I bought a Wii U!
On Tuesday, Gloria and I celebrated our 14th anniversary! We went out to Tulum (yum!) and Vegan Treats (yum!) and it wasn’t quite late enough that we wanted to go pick up the kid, so we decided to go walk around Target. I said I’d been thinking about buying a Wii U, and Gloria said I should. (Or maybe she just didn’t say “I strongly object.” I’m not splitting hairs, here.)
I bought one. Today, we went looking for some games to use the Target credit that we got by buying the game toward this week’s buy-2-get-1 promotion on video games. In the end, Gloria ended up driving to Quakertown to buy video games for me while I sat at home poking at security code. I owe her big time — nothing new there!
So, now I’ve played a handful of Wii U games, done a Wii-to-Wii-U transfer, used the Wii eShop, and tried out a few of the non-game features on the Wii U. This is my preliminary report.
I bought the Wii U because I wanted to play Nintendo games. I have almost no interest in playing non-Nintendo games on it. (I kind of want to play ZombiU, though.) Eventually, there were enough games for the Wii U from Nintendo that I thought it would be worth the investment. We now own:
- Super Mario Bros. Wii U
- Super Mario 3-D World
- NES Remix
- Super Luigi Bros. Wii U ☺
- Pikmin 3
- Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
- NintendoLand
- Scribblenauts Unmasked (not Nintendo, but I really wanted it)
- Scribblenauts Unlimited (which I got because it was effectively free)
I’ve played the first three, although none of them very much. They are all excellent in the way that I expect from Nintendo. It amazes me how they are able to produce such consistently great games! The only major franchise Nintendo game I remember disliking in the last ten years is Metroid: The Other M, which was outsourced. (By the way, I loathed that game!)
The big problem so far is the controller. The Wii U gamepad is way cool, but as a controller it’s just a little weird. I think I’m very used to my hands being at a bit of an angle when playing games, and the gamepad makes me hold them straight. I’m not sure whether the distance between them is really an issue.
On the other hand, I can play those games with the Wiimote, too. It’s not bad, especially NES Remix. I’m left feeling, though, that the Wii U gamepad is a poor replacement for a “normal” gamepad, and the Wiimote is a poor replacement for an NES controller. I think I’ll probably much prefer playing both the Mario games with the Wii U “pro” controller, which is much more like an Xbox or PS3 controller. As for NES Remix, I think I’ll stick with the Wiimote, but I’d like something a bit more substantial. The height:width ratio on the Wiimote isn’t quite right, and I feel like I’m holding the thing the wrong way. The Wii U menu doesn’t help with that: it assumes that you can use the cross pad and buttons like you’re holding the remote vertically, even when you’re deep in playing a game that uses it horizontally.
Still, I bought the Wii U for the games, and so far they’re just great. I expect that trend to continue, so I’m sure I’ll be delighted with the purchase over time.
Finally, there’s the matter of everything that is neither the hardware nor the games. For example, the menu system, the social network, the system setup, and so on. In short: it’s all bizarre.
There’s this pervasive idea in Wii U that everybody who plays Wii U is your buddy, and you want them to post sticky notes on your game. When you reach a new level in any game, you might see notes from other players, including typed or hand-drawn notes. These range from the relevant to the insipid to the bizarre. They can be turned off, but they’re weird. Weirder, these occur on the main screen. Instead of a menu like the Wii had, showing me all my options, the default is to show a swarming mass of Mii avatars who chatter amongst themselves about nothing much. Can you imagine if you were using Windows, and little random speech bubbles popped up here and there talking about cool new programs that were going to be released soon? It’s just weird.
On the other hand, it seems like shutting these off shuts off some kind of avenue to receiving news and advance information. I’ll probably do it anyway.
What would be cool, though, would be to get this chatter from just my actual circle of friends. I’d love to be able to use the Wii main menu and “Miiverse” as a sort of bulletin board with friends. With the whole Internet, though? Not so much.
I haven’t yet set up any friendships, but I will. I’m looking forward to a Nintendo gaming experience where I don’t need to tell my friends a 16 digit code to be befriended. My assumption is that Nintendo is still several years behind the curve, but hopefully they’re at last on the acceptable side of it. The Wii code experience was indefensible.
My goal is to play through Super Mario Bros. Wii U first, or at least first-ish. After that, Mario 3-D Land. I’m not too worried about playing in order, though. Everything looks good. I mostly bought Scribblenauts: Unmasked to see whether I can stump it. My daughter demanded that I start it up to see if it could make Raven, and was delighted to see that it could. I’m looking forward to seeing whether it can make Doctor Phosphorus.