Note: The paperwork included with the review unit sent to The Dallas Morning News contains a message from Nintendo stating ?We strongly recommend that you experience Internet-enabled features such as Miiverse, Nintendo TVii, Nintendo eShop and Wii U Chat before posting Wii U hardware reviews.?
However, as of this writing, mere hours before the system launches in North America, that update has still not been made live. Even so, TVii has been delayed at least a couple of weeks. As such, this review should be considered ?in-progress.??Many of the lauded features of the system are still not in place. I?m a Nintendo fan, but the fact that it?s taking this long for Nintendo to get even its most basic online functionality up and running doesn?t instill much confidence in its online future as of right now. I will write about online functionality in a separate post.
When the original Wii launched in 2006, the console?s original codename, the ?Revolution,? felt pretty appropriate. It?s emphasis on motion gaming, something Sony and Microsoft have both strived to catch up to, made it a surprisingly tremendous success particularly with people who formerly had been non-gamers. Specifically with the system?s pack-in title, Wii Sports, Nintendo had everybody from small children to great-grandparents bowling in their living rooms.
This makes reviewing the console?s successor, the Wii U, a bit tricky for me. (Not familiar with what the Wii U is? Check out our launch guide for everything you need to know.) There is, potentially, a huge audience for this system that I don?t fully understand. I understand the more ?hardcore? audience ? the ones who, like me, have been playing Mario and Zelda games since the 80s and 90s. I think I mostly understand the new generation, the young children for whom the Wii U might be a first console. But I?m not positive I fully grasp everyone else ? the people who bought a Wii for Wii Sports and maybe Wii Fit, but not much else.
Will the Wii U appeal to those people the same way the Wii did, or does it try too hard to recapture the ?core? gamers and alienate the Wii Sports crowd?
And does it do enough to get back those old faithful gamers, the ones that have moved onto consoles that offered them the l likes of Assassin?s Creed, Uncharted and Grand Theft Auto while the Wii only offered Mario Kart?
Those are hard questions to answer, especially until we see more entries into the game library. But I do think the potential is there for the Wii U to be something incredibly special and unique, if put in the right hands and given the right creativity.
On the surface, I personally think the Wii U?s GamePad controller is brilliant. It?s essentially a cross between a standard video game controller and an iPad, a device that?s growing in the gaming space at a very fast rate despite, in my opinion, the overall lack of quality and compelling content. Don?t get me wrong, there are some fantastic games available on tablets (and for cheap!), but the idea that people, especially kids, seem more happy to pay $0.99 to slice fruit on their iPod for hours as opposed to spending time with more in-depth gameplay experiences is a little tragic to me. That said, there is obviously something to the elegance and simplicity of a touch screen, and Nintendo has realized it.
But at least at the moment, many if not most game types really demand physical buttons in order to provide a quality experience (this is why there is no platform game on the iPad that comes even remotely close to matching the quality of Super Mario Bros., and why Nintendo will never make Mario for iOS), and?Nintendo?has realized that, too. So the GamePad has both.
In many ways, playing the Wii U feels like playing a really big Nintendo DS. You have one screen, your TV, displaying one thing, and you have a second touch screen, the GamePad, showing another thing. How games handle the two screens will vary. Some, like New Super Mario Bros. U, show the same thing on both screens and let you watch whichever screen you want (making Mario a Wii U game I can actually play on the GamePad in my bedroom while the console is in the living room, which is pretty rad if I do say so myself). Some games are all about using both screens in tandem for unique experiences, like Nintendo Land. Other games, like ZombiU, most use that second screen for a map and other information, but occasionally have you using the touch screen for various actions as well.
The comparison to the DS, to me, is a very favorable one. The DS is one of my favorite game systems ever, and while a very large part of that was the large high quality game library, at least a small part is everything that system did. Heck, even little things like showing a map on the bottom screen made a lot of games better for me. For example, I now dislike playing 2D Metroidvania-style games in which the map isn?t always visible, because it works so well on the DS.
The Wii U has the same potential to be just as awesome, in the long run, as the DS. Moreso, in fact, because there are many more features and a lot more power packed in.
The GamePad feels great. It?s light (much lighter than you might think, and much more comfortable to hold than an iPad), it?s solid, the touch screen works well enough (not as good as an iPhone?s, but better than the 3DS), the image on the screen is great ? It needs to be charged more often than I?d like, but the included charging cable is long and you can play games while charging.
The support for other controls is also fantastic. The Pro Controller (Nintendo?s evolution on the Classic Controller concept from the Wii) is very comfortable and works very well. But more than that, it fantastic that the many Wii controllers you might already have in your home work great with the Wii U. Some games, like Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, support everything under the sun, from the basic Wii Remote to the old Classic Controller to the Pro Controller to the GamePad. This makes getting enough controllers together for a big multiplayer game much easier. The only downside is that it means there couldn?t be any huge leaps in quality of the Wii Remote?functionality?itself. It still uses the sensor bar. It still has big limitations.
And the GamePad?s ability in many games to let you turn the TV off and play?exclusively?on the GamePad itself is far more exciting than I think it gets credit for. Sure, maybe you?re not in a household where control over the TV is a huge problem. But being able to take the GamePad with you around the house, whether you?re watching video on it or playing a game, is really awesome. Maybe it?s dumb, but I felt myself enjoying Batman: Arkham City just a little more since I was able to play it while laying in bed at midnight. It?s a small thing, but a fun one.
And this all works so well because it?s built into the system from the get-go. Attempts to tack on something like tablet integration (like Microsoft is doing with its Smart Glass functionality) into games can only get you so far.
But in the end, it?s all going to come down to the games.
Right now, the Wii U feels like a very natural progression from the Wii. Playing Nintendo Land with my family definitely brought back memories of playing Wii Sports. While I don?t think there?s a ?Wii Bowling??equivalent?that?s going to make everybody say, ?Oh! I totally get it now! This is awesome!? I do think it?s a game that?s easy to pick up and is a blast with up to five people. It?s charming, it?s simple, and it does a lot of things that you simply won?t find on any other gaming console. In that sense, it?s a big success.
But despite that success with the original Wii, I didn?t have reason to play it as much as I wish I did. I can name many fantastic games I played and loved on the system ? Zelda: Skyward Sword, Super Mario Galaxy, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Xenoblade, Fire Emblem ? ? but they were overshadowed but the far more numerous high quality games on the other, more powerful systems.
The Wii U is much more powerful than the Wii, don?t get me wrong. And it?s proving it by launching with games like Assassin?s Creed III and Mass Effect 3, two entries in huge franchises that Nintendo probably wishes it could have gotten earlier. But when Microsoft and Sony launch new systems of their own, which is expected to happen next year, will it just be overshadowed once again? Or will it struggle to keep up?
The Wii U is going to live or die by the originality it can bring to the table. The potential for huge success is there. I personally love ZombiU, a game that uses the GamePad in unique ways to deliver a great mature and hardcore game, not because it?s violent (though it is), but because it?s challenging. And it?s challenging in an oddly retro way ? with permanent death and a pretty good sense of exploration. It really makes me wonder what a Dark Souls game on the Wii U would be like.
With RPGs in particular, which is one of my favorite genres, I think the Wii U could really stand out. There is a lot the Wii U could do, from item management to mini-games to touch-sensitive battles, to make a great, unique role-playing game. I would love to see that. But it?s not here it.
I?m rambling at this point, but the bottom line is this: I really like playing games on the Wii U. The hardware itself feels great, and I?ve enjoyed the experience. The ports of games from other systems aren?t the most exciting things (even though in some cases, like Ninja Gaiden 3, the Wii U version is superior to the original), but much of the original content has impressed me in at least some small way. I do have some concerns about the longevity of its power, particularly with new consoles coming as soon as next Christmas, but Nintendo has overcome that hurdle before. The Genesis was more powerful than the SNES. The PSP was more powerful than the DS. I?m not of the mind that pretty graphics and processing power make for great games alone. Heck, some of my favorite games over the past couple of years have been independently developed games that don?t require much power at all. If Nintendo can court the right developers and the right games, the Wii U could really be something special.
So do you need to buy one??Maybe not right away, depending on what kinds of games you and your family play. This year has been ridiculously packed with quality titles for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, not to mention 3DS and Vita (well? mostly 3DS). If all you need is new games, you can get them elsewhere.
But if you?re a family that primarily plays the Wii, and especially if you never got either of the other systems ? Yes, I think upgrading to the Wii U is a good investment. Not only will it provide more of the same family-friendly fun, but it will also let you catch up on some of what you?ve been missing from the HD era of video games.
If, like me, you?re the kind of gamer that is going to have to play all of the best games across all platforms, than I?m pretty confident you?ll need one. If not now, then in the future. If nothing else, I?m confident that Nintendo can make very awesome Zelda, Star Fox and Metroid games with this technology. Hopefully third parties will be able to do the same. The groundwork has been laid for really fun games, and I?d love to see them made..
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