NIntendo Wii U : Review Part Tri : Playing Wii and Wii U games with a Cinemizer OLED head mounted display

Part three of my Nintendo Wii U review has me covering  Wii emulation. Whilst Wii U owners have 2 to 3 games to play around with of note, there are many Wii classics to keep us busy whilst we wait for the Triforce to return..

The  Wii U sports a HDMI out. What this means is playing using a head mounted display like the Cinemizer OLED and smd ST1080 is now possible and  should allow me to get into (as far as we can get into)  Samus Aran's helmet visor in Metroid Prime Trilogy.  Well you didn`t expect me to plug it into a tv now did you ? That's not mii thing...

You may think connecting the Wii U to most hmds is going to be quite useless as you need to look down at the GamePad .. at least you would think this would hold true for Wii U games but as no hmd is actually VR in real day to day use you can look down to a keyboard, mouse or joystick using the completely opaque Cinemizer OLED or the smd ST1080 ( which you could also look through at your GamePad..more on that next time)  

For Wii games though, where Wii are going we (!) don`t need GamePads.. just a nun chuck and what`s that thing covered in dust called again..oh a Wiimote...excuse me whilst I brush the cobwebs of my limited edition triforce wiimote and dispose of the batteries fused to its inside...

Using the Cinemizer OLED hmd to play Metroid Prime Trilogy on the Wii U 

You may have played fps games on multi monitor high res screens with surround sound, but nothing immerses you like a good hmd where you wear your display and sound, with nothing to interrupt your viewing or listening experience ..wait till you hear the wild life nattering in your ear in Metroid Prime 2  Echoes..or the familiar music kick in or the sound of the scanner doing it's job . This is as close as you will come to wearing Samus helmet ..Gunpei would proud and annoyed that Nintendo had not come up with its own hmd by now ..but that is what the Zeiss is for..

The Cinemizer benefits from OLED  benefits: black, fast refresh and colour reproduction are second to none on this hmd when playing the Metroid Prime Trilogy ..all the sparks, neons and of course black are perfect...if you want to see a rough reproduction of the colours here is a video I made in bright lamp light ..check out how deep the blacks and bright the colours are ..this can no way convey the actual experience but you should get an idea ..the iPad lens does not do the colours justice!

sound is awesome: the beautifully haunting  Metroid Prime soundscapes dance in your ears wearing the Zeiss ear buds is so comfortable you forget they are there ..you forget you are wearing ear buds at all when playing this adds greatly to the atmosphere. The sound feels like it is coming from your room or environment and you have to remind yourself you are wearing ear buds and that no one else can hear!

resolution : The Wii U sees the Cinemizer OLED as a 1080p monitor, taking seconds to set up ..theoretically you could 3d game on the Wii U if any developers out there allow us to..but back to the resolution, the display is pin sharp, no variation in colour, no bright edges just one perfect flat high res screen on which there is also no distortion of picture or sweet spot issue. Yes you are looking at a 40 inch screen at 2m ..but every pixel of that screen is perfectly in focus and perfect in OLED colour or blackness.. The Zeiss is said to have been built with the smallest pixel size available for OLED tech and it shows, you never see a jaggy (aliasing) or pixels, in game menus, the famous Metroid Prime 3D maps and in game action are all razor sharp on this display.

The Cinemizer is very strong when it comes to console gaming, the Xbox 360 and the Wii U games  that I have gotten round to testing show the Cinemizer OLED  is a display you could easily game with and replace those bulky monitors or tvs and powered by just a USB cable.. or it`s built in battery.

The Zeiss has no problem seeing either console and the consoles have no problem seeing the Zeiss as a 1080p monitor. In game you can read all the text etc , have perfect black and colour reproduction , high OLED refresh and sound that is great not because of speaker quality but because of ear bud comfort ..I never feel like I am wearing headphones or ear buds when using the Cinemizer.

Sin and Punishment successor to the skies. One of Treasure`s finest and it looks wonderful on the Wii U played using the Cinemizer OLED , razor sharp text and visuals ,but it is the sound which astounds most. This is an old school shmup at heart one that has not only an amazing soundtrack but also excellent environmental fx , when the computer voice speaks in the early stage you will swear it is coming from  your room and not the Cinemizer ear buds..this is impressive I actually had to check I did not have it connected to my external speakers, the sound scape was that realistic. Add to that the chaos of explosions, tracers , yelps and lock on sounds and you can see how just the sound from this hmd was enough to send me into the gaming zone .. And boy does this game look good running through hdmi on the Wii U ..

The Wiimote and Nunchuck provide excellent control when using a hmd, the light weight of the Cinemizer OLED and it`s comfortable fitting ( no mean feat for hmds) means you can move your head around and game without pain ..I must have clocked around 6 hours by the time I had gone through my stack of rarely played Wii games ..

Lets go back to the question of whether you can play Wii U games using the GamePad and wearing a head mounted display: And the answer is yes U can

Zombi U playing using the Cinemizer OLED .. how do U see the GamePad when you wear the hmd? Well in the same way you see and use it when you use your tv as the main Wii U display. Using the GamePad necessitates looking away from your tv for a moment , using the Cinemizer OLED I just look down at my hands holding the GamePad, as there is no light blocker on the underside I can look at and use the GamePad just as I would with my TV. You have to look away in both instances so you lose nothing by playing using the Cinemizer . 

In fact you gain much, the horror aspect of Zombi U is amplified 10 fold when you are wearing your display, the OLED display gives you a richer view of the grimy Zombie infested London than a normal hdtv would and you are so much closer to the action and the sounds that you are going to freak out when you play this, you also hear the radar pinging in your ear, when you hear that blip you will jump looking down at the GamePad to see where it came from. 

The Cinemizer OLED handles all the shade,smog , darkness and atmosphere creating sfx that Ubisoft have endowed this game with with ease. And you can read all the text, see a perfect picture from edge to edge. Now if only the game had a 3D setting. Regardless, what I found surprising was that it was quicker to look down at the GamePad fire off a radar ping or mess with my inventory and just look up at the hmd display I was wearing than looking up from the GamePad at my tv ... who knew? Just as in other FPS games playing with a hmd greatly enhances immersion. No this is not virtual reality and yes there is a smaller FOV than other hmds..but both of those things are positives when you are facing zombie hordes and you need to see where they are coming from without having to move your head around the screen and when you are playing with the Wii U GamePad and need to check it's display. 

Playing with the Cinemizer OLED actually enhances Zombie U .. 

All in all playing Wii games on the Wii U using HDMI is an enhanced experience over playing on your old Wii, one that like Wii U games can be further enhanced if you play with a head mounted display like the Cinemizer OLED. 

I have many many many Wii games still unopened which I will test with the Carl Zeiss Cinemizer OLED and the smd ST1080 hmd and will report back my findings ..as soon as I can find my other stash of Wii games.. Madworld played with a hmd...? hmmhhh

With the power of the Wii U I hope developers will include 3D gaming options and I mean U Nintendo! Can you imagine Mario , Zelda or of course F Zero, Starfox, Star Wars and of course Metroid Prime in ghost free 3D ? 

feeling brave .. don`t need to read the next part of my Zeiss Cinemizer OLED experience ? Purchase  in the UK/EU the Zeiss Cinemizer OLED 3D iPack including iPhone adapter and in the USA the Cinemizer OLED , 

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