Wii U Catch-All

stevenmack wrote:

I'll second that - if I'd have picked up the WiiU prior to choosing my top 10 games of the year, zombiU would have been a serious contender.

I played King of the Zombie mode the other day and was destroyed. I was the human survivor while my son was the zombies.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Rayman: Legends is a day one buy for me. Rayman: Origins is one of my favourite games of this generation and my girlfriend and I can't wait to co-op Legends.

After playing the Castle Rocks level on the demo this game made it's way up our most wanted list.

Vrikk wrote:

So what is the next game that people should get?

I'm whittling down my pile, so I haven't put much time into ZombiU or Scribblenauts Unlimited yet. They have a much larger pile of 360 games to contend with for time.

I'm not sure I'll be getting Rayman. Rayman Origins is one of those 360 pile games... part of me wants to sell it and get the Wii U version instead, but that seems pretty wasteful. I don't know why I've never gotten around to playing it, but here we are.

MH3U I am getting for sure, because I love the franchise and console versions don't come along too often. I think at this point it's best to just cut ties with Tri and go with the new version, but if your budget isn't up for it, you'll be okay getting less of the same experience on Wii. There are still enough people online to play with, last I checked.

So I'm back from BluMetric's annual conference where I brought my Wii U to use during our post-conference party. Last year, we had 3 Wiis setup with Wii Sports and Guitar Hero and they were empty for big stretches but also got played a lot and enjoyed. This year, I brought the Wii U with Nintendo Land. Another co-worker brought his Wii too but we only got one TV (the other broke) so I decided to steal his two Wiimotes to set Nintendo Land up with the full 5 player option. I'm sad to report that it wasn't really a hit, though I can't conclusively say it was the system's fault.

We just went through a merger and there were 50 odd more people at the conference this year so there was a LOT more mingling going on. The party's also an open bar affair and people (myself included) were tanking up pretty fast. I went out to the area where the Wii U was setup and started playing some stuff to get the ball rolling. A handful of people came over and seemed interested so I was like "Grab Wiimotes and let's do attraction tour!" This is where the additional complexities of Nintendo Land started to turn people off.

Firstly, the group (who were tipsy but not hammered at this point) had a hard time wrapping their heads around the GamePad. It kind of perplexed me because a good chunk of this group owns iPads and smartphones so I didn't think it would be that hard. They also started to get confused by the fact that many of the games involve just passing the tablet around whereas others involve Wiimotes, plus some of the attraction tour rounds just put two people against each other and exclude the rest of the group. Also, Nintendo Land doesn't have an option to exclude the games that require Motion Plus so I had to keep pointing out to people which games they couldn't pick because we didn't have newer Wiimotes.

Then each game required we go through the How to Play, which is too long, too slow and has that really annoying robot voice. Wii Sports is brain dead easy to learn and pick up but for as cool as Nintendo Land is, things are varied and the level of instruction and the way they deliver them breaks the flow somewhat. Then my GamePad suddenly decided to get its calibration really confused which required holding up everything while I dealt with that. Then, after multiple minutes of learning how to play the game, each player did one round and it ended and moved on. In some cases, it took longer to learn how to play the game than we spent actually playing them. I was asked if Nintendo Land had updated versions of bowling and golf and got several "awww"s when I said no.

We'd only run a 3 round attraction tour and after that, the entire group save one person (who was a big gamer anyway) left. For the next while, an individual would walk up to it, play a game or two and leave. An hour later, the system had powered itself off from lack of use.

I know these are less than ideal circumstances and don't get me wrong, I love the system and Nintendo Land but I think it demonstrates a fundamental problem this system has over the Wii: The mainstream rightly or wrongly (I largely believe wrongly) wants fun with as little effort as possible. Wii Sports provided that and the same void is now being filled with crappy mobile games. The mainstream's attention span seems to have gotten so narrow that 2-3 minutes to learn how to play a game is now too much to ask. Nintendo made a really neat thing but they've raised the effort buy in just enough that it's become too much for the majority of people I think. It's disheartening that people as a whole just seem so uninterested in spending 5 minutes to learn how to have fun with it but I guess it explains why reality TV is so popular.

PXAbstraction: I would agree with your general statement that the barrier to entry is a little bit higher for Nintendo Land than it was for Wii Sports.

However, I had a similar situation with a crowd setting at my work, during a lunch break. I brought the system in and set it up in the morning, and then we waited till lunch to play. Because we didn't have a lot of time I basically said let's start by playing Luigi's Mansion, which is pretty simple to pick up and involves 5 people.

Among the crowd there was a couple familiar with games, and the rest were more causal. We had a lot of fun with it, and we played it for a good half an hour as people fought over who got to be the ghost, and as we tried the different stages as they unlocked.

We also tried the Link Adventure game, which was a little less popular, but still enjoyable.

I think it really depends on the crowd and which games of Nintendo Land you pick. I didn't do the Attraction Tour, because I think it's too random and you can get into situations exactly as you described, where not everyone gets to play.

I'm going to have a bunch of people over to my house tomorrow night, and I'll try it out on them and see what happens.

That's a good point. I just grabbed attraction tour cause I figured it would be easiest but I didn't know it restricted some rounds to only two people. I should have backed it out and just picked a couple of cool individual games. I'm hoping to have other opportunities to show this thing off to the office crowd.

Jucofett wrote:
Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Rayman: Legends is a day one buy for me. Rayman: Origins is one of my favourite games of this generation and my girlfriend and I can't wait to co-op Legends.

After playing the Castle Rocks level on the demo this game made it's way up our most wanted list.

How much of the game is choreographed to the music like that? Is it just the one Castle Rock level or are there more?

As I understand it, there are several levels like that (I think they might be the replacement for Tricky Treasures) but the majority of the game is like Origins.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

That's a good point. I just grabbed attraction tour cause I figured it would be easiest but I didn't know it restricted some rounds to only two people. I should have backed it out and just picked a couple of cool individual games. I'm hoping to have other opportunities to show this thing off to the office crowd.

The attraction tour only really works if everyone knows how to play the games. It's actually pretty bad in a larger group. Otherwise, I'd just pick something like the mario chase or the luigi's mansion game and just play that. Those games are pretty easy to drop in and out with, and a lot of fun.

So, I finished the first chapter of Epic Mickey 2 and am, on the whole, disappointed.

I would pretty much consider myself as the ideal candidate for this game. I liked the first game. I love platformers. More importantly, I love Disney history, and discontinued/outdated Disney theme park elements are one of my favorite topics in Disney history.

Sadly, interesting and esoteric Disney references is the only area where this game really shines, and cool references are not enough to make a good video game.

To begin, no they didn't fix any of the problems from the first game (except one). The jumping is still wonky. I still unexpectedly fall through the world. The combat is still clunky. The quality of level design is about the same, although I'll admit I haven't found any area as bad as the last section of EM1.

The one problem they did fix is that enemies seem to take somewhat less paint/thinner to subdue. Spraying down enemies with paint is one of the worst aspects of Epic Mickey so I appreciate that.

On the other hand, figuring out what you're supposed to do has gotten considerably more difficult in this installment, unless I'm just being silly. I feel like some of the requirements are really non-intuitive. The worst example so far is

Spoiler:

A boss where you have to thin out the armor so a blotling pops out, and then you can hit the blotling with paint or thinner. That's fine, it's a very standard combat pattern in Epic Mickey. Then he moves into his second phase and you have to thin out the armor again -- fine. The third phase? Thinning the armor does NOTHING and they give you no hint on what to do -- this time you need to PAINT the armor. What?

Then there's the singing. Now, I think the idea of making the game into a sort of Disney musical is solid. And I wouldn't mind if the music is cheesy -- I routinely listen to Disney parade music for fun, I KNOW cheesy, I love it. But Disney music is a certain flavor of cheesy and this sure isn't it. For one thing, it's only the Mad Doctor who sings so far, no big setpieces of forgotten toons twirling around and singing about how lost and forgotten they are. Worse, the songs aren't Disney-cheesy or "so bad it's good" or anything of the sort, they're more like school pageant songs that don't really rhyme or scan.

And then there's thematic unity.

Spoiler:

I go through Frontierland... to get to the Mad Doctor's lab and fight an Animatronic Pete's Dragon. Okay? What did that have to do with Frontierland? Why not a giant malevolent Country Bear or something? I guess this seems like a nitpick, but lack of contradiction is seriously one of the cornerstones of Disney design. At least the first Epic Mickey mostly had this right.

I mean it's definitely not the worst game in the world. But the Epic Mickey games had such a solid idea behind them that they should've been the best Disney games ever made. As it is, they fall far short of the better entries in the Kingdom Hearts series and I can't recommend them without strong reservations.

Demyx wrote:

The quality of level design is about the same, although I'll admit I haven't found any area as bad as the last section of EM1.

Dark Beauty Castle? Or Inside the Blot? Because I loved Dark Beauty Castle. Inside the Blot wasn't bad, although I couldn't tell whether they intended for you to be able to skip most of the platforming by just running over the bloticles.

I mean it's definitely not the worst game in the world. But the Epic Mickey games had such a solid idea behind them that they should've been the best Disney games ever made. As it is, they fall far short of the better entries in the Kingdom Hearts series and I can't recommend them without strong reservations.

I've mentioned this elsewhere, but I really ended up loving Epic Mickey by the time it was done, but I agree: it's a hard game to recommend without a good handful of caveats. I was really hoping they'd tighten things up a bit for the second game, but it sure doesn't sound like it. :/

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Dark Beauty Castle? Or Inside the Blot? Because I loved Dark Beauty Castle. Inside the Blot wasn't bad, although I couldn't tell whether they intended for you to be able to skip most of the platforming by just running over the bloticles.

I mean Inside the Blot, which I hated. Hated hated hated. After many levels of generally good (though uneven) environments creatively based on Disneyland attractions, we get for the grand finale... black slime caves.

I've mentioned this elsewhere, but I really ended up loving Epic Mickey by the time it was done, but I agree: it's a hard game to recommend without a good handful of caveats. I was really hoping they'd tighten things up a bit for the second game, but it sure doesn't sound like it. :/

I wish I could say they had but so far I don't think so. Maybe it'll get better later though!

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/01/...

Of note is the PowerPak replacement battery for the Wii U GamePad. $25 isn't too bad a price, 2-3 times the battery life sounds great, and it's a much less ugly/cumbersome a solution than the U Boost unit; for the same price, and considering the PowerPak comes with the appropriate size screwdriver, I don't know why anyone would opt for the U Boost. Then again, I also wonder why Nintendo used a lower-capacity battery in a compartment too big for it. My Wii U is going to see more use in the streaming/media department once this thing's available, that's for sure. Now if Nyko would just float some release dates...

ianunderhill wrote:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/01/...

Of note is the PowerPak replacement battery for the Wii U GamePad. $25 isn't too bad a price, 2-3 times the battery life sounds great, and it's a much less ugly/cumbersome a solution than the U Boost unit; for the same price, and considering the PowerPak comes with the appropriate size screwdriver, I don't know why anyone would opt for the U Boost. Then again, I also wonder why Nintendo used a lower-capacity battery in a compartment too big for it. My Wii U is going to see more use in the streaming/media department once this thing's available, that's for sure. Now if Nyko would just float some release dates...

Official info: Nyko Product Page

so i just got the WII U this Christmas and i have to say it was a big hit among a lot of small groups i got to play with. with every new group the Mario chasing seems to make people laugh uncontrollably. I agree that the learning curve is a little tougher for things like zelda and metriod but other than that people seem to be pretty impressed.

I talked to a friend recently, who just came into a lot of money, and he said he was going to buy a new xbox even after i tried to talk him into buying a wii. I guess wii has brought less appeal to the more serious gamers in the past so i guess that's were he is coming from. in the past, wii has always been the "party" type of game system where it leaves hard core gamers out of the loop-although, as of right now I don't see why anyone couldn't see wii u being better than a 360 or a ps3 purchase. i wonder if its early launch will hurt them as Microsoft and sony will have the opportunity to absorb their more creative ideas.

Side note, my nintendo netword ID is FiveIron so if anyone wants to add me that would be awesome.

I think NOA just sent out a press release with upcoming dates as Joystiq's home page has a bunch of articles with release dates:

Lego City: Undercover - 3/18
Monster Hunter 3: Ultimate - 3/19
NFS: Most Wanter - 3/19
Aliens: Colonial Marines - Q1
Game & Wario - 1st Half of 2013
Wonderful 101 - 1st Half of 2013
Pikmin 3 - 1st Half of 2013

So 3 months of nothing...

To be fair, there's some eShop dates too.

Here's the full Q1 list.

Wii U

The Amazing Spider-Man™ Ultimate Edition - March
The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct - March 26
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate - March 19
The Croods: Prehistoric Party! - March 19
Need For Speed Most Wanted - March 19
LEGO® City: Undercover - March 18
Aliens™: Colonial Marines - Q1
Rayman® Legends - Feb. 26

Nintendo eShop for Wii U

BIT.TRIP Presents... Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien - Q1
Puddle - Q1
The Cave™ - Jan. 22
Fist of the North Star®: Ken's Rage 2 - Feb. 7
Toki Tori 2 - Q1
Zen Pinball 2 - Q1

shoptroll wrote:

Pikmin 3 - 1st Half of 2013

Not that I have a WiiU to play it on. But that, to me, looks like they just slid in another delay for that game.

breander wrote:

So 3 months of nothing...

Considering the February list of games, I don't have a problem with this at all.

I put a deposit on Lego City Undercover in December at Target and got this little police officer Minifigure.

I was at LegoLand in FL this year. Even though my kids (twins) were 11, they really enjoyed it. The park is beautiful.

breander wrote:

So 3 months of nothing...

Rayman, Lego, and Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate for me. That's pretty damn good.

What's the scuttlebutt on Aliens: Colonial Marines?

Ulairi wrote:
breander wrote:

So 3 months of nothing...

Rayman, Lego, and Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate for me. That's pretty damn good.

I didn't actually do the math correct in my head for those games but it will have been pretty much a 3 month drought since the launch of the system. Hopefully things pick up toward the fall of this year. I feel like Nintendo rushed this out the door a little to soon. The O.S. wasn't even done until literally the night before launch day. TVii functionally didn't come till a month later and is still incomplete. Healthy list of launch games but then practically 3 months of nothing. Nintendo again talked a big game about big third party support but is not getting any major third party game coming out this spring except I think aliens. Not hating on the system I like it but I just cleaned a layer of dust off my gamepad when cleaning my house the other day. Get your stuff together Nintendo.

Ulairi wrote:
breander wrote:

So 3 months of nothing...

Rayman, Lego, and Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate for me. That's pretty damn good.

Yeah, Lego and Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate are probably going to crack my willpower.

PRG013 wrote:
ianunderhill wrote:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/01/...

Of note is the PowerPak replacement battery for the Wii U GamePad. $25 isn't too bad a price, 2-3 times the battery life sounds great, and it's a much less ugly/cumbersome a solution than the U Boost unit; for the same price, and considering the PowerPak comes with the appropriate size screwdriver, I don't know why anyone would opt for the U Boost. Then again, I also wonder why Nintendo used a lower-capacity battery in a compartment too big for it. My Wii U is going to see more use in the streaming/media department once this thing's available, that's for sure. Now if Nyko would just float some release dates...

Official info: Nyko Product Page

Can anyone explain to me why nintendo keep releasing products that force you to buy new batteries or booster packs?

Farscry wrote:
Ulairi wrote:
breander wrote:

So 3 months of nothing...

Rayman, Lego, and Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate for me. That's pretty damn good.

Yeah, Lego and Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate are probably going to crack my willpower. ;)

At first I read that as "LEGO Monster Hunter" and my head nearly exploded. LEGO City does look pretty cool, but I need to know more about it before I jump.

I'll need to see some reviews for that Lego game. I don't like the licensed Lego stuff, but this looks more like an open-world game, which is much more my jive. Anything above a 65ish average will likely tempt me into buying. It's coming out the day before MH3U...hmm. I know MH is going to eat my gaming time for at least a month.

Bonnonon wrote:

Can anyone explain to me why nintendo keep releasing products that force you to buy new batteries or booster packs?

I think "force" is definitely the wrong word to use, there. "Encourages," I'd say. The 360 is the only console that forces you to buy things to use their wireless controllers.

I've had little inclination to buy any weird battery pack for the Gamepad. The battery life isn't great, but if I'm playing for more than 3 hours in one sitting, a cord dangling from the controller isn't my biggest issue.

breander wrote:
Ulairi wrote:
breander wrote:

So 3 months of nothing...

Rayman, Lego, and Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate for me. That's pretty damn good.

I didn't actually do the math correct in my head for those games but it will have been pretty much a 3 month drought since the launch of the system. Hopefully things pick up toward the fall of this year. I feel like Nintendo rushed this out the door a little to soon. The O.S. wasn't even done until literally the night before launch day. TVii functionally didn't come till a month later and is still incomplete. Healthy list of launch games but then practically 3 months of nothing. Nintendo again talked a big game about big third party support but is not getting any major third party game coming out this spring except I think aliens. Not hating on the system I like it but I just cleaned a layer of dust off my gamepad when cleaning my house the other day. Get your stuff together Nintendo.

How many new games do you want to buy every month? I think when people say "there is nothing to play!" I don't know what they actually mean. I own: New Super Mario Brothers U, Zombi U, Assassins Creed 3, Darksiders 2, Mass Effect 3, and Nintendo Land for the Wii U. Those are all launch games. Within the first quarter, I'll be buying 3 more games. That will bring the total games that I have played on the Wii U up to 9 games within the first 4 months of release. 3 games in the first quarter averages to one new game a month. I think Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, Lego City Undercover, and Rayman are a good slate of games for what I want to play. That doesn't even include the new Aliens game which from what developers have said will be the best on the Wii U. I think the drought will be here over the summer but we are due for a new Nintendo Direct focused on the Wii U next month. If Nintendo can release Pikmin 3, Wonderful 101, and something else for the summer I'll be happy with that slate.

What are you expectations?

Ulairi wrote:
breander wrote:
Ulairi wrote:
breander wrote:

So 3 months of nothing...

Rayman, Lego, and Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate for me. That's pretty damn good.

I didn't actually do the math correct in my head for those games but it will have been pretty much a 3 month drought since the launch of the system. Hopefully things pick up toward the fall of this year. I feel like Nintendo rushed this out the door a little to soon. The O.S. wasn't even done until literally the night before launch day. TVii functionally didn't come till a month later and is still incomplete. Healthy list of launch games but then practically 3 months of nothing. Nintendo again talked a big game about big third party support but is not getting any major third party game coming out this spring except I think aliens. Not hating on the system I like it but I just cleaned a layer of dust off my gamepad when cleaning my house the other day. Get your stuff together Nintendo.

How many new games do you want to buy every month? I think when people say "there is nothing to play!" I don't know what they actually mean. I own: New Super Mario Brothers U, Zombi U, Assassins Creed 3, Darksiders 2, Mass Effect 3, and Nintendo Land for the Wii U. Those are all launch games. Within the first quarter, I'll be buying 3 more games. That will bring the total games that I have played on the Wii U up to 9 games within the first 4 months of release. 3 games in the first quarter averages to one new game a month. I think Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, Lego City Undercover, and Rayman are a good slate of games for what I want to play. That doesn't even include the new Aliens game which from what developers have said will be the best on the Wii U. I think the drought will be here over the summer but we are due for a new Nintendo Direct focused on the Wii U next month. If Nintendo can release Pikmin 3, Wonderful 101, and something else for the summer I'll be happy with that slate.

What are you expectations?

Ideally I would like to see at least a trickle of games. 1 or 2 games every week or every other. With this the idea is that some of those games I would be interested in and some I would not but would be of interest to others. Right now the only games I have is Mario and Nintendo Land. I might get Zombie U when the price comes down a bit, I was kinda meh on the demo but otherwise I have played all those other games that I was interested in on other consoles months ago. My expectations are a steady release of content. I'm looking forward to Rayman and Pikman. But its still another month and a half until Rayman comes out and another month and a half of dust settling on the gamepad screen.

Something else I remember from listening to all the game of the year podcasts just a few weeks ago and even on the GWJ Conference call. I remember someone had to speak up and mention oh hey the Wii U came out this year and everyone else was like oh yeah it did didn't it. Literally a month later people who basically live and breathe video games and even owned the system forgot it existed.