Nintendo Wii Fanboy

D3 Publisher's official page for Simple Wii Vol. 6 THE Wai Wai Combat has a bunch of new screenshots (and a few old ones) of the party/online shooting game. It kills us that this game looks so incredibly awesome, represents a completely unique implementation of the pick-up-and-play party game idea, has six-player online, and is budget-priced. It kills us because the Simple series is Japan-only, and it is currently extremely difficult to play imports.

Whine Whine Complaining aside, the information page also reveals a bit more about D3's "Apian" avatar system, which is really cute and also expandable. Turns out that each Simple game includes certain parts and accessories that you can use to customize your character -- we think across games. Well, that just destroys Miis.

When D3 announced that their popular Simple series would come to the Wii, we expected stuff like mahjongg games and low-budget Wii Sports ripoffs. Instead of (well, in addition to) the normal cheapo kart racers and casino games, D3 seems to actually be putting some thought into the Wii concept. They seem to be focusing the Simple Wii series on multiplayer party games that fall into a variety of categories -- not just "minigames" and "sports-related minigames." The two most interesting Simple Wii games to us are Vol. 4 THE Shooting Action, a multiplayer space shooter, and Vol. 6 THE Wai Wai Combat.

Simple Wii Vol. 6 THE Wai Wai Combat is a cute-looking third-person shooter (in the style of Resident Evil 4) with Wiimote aiming and an emphasis on multiplayer. The game can be played by up to four people on one system, or up to six people online. The game looks pretty simplistic, both in terms of its cel-shaded style and its objective (shoot each other). It does feature various multiplayer modes like capture the flag.

Simplicity would be very welcome in this genre, to be honest. We dropped out of multiplayer 3D shooting games when we couldn't find anyone to play Doom with over our 14.4k BPS modem.