Wii U Impressions

                         

Just over a month ago, Nintendo released their newest home console, the Wii U.  The first console to be released out the eighth generation of home video game consoles, Nintendo looks to kick start the next generation with some innovative new ideas that will create a lot of great new experiences for gamers.  Being the first of the gate, Nintendo will definitely have an uphill battle when Sony and Microsoft drop their upcoming next generation consoles in the next few years.  While gamers can be very skeptical at times, people should have learned by now to never count Nintendo out.  The Wii U has the potential to be a very dangerous competitor in the next stage of the never-ending console wars.

The Wii U comes in two sets, the Basic Set, which gets you a white 8 GB Wii U console, a Wii U Gamepad and all the necessities, and the Deluxe Set, which gets you a black 32 GB Wii U, a Wii U Gamepad, Nintendo Land, a cradle and stand for the Gamepad, the Digital Deluxe Promotion and everything included in the Basic Set.  I picked up the Deluxe Set as it is the better deal out of the two sets.  For 50 dollars more, you get a ton of extra content, a good amount of memory to store game saves and downloadable eShop games and Nintendo Land, which costs 60 dollars on its own.

Out of the box, the Wii U is a beautiful system.  It has a sleek and durable design.  All the accessories, component cables and sensor bars from the original Wii work with the Wii U, so making setting up the system a breeze for Wii owners.  The Wii U even comes with an HDMI cable so those with HDTVs do not have the shell out another 20 dollars to properly hook up the Wii U to their stunning TV.  Once you boot up the console it, the initial setup can be a bit of slog since you need to download a big update to gain access to the system’s online features like Miiverse and the Wii U eShop, backward compatibility and the Wii U Chat.  Also setting up your Nintendo ID, which is needed to play online, can be another long process.  Once everything is up and running, the Wii U very well built piece of hardware that has a few hiccups here and there, which I will get to in a bit.

The biggest feature of the Wii U is the system’s controller, the Wii U Gamepad.  The Gamepad is the main controller for the Wii U.  It has all the standard controls from dual analog sticks to the familiar A, B, X, Y face buttons to shoulder and trigger buttons.  The Gamepad’s standout feature is the touch screen in the centre of the controller.  Much like the touch screen on the DS and 3DS, the Wii U Gamepad’s touch screen is single-touch that takes input from your finger or the stylus provided with Gamepad.  The touch screen works like a charm as your inputs on the touch screen instantaneously affect what is going on the TV from switching weapons in Darksiders II or creating blocks to save your friend from falling in a pit in New Super Mario Bros. U or swiping to navigate your Mii in the Balloon Trip Breeze attraction in Nintendo Land.  The screen on t he Gamepad can also be used as a second screen for the game offering new information or providing a different perspective of the game or even just to play the game on the smaller screen.  If anybody wants to watch their favourite show there is no need to turn off your game as most games allow you to play the entire game on the screen on the Wii U Gamepad.  Funny enough for such a large controller, the Wii U Gamepad fits so well in your hand and all the buttons feel great.  My only knock against the Wii U Gamepad is its abysmal battery life.  Yes, there is a lot of powerful stuff packed into this one controller, but Nintendo could have squeezed out some more life out of this thing than only three to four hour battery life.  It is very easy for me to burn through the battery during a few sessions playing Darksiders II. 

Personally, I enjoy the Wii U and see that there is a lot of good to say about this system, but I do not have all day.  So I have to move on to some of the negatives or hiccups that I mentioned earlier.  No system is perfect; there are always things to improve, many of which come with the stability of the console and the operating system.  At launch, the load times between running different apps and games were a little longer than gamers have gotten use to, taking close to 40 seconds to load.  Also I ran into a few times when my Wii U froze and I had to hard reset the system.  While I did found the reason behind the last two times, which was a smudge on my Darksiders II disc, my friend has had that happen to him 10 times.  Nintendo has made a few updates to available to solve these problems with more coming in the next couple of weeks, but it is still a knock against this system.  It is a bit weird to have to boot up the Wii menu inside the Wii U’s main menu in order to play Wii games.  My final thing that needs improvement is the Wii U eShop.  The main page is nice, but Nintendo needs to make the interface much easier to navigate in order find what you are looking for.  Much like the 3DS eShop has all the Virtual Console and DSiWare along with all the new 3DS downloadable titles and apps, Nintendo needs to properly integrate the Wii Shop Channel with the new Wii U eShop along with a brand new Virtual Console that includes Gamecube titles to download.

Overall, the Wii U is a great system with a whole lot of potential.  The Wii U Gamepad is the centerpiece of this entire system as it offers new opportunities to interact with the games we play without pausing the action happening on screen and to interact with others by playing games asynchronously on the TV and the Wii U Gamepad.  While the launch has been pretty good in my opinion (no console launch is that stellar anyway), the Wii U is still looking for its killer app that one game that you have to own a Wii U to experience.  Even without a killer app, I recommend the Wii U to anybody who owns a Wii that is looking to upgrade to new HD console experience or those who are not to rush out to buy Sony or Microsoft’s next generation console whenever they release, but are still looking to move on from this generation of consoles.