Nintendo Wii Fanboy

He goes on to say that the last time IGN shattered the illusion of objectivity to promote a game (our words) was for Eternal Darkness. Because Zack & Wiki is such a competent and fun game, reminiscent of the classic PC adventure games, it is absolutely worth buying and evangelizing, in his opinion, but it may need help getting noticed.

Bafflingly, Casamassina thinks that the game could be in sales trouble because it's cartoony and doesn't depict realistic, gritty violence. That may have been the case a couple of years ago, but ... has he heard of this "Wii" thing?

Capcom's adorable treasure-hunting adventure Zack and Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure uses the Wiimote in context-sensitive orientations and movements to solve puzzles. Different items use the Wiimote in different ways. The trick is that it doesn't seem to tell the player how the Wiimote is to be used in a particular situation.

In this example found on GAME Watch, players are asked to insert a crank handle into a mechanism and then operate the crank. How you get the thing in there is a matter of figuring out which side goes in and then manipulating the Wiimote in some way to make that happen. Rather than just telling us how to do it, GAME Watch gave readers the choice above for the proper method. We're guessing temporary swinging. This example seems simple enough, but we can see how not knowing how to use the Wiimote will amplify the difficulty of some puzzles.

We've also filled our gallery with new treasures from the game. Yarrr.

A NeoGAFfer and frequent Wii Fanboy tipster named creamsugar posted these new, higher-quality scans of Capcom's Treasure Island Z, and later in the thread Xboxyde's Blimblim cleaned up the images, which we have provided for you. After a careful inspection, we must say, that if we were excited about the game yesterday, today we are in full hype hype hype mode! We're ready to start freaking out about this game without really knowing anything about it!

The graphics look so great (and we aren't going to assume that it's because of Blimblim's filter)-- finally, next-generation cel shading is here! And the art style and general piracy motif reminds us of one of the best Capcom games ever, the Mega Man Legends spinoff The Misadventures of Tron Bonne. Please, Capcom, let it be like Tron Bonne.

Click the post break to see the scans, and then click those to see them in their original resolution.

This week's Famitsu unearths a new game that appears to be basically like treasure: a new Wii adventure game from Capcom, called Treasure Island Z, that is about pirates. Players use the Wiimote to solve riddles and puzzles as they search for riches and improve their standing among pirates. The scan reveals a cartoony graphic style and what look like animated cutscenes.

This thing is like a nexus of good news. We don't know how anything could actually turn out as cool as the sum of these parts (pirate adventure games have a lot to live up to, as do Capcom adventure games) but we're hoping that Capcom and director Eiichirou Sasaki (who previously worked on the Resident Evil Outbreak games) are up to the task. Check out the scan after the plank break!