E3 2006 Preview

Project Wiki: Killing With Cute

Another title we got to get a little 'hands on' time at E3 was Project Wiki at the Webzen booth. It’s cute. I don’t mean, “Oh isn’t that cute let’s squish it cute”. I mean, it’s really really cute. It’s the kind of cute in a sort of twisted way that makes you want to get hands on and play a bit. It reminded me a bit of the kind of cute that attracted a lot of other gamers and me to Toontown Online of all games.

Project Wiki is an MMORPG with what Webzen terms as “classical cell-shaded cartoon style” in a very stunning world. There are three different races to choose from: human, fairy and beast. Each race has their own classes and there will be special missions and quests to unlock hidden classes. Characters can be highly customized from their hair color to their style to attitude to facial expressions. The world will react to your character as well with some pretty smart NPC interactions. There are also many civilizations to explore within the game as well.

Here’s a little bit from their site about the storyline they are using:

One entity binds time, space and dimension the World Tree. By using the nutrition saved in the World Tree's leaves you can travel to the past. And everything you do in the past dramatically affects the present. But when time and space happen to cross each other, Six Roots, the sons of the World Tree, are forcefully disbanded. Now the Six Roots want to reunite with the beloved World Tree and only you can help them find the path!

We had a short ‘hands on’ experience with the game at the booth and I have to tell you, it made me want to play this one even with the cute factor and maybe even because of the cute factor. Word is, the cute is deceptive and the game itself is pretty rich and in-depth.

As we played this game we got to kill cute fluffy white bunnies that we were hoping would be a bit more toward the Monty Python lean, but in fact they were truly just cute and fluffy. When you killed them you could loot their carrot they had dropped to get the goodies. There is something so wonderfully wrong about killing such cute bunnies and looting them that it’s so very right.

When assessing the type of game play and feel for this one, it was decided that it had a feel similar to Zelda. It has a similar style and feel to it even as you looked at the characters.

This was another title we didn’t have a lot of ‘hands on’ with however at the same time it was one we felt pretty excited about. It has that certain spark to it that draws you in to play. Webzen dubs this their casual MMORPG. It’s the type of game that may find some surprisingly diverse audiences and may draw in players that never expected they’d play something so shockingly cute to begin with. What it’s offering is something a bit more whimsical and fun to play from the start.

There are high hopes for this title and I’m hoping to be able to spend more time getting to know it a little bit better later. My only regret is that I have too little money and too little time to play all the new and upcoming games that are on the rise. This is just another title that I’d be interested in seeing how it all comes out. The release date is said to be within 2006 worldwide. There is no specific date however.

You can comment on this article here.