Today is Farcry 3 day, also the day I finally caught up with the latest Halo and discovered the joy of playing full Windows 8 Steam games on the Google Nexus 7 using Splashtop THD... but today is also Nintendo Wii U day for me as my very own paid for by me and not loaned to me by some non gamer PR girl Nintendo rep , Wii U Zombi U Premium Pack Limited Edition with Super Mario U arrived one day early!
The Nintendo Wii U is not the first of the next gen consoles in so much as it is a swan song to the whole idea of consoles as this casual generation of gamers knows them. It may indeed be the last console ever released by Nintendo, or to draw Mr Fils Aime to fans of the waiting in line a month in advance or hosting a chat show variety.
That the Wii U has caused much debate ..along the lines of " Nintendo did what?" isn`t really anything to do with the choices made by Nintendo hardware designers .. the same debate will rage over the irrelevance or death of the console format when PS4 and the Nextbox 720 eventually launch.
And like those future ( distant) launches , the Nintendo Wii U is going to live or die on attracting and keeping core gamers , not casual ..
Looking at the Wii U in front of me and messing with the fiddly box ,way overcomplicated packaging and several hour long setup ..this new Nintendo Console is likely to hook the casual family gamer as Bowser is likely to kidnap Mario instead of Peach ..No all those kiddies and biddies ( 7s and 70s ) that Wii Sports and the simplicity of the Wii enthralled are not going to be drawn by this machine. They are currently messing with birds on phones , tablets and some ..enlightened ones may even have gone PC or Mac!
But Core gamer, you who have to have every star /coin/secret , you who appreciate innovation or attempts at innovation to engage your jaded gamer brain with novel forms of control and immersion in your game ..you are gonna love this machine..
For the first part of my review lets look at what you get in your heavy Zombi U Limited Edition. And you get a lot of stuff!
Here is an unboxing video I made .. you get an awful lot of stuff to connect and mess with , this is not going to sit well with Johnny Casual used to swiping apps on a phone.. In fact setting up connecting and initially starting the Wii U (before updates) is actually more involved than booting up an new pc or laptop or tablet. It is actually the equivalent of setting up a new PC ,laptop and tablet...only with more cables and fiddly packaging,,,
The gamepad : tablet and controller ..
The Wii U GamePad is the perfect design marriage of controller cradling tablet screen , intelligent button positioning , there is a reason that X is under your right thumb stick. Use it and you will wish someone added a control cradle like this for your Android and iOS tablet ..or Windows 8 Pro tablet!
Great pen control : the screen is built for this ..a completely different beast when you use the stylus..
Screen : the panel is not retina display shattering but is great in terms of colour , brightness and can be viewed from fairly wide angles.
The magic : when playing mirrored games like Super Mario U I completely stopped looking at the HDTV and just played with the GamePad screen ..instinctively..In Zombi U the way the screen is used to send out a radar ping illuminating for a second zombies heading for you makes the game for me.
Useless touch control ..currently almost every 3rd finger touch fails to register ..this resistive one point touch screen is primitive compared to your iOS and Android screens..but remember they have useless controls for gaming!
battery :
you are going to want to play a lot , the battery runs down very quickly in comparison to iOS and Android touch screen devices but .wait there is hope you can play with the GamePads own power cord plugged in directly to the controller ( as well as leaving it to charge in the dock)
Charging Dock : this is great , we pay upwards of $45 for stands and charging docks for iOS and Android tablets..the dock is great for setting your GamePad down , the best feature I discovered as stated above is the same charge cable that powers it can also be sent straight to your GamePad charging whilst you engage in the longest of gaming sessions...and the cable is long! not like the ridiculous iOS and Android standard charge cables!
The pro controller : comes with a charging USB cable. looks like every other console pro controller , lacks the analogue triggers ..but hey I am going to be playing FPS games in HD with the nun chuck and wii mote ..
Zombie U and Super Mario U : Ignoring the update hell I proceeded to play the games that came with my Wii U ..
And ? Well both make the system purchase worth it for me . Zombie U is an intelligent take on real survival horror and by that I mean all the way back to when point and click adventures like the original Alone in the Dark series were the only examples. Zombie U has great tension , this is not Condemned nor is it Resident Evil (4,5 ,6 ) , nor is it Dead Rising or any of the other action orientated FPS zombi games. This is a study in creating fear and getting you to use sound and visual queues that only the Wii U with the GamePad and console working together can do at this time. Just the radar blip makes the game for me , that Ubisoft have made what olden people would class as a zombie adventure game complete with exploration , puzzles and of course survival element is great. This is the one game you really cannot play on any other system.
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Super Mario U ? Is tough ..just the right level of tough to challenge your ageing reflexes ..prepare to be shamed by your 7 year old nephew or niece you have been warned. Several minutes into playing it I kicked back and stopped looking at the HD TV I had the Wii U connected to ... I was playing entirely using the GamePad screen and it felt so natural I left my audience of non gamers watching my antics on the big screen whilst I walked off into another room playing the game.. it is very like they gave you an handheld gaming system with your HD console ..only this one has the perfect balance of fit and control in your hands..all the thumbsticks ,triggers , button placements which look too large or strange for a device this size are actually perfect. Playing something like Super Mario U is a joy ..the Wii U GamePad is in fact a very real joypad...
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Right I am off to update the system which I should have done this morning ...or Nintendo should have done before sending it to me... Iwata san ..what would Srippy and Foxxu say?
There is a worry that for long times your Wii U will sit dormant , waiting for first party content to arrive , but you know it will so today is very much Nintendo`s day, the Wii U console really is a thank you note to all the core gamers wishing for a HD Wii.. right now casual fans there is no need for you to join in , not unless you are going through that rare metamorphosis of going core ..it happens ..rarely ..but it happens...
Every one else is going to have a great time rescuing Peach again and dusting off all those Wii games to see how they play on the new machine.
Nintendo need to sort the on line and updating issues out ,but coming from a PC gaming angle where motherboards , gpus and of course operating systems as well as games launch broken..these are minor teething problems.
So has Nintendo with this undead Limited Edition Wii U pack managed to reanimate the console as a gaming platform? No, no console or tablet manufacturer can do that any more , any more than the finest 8 track or vinyl player can do any more than look cool but pale into insignificance when faced with the way the masses use the Internet , cloud and streaming to consume music .
In the same way the console died the second video games reached the Internet , started to be bought from the Internet and of late started to become platform agnostic..streaming and lacking installs altogether...
Sony see this ..which is why they picked up GAIKAI,have PlayStation Plus crossing platforms , SOE plugging PC games , Microsoft seem to have lost it fleecing people for Xbox Live.....the real competition to consoles is not the iOS and Android revolution but the cloud ..and as such the PS4 and Xbox 720 are going to look just as irrelevant and anachronistic when they launch, by which time you will be streaming Crysis 5 to your phone ,playing it wearing your transparent wireless 3D display ...
So if you are in line waiting for your Wii U now, or about to receive it have fun ,rest assured you will be impressed and spare a thought for Iwata san and Regie for this indeed may be the last hardware console from Nintendo...the successor may just be part of the cloud... More to follow tomorrow I am playing Wii U games with HMDS ..and also some Metroid Prime Trilogy too..UPDATE in the UK Wii U is close to sell out , the Zombie U pack is gone check the link below for more updates on stock
In the US of A some stock from the 2nd batch is still available:
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