Kensax Detailed

One of the more curious of Nintendo's Wii announcements late last year was Kensax. While little was revealed on the title at its announcement, today, thanks to the latest Famitsu, we have first details.

The name Kensax actually originates from "Kensaku," the Japanese term for searching (the "s" part of the title may be a pluralization). Kensax is a mini-game collection with games that you play using the number of results that appear when you enter search terms into a search engine. This number is referred to as a "hit count."

A total of 11 mini-games are included, ranging from puzzle games to shooting games. Famitsu details three:

Battle! Search Panel 9
This four player mini-game takes place on a 3x3 board of panels. Using words from your word stock in combination with the words that come pre-written on the panels, you conduct searches. Get the highest hit count from your searches, and you steal a panel from its previous holder. The winner is determined by a combination of panel count and hit count.

Connect! Search Puzzle
This single player mini game has you connect words together to conduct searches. Reach a certain hit count with a fixed set of panels, and you can move on to the next stage.

Fastest! Search Shooter
In this four player game, players are presented with a keyword at the top of the screen and a bunch of floating panels below. The goal is to select the one term from the floating panels that will get the highest hit count when paired with the keyword. The shooting comes from the fact that you're shooting at the panels, making this into a contest of accuracy, speed, and brains.

The game gets its hit counts in two ways. By default, the disc includes the hit counts for 3,000 terms. However, players can also connect to the internet to search up more words and expand play possibilities.

This is definitely one of those games that need to be tried out before being fully understood. Sadly, Famitsu doesn't provide a specific release date beyond the previously announced 2009 timeframe. The fact that information is at last starting to be revealed is a good sign, though, that we (well, Japan at least) will get to try this latest quirky title from Nintendo and Shift in the not-so-distant future.

http://uk.wii.ign.com/articles/952/952941p1.html