Developer: Hudson Soft
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Simulation
Rating: Pending
Number of Players: 2+
Expected Release: TBA 2007

Wing Island Gallery

The Japanese Wii Launch title might be coming stateside.

Lead by Jack Sparrow (not the pirate), your rag tag delivery company is put into your hands, as Jack’s grandfather flies the coop. Left to run things on your own, you’ve got to take the reigns and command your team.

Wing Island takes place on a series of islands, in a world inhabited by man-sized bipedal birds. The anthromorphs have human-like arms and legs, and are very cartoony. Reminiscent of mother goose type figures, the characters are more than story fixtures too. These characters will also ride along with you on missions, in a flying V formation.  Don’t be worried about control issues though, flying as a team controls the same way as flying solo, the whole group intuitively follows the command of your Wii-mote.

Wing Island’s gameplay is filled with a simple mission based system. Missions are quick, easy, and pretty entertaining. Missions include: dropping nets on stray cows (yeah, stray cows…), dropping supply crates, and dousing forest fires.

Wing Island is another addition to the Wii’s “party” game set, Wing Island’s multiplayer doesn’t require the use of two Wii-motes. The second player can use the nunchuck controller instead, helping those short on cash, or that can’t find any Wii-motes in stock at your local retailer.

If you’re not playing with someone else, the nun-chuck still has a use. It can rotate the camera around with the analog stick (Useful for some missions), as well as a quick acceleration, deceleration, or 180’ turning.

Unlike other flight simulators, Wing Island has a nice little feature for when you accidentally “land”. Instead of having your plane explode into a million pieces, you are temporarily stunned. While this makes the game more “kid friendly”, and less of an actual flight simulator, it does add a nice failsafe in case you mess up, and need to hit the ground.

At a back-room demo at E3, testers had much to say. They took a fair amount of time to get used to the controls, as they are initially confusing; but once you got the hang of it, it was smooth sailing (or flying). Also, they did say that there was a high replay value in the single player missions - they may be quick, but they’re exceptionally entertaining.

No US release date has been announced, but Wing Island has been rumored to be scheduled for release some time in 2007.