Wii U Catch-All

lancejt wrote:

It will tell you, but you have to send it through the wiiverse by looking up that person's profile. There's a friend request button there. I've noticed it is disabled for some people I have looked up. I assume that is a setting that can prevent random friend requests.

It's likely they might not have turned their friend list on. I just did that from the home menu while Demyx stepped out of the room for a few.

Also, Nintendo Land doesn't need a motion+ for all games. Standard wiimote works fine in Mario Chase.

Also also, background downloads!

lancejt wrote:

It will tell you, but you have to send it through the wiiverse by looking up that person's profile. There's a friend request button there. I've noticed it is disabled for some people I have looked up. I assume that is a setting that can prevent random friend requests.

Yep. I've run into the same thing. For those that want to receive friend requests without exchanging IDs, you'll need to go into MiiVerse, select the "User Menu", select "Settings/Other", select "Miiverse Settings" then change the friend requests setting. I can't remember if mine was set to accept them by default or if I changed it when I was fiddling with my settings during my initial setup.

The "User Menu" is where you can search for people by their ID as well.

I have no friends. I'm going to go to sleep, and if I still don't have any friends or friend requests in the morning I'm going to cry hot tears of sadness and or shame.

That, and play Nano Assault Neo.

Jasonofindy wrote:

IF and ONLY IF you were willing to pick up the basic white version, Wii-Us were available for several hours locally after stores opened yesterday.

All things being equal, I'd have preferred the white one since it would match all of my existing Wii hardware and none of the extras with the Deluxe version are really that interesting to me. Of course, it's NOT equal because of the internal storage size: 8GB, not all of which is freely usable. It's as if the Basic model exists only so they can advertise an under $300 price.

Kurrelgyre wrote:
Jasonofindy wrote:

IF and ONLY IF you were willing to pick up the basic white version, Wii-Us were available for several hours locally after stores opened yesterday.

All things being equal, I'd have preferred the white one since it would match all of my existing Wii hardware and none of the extras with the Deluxe version are really that interesting to me. Of course, it's NOT equal because of the internal storage size: 8GB, not all of which is freely usable. It's as if the Basic model exists only so they can advertise an under $300 price.

Agreed. Choosing simply based on color, I would have taken the white one as well. However, I'm interested in the game, the Gamepad dock, AND the extra storage. The black one is just such a much better package that I felt I needed to just be patient and wait to grab one of them.

My wii accessories are all gold. /diva.

Dug into Miiverse a little. It's actually pretty cool. I was initially dismissive, but once I actually had it open and saw what other people were using it for, I felt compelled to join the conversation withe either Yeahs (similar to "liking" a facebook post) or a full text post.

gamerparent wrote:

I have no friends. I'm going to go to sleep, and if I still don't have any friends or friend requests in the morning I'm going to cry hot tears of sadness and or shame.

That, and play Nano Assault Neo. :)

Sent, uh, SillyDaddy.

Sent FRs to a couple more people posting, but breander your box is grayed out. I think you need to adjust a privacy setting somewhere.

Edits galore: I made a post in the NBA 2k13 community (193 strong!) calling them out and got HELLA MESSAGES. The Wii U is forcing me to be way more social than the 360 ever came close to, for better or worse.

Well we had the system lock up in the Yoshi game for Nintendo Land. Haven't seen that happen since Rock Band 2 on the Wii...

Kurrelgyre wrote:

It's as if the Basic model exists only so they can advertise an under $300 price.

Wasn't that the point of the 360 Arcade model?

sithcundman wrote:
lancejt wrote:

It will tell you, but you have to send it through the wiiverse by looking up that person's profile. There's a friend request button there. I've noticed it is disabled for some people I have looked up. I assume that is a setting that can prevent random friend requests.

Yep. I've run into the same thing. For those that want to receive friend requests without exchanging IDs, you'll need to go into MiiVerse, select the "User Menu", select "Settings/Other", select "Miiverse Settings" then change the friend requests setting. I can't remember if mine was set to accept them by default or if I changed it when I was fiddling with my settings during my initial setup.

The "User Menu" is where you can search for people by their ID as well.

Please do this. Once you have that done, it's pretty much the same as XBox Live.

So is the park guide in Nintendo Land supposed to be inspired by Howard Phillips? The bow tie and "tip" finger reminds me of the old NP comics (http://hn.iodized.net/main.htm)

Omg omg omg epic yarn Zelda!

So I've had a few hours with the system. My impressions:

The Gamepad is freaking awesome. It doesn't feel at all unwieldy and the buttons are extremely ergonomic. The display works great as a remote in the menus and in media apps, and it also works great for adding extra features in the two games I purchased. Speaking of...

New Super Mario Bros U is basically a NSMB game, but probably the best one of that lineage so far. The level design is solid, the graphics are beautiful and the fundamentals of platforming as good as they ever were. I'm really surprised it's currently sitting at 82 on Metacritic while NSMB Wii is at 87. This version seems better.

ZombiU is really interesting. It's fascinating how they use the touchscreen to provide information and toy with how the player interacts with the system. Digging into your backpack requires you pay attention to your Gamepad (and aren't watching your back), inventory management is important, the constantly visible map is important, the scan function takes time but is helpful because it lets you find useful items from a distance. I haven't played enough to say it's a good game but what I've seen so far is promising.

Something else that surprised me - the web browsing experience seems pretty good. It's reasonably quick and the touchscreen works great for it. Hilariously, it has a button that instantly closes curtains over the screen. I guess they already figured out people would be using this to watch porn.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Sent, uh, SillyDaddy.

Wait, you weren't supposed to see that!

Blind_Evil wrote:

Edits galore: I made a post in the NBA 2k13 community (193 strong!) calling them out and got HELLA MESSAGES. The Wii U is forcing me to be way more social than the 360 ever came close to, for better or worse.

Do you think that's just early adopters being social, and the interest will fade? Or is it something about NBA 2k13 people?

played 4er games with the family last night (mostly Nintendoland). There's something pretty awesome going on here. I worry most folks wont get to it. The asymmetrical information thing. It's really interesting.

Faceless Clock wrote:

New Super Mario Bros U is basically a NSMB game, but probably the best one of that lineage so far. The level design is solid, the graphics are beautiful and the fundamentals of platforming as good as they ever were. I'm really surprised it's currently sitting at 82 on Metacritic while NSMB Wii is at 87. This version seems better.

I assume reviewers are dinging it for sticking fairly close to the classic Mario formula. My impression is that it's a straight up 2D Mario game that really isn't offering much new for the formula. NSMB Wii was fresher because it was multiplayer. There might be some resentment from this being the third Mario platformer in a little over year, and New Super Mario Bros. 2 wasn't released that long ago either.

Hilariously, it has a button that instantly closes curtains over the screen. I guess they already figured out people would be using this to watch porn.

There's also the fact that most people probably don't want to be displaying their credit card # on their 50" screen.

rabbit wrote:

played 4er games with the family last night (mostly Nintendoland). There's something pretty awesome going on here. I worry most folks wont get to it. The asymmetrical information thing. It's really interesting.

For an optional pack-in, there's a lot more to do in it than Wii Sports. We're loving the art direction on the various games. Wood block toy aesthetic for Mario, wind-up F-Zero racer, and an "epic yarn" (or Little Big Planet / sack boy) look for the Zelda game? More of this please!

shoptroll wrote:
Faceless Clock wrote:

New Super Mario Bros U is basically a NSMB game, but probably the best one of that lineage so far. The level design is solid, the graphics are beautiful and the fundamentals of platforming as good as they ever were. I'm really surprised it's currently sitting at 82 on Metacritic while NSMB Wii is at 87. This version seems better.

I assume reviewers are dinging it for sticking fairly close to the classic Mario formula. My impression is that it's a straight up 2D Mario game that really isn't offering much new for the formula. NSMB Wii was fresher because it was multiplayer. There might be some resentment from this being the third Mario platformer in a little over year, and New Super Mario Bros. 2 wasn't released that long ago either.

Also I think a big issue can be that the same reviewers also played all the previous version to come out. And in there mind they are like geez another one really? The rest of us on the other hand have only played maybe one of the other New Mario and so are not quite as tired of the formula yet. I have been enjoying it quite a bit so far, lots and lots of hidden stuff everywhere to find.

Vrikk wrote:

Well, good news is that I'm bidding on one of these on eBay, and with less than a day to go it is still below MSRP. I'm sure I'll get outbid, but I'm taking this thread's advice to heart; I won't pay about the asking price.

I checked last night and there are still plenty in Walmarts and Targets around here.

Anybody try Fifa?

gamerparent wrote:

That, and play Nano Assault Neo. :)

Yup.

I haven't played it myself, but I poured over a lot of footage for it (mostly live streams) and it looks freakin' fantastic.

Is there a demo for it? That could pull a lot of sales.

I decided last night that I might as well get ZombiU. I was feeling particularly lazy, so I booted up the eShop and made my purchase. (There's also the benefit of the 10% return for the deluxe console)

I started the download around 7 PM thinking that I might get to play a little of the game before I went to bed. Needless to say, this did not happen. The download finished around 1 AM. I should have just gone to bed but I had waited this long. It was at this point I remembered hearing that downloads have to be "installed". In case anyone is wondering, this process took somewhere around 40 minutes.

The moral of the story is:

Download games are meant for another day.

shoptroll wrote:

EDIT: iFixit teardown for the curious

Just coming in here to post that. I like that they highlighted and note the components off to the side.

This time I stopped myself before becoming a filthy skimmer once again

Spoiler:

barely

lancejt wrote:

The moral of the story is:

Download games are meant for another day.

They don't have to, though. I've bought several games digitally over XBL, and it is nowhere near that long to download, and they seem to be instantly installed. I'm guessing I can get a game downloaded and be playing with an hour and half, at least.

mrtomaytohead wrote:

This time I stopped myself before becoming a filthy skimmer once again

Now you're just making me feel bad for joking around

lancejt wrote:

In case anyone is wondering, this process took somewhere around 40 minutes.

I should look at the teardowns again, that seems really slow for flash based storage. I wouldn't put it past them to be using a slower I/O bus or something. Or maybe the data comes in encrypted and it has to decrypt the bits on the device similar to how Steam preloads work?

The downloads taking half a forever is probably due to server locations. Hopefully they'll build out more infrastructure to deal with that.

one of my vendors I do a great deal of business with sent me a Wii U Deluxe as a holiday gift.. so I will have one afterall.. lol.. Looks like ZombiU and NSMB are solid bets for me..

Jayhawker wrote:
lancejt wrote:

The moral of the story is:

Download games are meant for another day.

They don't have to, though. I've bought several games digitally over XBL, and it is nowhere near that long to download, and they seem to be instantly installed. I'm guessing I can get a game downloaded and be playing with an hour and half, at least.

Looking at all sides of it, I think that's where our $60 a year goes. Nintendo and Sony networks are free and much slower. F2P PC games I've downloades are a lot slower.

That's a pro for sticking with MS next generation, or it would be if I was ready to embrace digital just yet.

Metro: Last Light developer blasts Wii U cpu

Metro dev wrote:

Chief technical officer, Oles Shishkovtsov, explains why Metro’s sequel won’t be appearing.

“[The] Wii U has a horrible, slow CPU,” explained Shishkovtsov. “We had an early look at it, we thought we could probably do it, but in terms of the impact we would make on the overall quality of the game – potentially to its detriment – we just figured it wasn’t worth pursuing at this time. It’s something we might return to. I really couldn’t make any promises, though.”

Despite Nintendo’s console offering Metro: Last Light new experiences to its players with it dual screens, when asked Shishkovtsov was adamant that the Wii U would ever seen Metro: Last Light when asked directly.

“We had an initial look at the Wii U, but given the size of the team and compared to where we were last time, just developing for the Playstation 3 is a significant addition.”

http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1687689...

I don't understand why Nintendo constantly does this. I thought they wanted to be a viable platform for 3rd party games this gen?

Gumbie wrote:

I thought they wanted to be a viable platform for 3rd party games this gen? :(

Providing a controller with more than 4 buttons out of the box is a good start, processing power be damned.

Dear Rabbit,

The next time you turn into a zombie and try to kill me while I'm out on a supply run in ZombiU please be kind enough to put something besides soda and energy bars in your backpack. I need ammo or upgrades.

Your pal,

Sith

Sorry I had to put you down, Rabbit, but it had to be done.

lancejt wrote:

The moral of the story is:
Download games are meant for another day.

This statement is pointed at the Wii U. I haven't had this issue with other platforms and I assume that it will pick up here eventually.

Jayhawker wrote:

They don't have to, though. I've bought several games digitally over XBL, and it is nowhere near that long to download, and they seem to be instantly installed. I'm guessing I can get a game downloaded and be playing with an hour and half, at least.

As can I generally over XBL.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Eh, you hear that from them and good things from other developers, this stuff happens with every console. Personally I wad really underwhelmed by the technical proficiency and mechanics of Metro 2033, but finished it because the atmosphere was cool. If they couldn't push an average looking 360 game...well, complaint noted, but I'm not taking their word as the last word. Would explain the slow menu loads though. In any case, I wouldn't recommend people like me (most of GWJ) buy a Wii U expecting it'll negate whatever is next from the other two platform holders. That was my ideal dream, but it's not looking likely. If that's a dealbreaker, so be it.

P.S. The Wii wasn't a 360/PS3 analogue for typical third party games, but that doesn't mean it didn't host some excellent unique ones.

Metro may have been technologically unimpressive on the 360 because they didn't know how to port well as it still remains one of the best looking and video card killing games on the pc.

Aaron D. wrote:
gamerparent wrote:

That, and play Nano Assault Neo. :)

Yup.

I haven't played it myself, but I poured over a lot of footage for it (mostly live streams) and it looks freakin' fantastic.

Is there a demo for it? That could pull a lot of sales.

I was looking on the eShop for demos of any kind an I can't find them yet. Maybe they'll show up later.

It's a fun game. I have to get the hang of moving with one stick and aiming my auto fire with the other stick.

PopEsc wrote:

Anybody try Fifa?

I tried it for 15 minutes at a demo. It plays fine, doesn't look as good as my PC FIFA 12 that I'm used to looking at, the Gamepad integration is cute but not essential. manager mode is intriguing.