The games that were there were Nintendoland (which consists of many small games not unlike mini games in Mario Party I will explain later) Batman Arkham Armored Edition, Game and Wario, Project P 100, Pikmin 3, Wii fit U, Ninja Gaiden 3, Just Dance 4, Scribblenauts, Mario Bros WiiU, Sing Party, Rayman, and the much anticipated ZombiiU. There are links to some of my short videos but I will break down my game playing experience for you here:
Ninja Gaiden http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejQ5w44dN7s
Batman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejQ5w44dN7s
Rayman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy3-cJhvQZ0
Game and Wario http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uaoQ43BvHE
Now before we begin mind you I was given Demo versions of these games. So if I trash a title you were hoping for or give undo praises to a game that doesnt stack up get over it. Not trying to gloat just stating a fact I have played them and you most likely have not.
Wii fit U: They had a few games for demo. Hosedown, luge, trampoline, waiter, and rowing. I got to try out Hosedown. As expected the Wii fit board is needed but you don't need to re-buy a board if you have one for your Wii. So I have the tablet and I hold it in front of me and this simulates the business end of the hose. When I press my foot down on the Wii fit board water comes out with force comparable to how hard I press on the board. So little Miis rush me and I have to hose them down by aiming the tablet around. This is great since it makes me use my arms in Wii fit rather than just foot motions or balance. Eventually the Miis become more devious and come at you with thick chocolate shells. They take much more water to put down than normal Miis. One complaint is that I wasnt watching the tv but rather the tablet screen since aiming the hose was a little wonky. Fun game liked it.
Waiter-hold the tablet flat like a tray and pump your feet to walk forward. Chefs give you food to bring to hungry customers. just dont tilt the tablet since you'll spill the food and have to go back for more. People had trouble turning while walking since you had to tilt the tray a bit. I'm thinkin this will be worked out by players adapting to the game. Again not a seriously involved game but fun enough-like a third person diner dash.
Trampoline-not much going on here. Just pretend to jump at the right time and you fly really high.
Luge-Do you have a flabby stomach like me? Well a few weeks of this game will tighten you midsection for sure. You sit on the wii fit board and you cant let your feet touch the floor. you lean back and use your hands to support your weight. Leaning will steer your sled obviously. This game was fun but yeah dont expect tons of levels and boss battles it's just a Wii Fit mini game after all.
Rowing-Similar to Luge but not quite as intense. This was meant more for your arms.
Rayman-Solid little platformer here with gorgeous scenery and unique characters. The demo was short-only like half a level. I was given the pro controller and I'll do a write up of that later. The controls were fluid and responsive. The challenge and timing of jumps and stuff wasnt bad and it held my attention. The tablet version of this game however kinda sucks. A second player basically taps stuff in the level that does not affect the player one way or another. This gives player one more stuff to collect and maybe a power up. Synopsis: good platformer 2nd player option is weak as hell.
Sing Party: Again I am not much for these kinds of games but this was kinda cool. The person performing has the tablet and the lyrics display on its screen. They can now instead face the people watching and sing...and dance. Oh yeah they are incorporating slight dance moves in singing games now. Also the chorus is meant to be sung by anyone watching so crowd involvement is now present. Again songs are available as DLC. Not bad and a step in the right direction for a genre that was already stale in my opinion.
Just Dance 4: So I dont do the dance games but my wife does. This one seems more involved and better built than the Wii versions. They tell me songs and dances will be available for DLC. Kinda like Sing party-minor improvements and adjustments here.
Scribblenauts: Never played any before this. I was given the tablet and told to write out what I wanted to manifest in the game. Yeah not draw it as I assumed with the name scribblenauts but tap at the tablet with a stylus to spell out what I wanted. I made a submarine car and a dragon-it wouldnt let me make a chainsaw crossbow. The guy tells me that the objects I made can be edited pretty heavily. He had no idea how to do this so I ripped apart my dragon and he couldnt load into the level since I changed his geometry and collision. Couldn't load stuff I wanted to couldnt load what I had edited couldnt complete tasks in the game. Didnt care.
Game and Wario-Wario games are always weird and I like that. Well there wasnt much weird going on. The demo played a lot like Hosedown on Wii Fit U. Launch arrows at little Wario block men waddling at you. If they make it to you they appear on your tablet screen and move from top to bottom. You have to tap the ever loving crap out of them in order to kill each one. Not very hard and not weird enough to really keep my attention here. Hopefully when this launches it's on par with other Wario games because right now-it isnt.
Ninja Gaiden 3-Hack and slashes seem to have taken root in recent gaming and for good reason-they're fun. So how does this game compare with its legendary 8 bit predecessors? Not well. The controls are wonky. We are used to our lower two buttons on a gamepad being the action buttons and even the bottom right and top right buttons on some occasions. Not here. The top two buttons are action (attacks). I imagine that using and actual gamepad would be better but I was given the tablet...and I imagine that the tablet is what you need here since in order to do special attacks and ninja magic I have to tap icons on the tablet screen. this is not easily done in a fight-at all. I have to remove my hand from the attack buttons to do this. This is like dropping a gun and picking it back up in a real fight. Bad idea. Also the button we are used to pressing to attack (X for PS3 and A on xbox) uses a bow and arrow attack that is delayed and serves zero purpose in a melee fighter. I know God of war had some ranged attacks but they balanced it alright so that it was useful in some cases. Here not so much. Also weak attack is pointless you want to hammer the strong attack button. When you do you are treated to some short cuts of Ryu hacking an enemy and blood flying everywhere and the enemy goes flying...only to get up again. Hack and Slash isnt hard to make any delay or lag destroys the game entirely though.
Project P 100-gorgeous looking isometric beat em up. The art appears in the same vein as Viewtiful Joe but I have no clue if it the same devs. You have a band of super heroes who literally flock together and beat the tar out of bad guys. The demo had people beating up a giant lego like robot in the end. The effects are gorgeous and the animations are smooooooth. Group attacks are key and you have special weapons accessible through your tablet screen. A ridiculously huge sword and a handgun were available. It played well. The controls were responsive and fluid. This is the kind of game that really shows its personality and humor. Liked it.
Batman Arkham Armored Edition-Pretty lame for the most part. Batman looked like a plastic action figure amongst pretty decent backdrops-he looked out of place. The only real difference I saw here was Batsy gets glowing fists every now and again. In order to use batarangs and such you need to look at your tablet screen and drag and drop abilities to it etc. This is some more bullshit that can't be done in a fight-you have to go into it prepared but in a game like this there is no telling who is coming next and if you are packing their weakness or not. Also the game felt laggy and jerky in some instances. The controls were wonky thanks to the tablet interface.
Pikmin 3-didn;t play it and I had no desire to. It just doesnt seem like a game I'd enjoy and I wasnt going to stand in line for it so no review
Mario Bros U-Nothing new going on here really. Not much difference from Mario Bros Wii really. 3 and 4 play as toads and the bubble feature is here. Mario Bros Wii was a good game but there wasnt much improvement here. The tablet is fucking useless here. The tablet doesnt control a player but rather by tapping the screen you can place blocks the players can stand and jump off of. Great if the game is too hard for you but using the tablet in this game was like Rayman-boring and poorly designed.
Nintendoland-good stuff here. I was able to play Luigi's Ghost Mansion, Catch Mario, and Metroid Blast. They are more or less mini games not unlike Mario Party. Luigi's Ghost mansion has up to four players trying to catch a fifth player who is the ghost. It is top down nothing complicated. The ghost uses the tablet and he can see the other players on his tablet screen. The players cannot see the ghost on the tv screen. It is a cat and mouse game the ghost has to touch each player and that knocks them out. The ghost wins when all players are knocked out. Players use their flashlights to hurt (and eventually kill) the ghost. The flashlights are also used to revive downed players. This sounds simple and possibly stupid but it was probably the funnest game there.
MetroidBlast-you play as your Mii in a traditional Samus suit and in third person fashion walk the map and blast enemies. A player can use the tablet and they are a small gunship. Nothing too note worthy going on here but it wasnt boring.
Catch Mario- Third person point of view. Similar to luigis mansion in the fact that the player using mario has the tablet and can see everyone. Up to four toads have to chase down Mario and tackle him. Again not very involved but very fun.
ZombiiU-Will this game stack up to the hype? Let's go over it. The visuals are dull compared to other stuff there. Zombies look more like fake humans rather than undead ones. The weapons look flat like actually flat and uninspired. Most scenery looks cliche and boring like the wall that has blood smears that spell out 'how long can you survive?' As if anyone would write this in an actual apocalyptic event. The world looks like a video game world and not like a real one. The game feels like playing levels rather than exploring a world. You are quite aware that you are playing a game here. The zombies dont really move all that great either. I hate to say it kiddies but this game probably won't blow you away. There is zero special things about it. Aside from having zombies in it (which is enough to get some of you to buy it) there isnt anything else going on. The game is mission based i.e. get to the hospital to get your friend some medicine. It is not the sandbox world we were hoping for. No exploration, no basecamp, no survival sim, just wandering around shooting zombies in front of you...and only zombies. I was really disappointed in this game. It looks like shit compared to the other games there and plays at a very boring tune.
So okay as a game player the first thing I have to address is the tablet controller. In some cases it is a great idea, in others it is unnecessary and in others still it wrecks the game experience entirely. Nintendo will more than likely make every game in the WiiU at least say hello to the tablet but honestly it feels like more gimmick shit. It isnt all that familiar or comfortable to play with a tablet like this. The hybrid of tapping buttons and tapping the screen has to hit home with a lot of users in order for this to be successful. Honestly for me it just doesnt work. Im staring at the tv playing my game and suddenly I am being prompted to look at my tablet. I look and find more items or abilities I picked up without knowing it. How? Well I can only look at one screen at a time. Also the analog sticks and buttons on it are nice-they are a tad small for my hands but the real problem is taking your hand off the controls to interact with the touchscreen. It's ok for a pause screen but sometimes they make you choose live decisions in a game with it. Only lots of practice will make it a fluid controller.
Graphic quality. Hit and miss really. As mentioned that Project P 100 game was gorgeous as well as Rayman. Other games like ZombiiU and Ninja Gaiden looked like crap compared to PS3 and Xbox. So is it a step up from Wii? Yeah most definitely. The Nintendoland games eh you can't really tell since they are so cartoony to begin with. They added more polys with better textures in almost everything though. One amazing thing you need to see for yourself (and not in a video) is the color palette the WiiU has-it is stunning and the designers really make the screens vibrate and pop. The games are a visual treat for onlookers but again only certain ones.
Hardware. Not much is known here. I mean Katsuhiro Harada was talking about this machine having difficulty meeting his expectations of when making games on 360 and PS3. This could boil down to unfamiliar technology though. I mean you can know how to ride a motorcycle but when you get on some weird chopper with a suicide shift there's gonna be a learning curve. You can make the bike move but not as well as you could with some practice. Hopefully that's all it is because yeah the mature games seemed to struggle with lag issues due to mapping or careless use of memory. The fact that it stubs its toe on Batman and Ninja Gaiden isn't good no. If nintendo is serious about entering the mature market they need to optimize their code or streamline 3rd party support or something; because something isn't right here. They sling blood everywhere as if thats what were looking for but in reality I dont think Nintedo understands the mature market and what we are looking for. So they take a game that has been out for a while (Batman) add some particle effects and then they use buckets of blood in Ninja Gaiden and ZombiiU. The whole blood and gore seemed over the top and way fake almost hearkening back to the early Mortal Kombat days. In fact I would dare to say that these decisions were forced into the games.
Pro controller kicks the hell out of the tablet in my opinion. Anyone who is accustomed to PS3 or xbox controllers (all of us) will feel at home with this controller. The buttons may be a tad too close together but I have fat fingers. All in all this is a great option for platformers and FPS games. In this regard Nintendo hit a bullseye.
Backwards compatible stuff-remember that everything I experienced was carefully selected by Nintendo marketing guys. We got to use Wii fit boards, and standard Wii controllers with nunchucks for some games. Nintendo doesnt want to seem to milk their customer base right now. I think these decisions were made to keep costs down and not piss off their fan base. They are experimenting and the last thing they need is a consumer that shys away from add on costs or is mad about them. Good decision here fellas.
So I know what you all came here to know-is it worth buying? There are two types of people wanting this thing and I will address them both. Are you a Wii nut are you a Nintendo fanboy? the WiiU is superior to the Wii in its capabilities but some games still look and play like Wii games mostly. Wii Fit U has been smoothed out but the look and feel is the same. Miis are used heavily and if you like that you're in luck here. The amount of family oriented stuff at the Experience was enough to satisfy most parents. Nintendoland is gonna kick ass. I know the games on there sound simple and while they are-they are way fun to play and that is the core of gaming. Nintendo did it right with Nintendoland so have no fear this console will not let you down. The first party stuff will stay bullet proof and give you what you looking for.
Are you hoping Contra Megaman and Final Fantasy come back in their retro/new age fusion glory? Are you looking forward to Mature games? If youre looking for mature games I say wait a few months after it comes out. Wii had Red Steel and other launch titles to fool mature gamers and this is a possibility here as well (Red Steel was good don't get me wrong but there wasnt enough stuff like that to keep me from wandering into a PS3). Some issues need to be worked out on the mature stuff before I consider this a mature console. Nintendo needs to start or find better consulting for mature gaming. It seems that they have forgotten how to ride that bike for the most part. Also they seem to want to be able to cater to the new generation, current adult Wii nuts, and rope in a new audience that went to Sony or Microsoft. If I know one thing it's this: try to please everyone and you will please no one. Nintendo will have to make a choice at some point about their game library and third party relations. The choice will be whatever is making them more money. I just hope they are serious about the mature stuff and give it a serious try. If they put out a dozen or so mature titles and stop future ones it will be a disappointment since I think the pieces and capabilities are there. All that is necessary is actual desire on their part and that is our X factor.
So that's my wrap up! I didnt put in for a pre order but I am interested. I'm going to let this thing make a splash and pull out my cynical stick and see if it measures up. I would drive their marketing division insane. I enjoy Wii fit, Mario Party, Zelda you know all the real stuff. But when it comes to the mature stuff-blood and guts going everywhere does nothing for me-I want story in my action and solid controls so I can't bitch about the game. But you know me I will anyway.
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