Strong Bad episodes, then you're definitely going to want to check out Sam and Max: Season One. While the episodes have been available on the PC for quite some time, us Wii owners are finally getting them in the form of this convenient package. All of the episodes in one bundle? Sign us up!

Cruise past the break to check out the rest of the new gaming content available for the Wii this week.

Atlus sent out a series of descriptions of some of the random events that occur in the "blank" yellow spaces on Dokapon Kingdom's game board. One of the advantages of a video game over a real board game is that rather than just, say, a "Chance" card, the random events in Dokapon Kingdom can be pretty complex, and otfen involve paying off various lowlifes and robo-lowlifes to mess with other players. Robo-agent, for example, will accept contracts to assassinate other players, in the guise of Robo-Sassin. Other players can make counteroffers, sending him right back.

Random global events can occur at the start of each week of gameplay,which, as the name implies, affect everyone. Examples given include "Wabbit Explosion," in which the board is overrun with the "Wabbit" enemy, "Epidemic," which forces players to pay health care costs for the towns they own, and "Abnormous Disaster."

In addition to having a really unusual name, the Abnormous Disaster affects every town on a continent, wiping away tax revenues. It's helpfully labeled "bad news" in the game, as if "abnormous" and "disaster" didn't convey the message.

Several new Dokapon Kingdom videos have appeared on IGN, showing various aspects of gameplay, from combat to movement around the board to recruiting outside help in your quest to obtain money. The combat is standard RPG fare, with the menu items assigned to directions on the D-pad. For an RPG to be an appropriate party game, we would expect the combat to be simple and quick -- nobody wants to sit there and eat Funyuns while you're trying to calculate the number of AP needed to protect against poison and also get a hit in on the nearest flying enemy.

As usual with the IGN player, you can find more videos -- of the adventurous ASS, whose player is definitely not juvenile in the least -- on the sidebar thing.

Atlus sent out a nice screen update of their board game-RPG hybrid Dokapon Kingdom, which can be described as "upbeat" and "cute" -- and now "beefy" as well, thanks to the screenshot above.

For reasons entirely unrelated to impossible cartoon bodybuilding, we're eagerly awaiting the release of this game. Basically, Board Game Top Shop on the PlayStation is so awesome, and we see a potential successor in the wacky anime-ness and competitive money-grubbing found in Kingdom.

The art used in Dokapon happens to be pretty great as well -- even in non-flexing screens.

Dokapon Kingdom is all about acquiring as much money as possible before the end of the game. Sting is cleverly extending Dokapon's pecuniary theme into the game's promotion by offering buyers money. Specifically, gold coins.

The Dokatto Kinka! Present Campaign (Thudding Gold Coin Present Campaign) offers gold coins to people who respond to a survey on Sting's mobile phone site. Three Doka-fans who answer the survey between July 31 and September 30, will be awarded 100,000 yen ($953) worth of gold. We don't expect Atlus to hand out gold coins with the American version of Dokapon Kingdom, but maybe we can get a poster of some gold coins!

Last week, Atlus sent out a cryptic, humorous "apology" letter from "Player 4," asking forgiveness in advance for humiliating other players in some unannounced game. As it turns out, the teaser was for a localized version of Sting's Dokapon Kingdom, announced today for Wii and PS2. Dokapon Kingdom is a four-player board game/RPG that emphasizes shifting alliances and betrayals between its players, being dubbed a "friendship-destroying party game."

The Dokapon Kingdom website features wallpaper, a description of the game's story (in which monsters attack and heroes vie to save the kingdom and earn money from the king), and introductions to three of Dokapon's venal characters.

Dokapon is scheduled for an October 14th release, for $40. After the post break, we've got a trailer and a larger version of the image used in the boxart.

Usually our irrational love for hybrid games is sated on the DS, but not the Wii. In the instance of Dokapon Kingdom, though, gamers (with Japanese or modded Wiis, at least) can experience a quirky mix on Nintendo's non-portable system, too.

So, what particular combination does Dokapon consist of, you ask? Simply enough, this title is a board-game meets RPG. From what we can tell, the Wii version is actually a port of the PS2 game that was released last November, but it's probably safe for us to assume that most of you never played it the first time around.

Should you be interested, the game releases in Japan this June. If you don't have a Wii capable of playing Japanese games and are worried that Datel's Freeloader might not work, though, you can look into the non-port DS version of Dokapon instead.

In any case, we've made a gallery of Dokapon Kingdom for your viewing pleasure (aren't we just the greatest?), and also posted some Famitsu screens that can be seen beyond the break.