It's been over a month since the Wii U launch and I've had opportunities to try out almost every pertinent feature and playability angle of the system. What I haven't done is play an online game, and, consequently, haven't experienced online voice chat. I'll mention that now and get it out of the way.
I still like the system, and 1up and many other reviewers nailed the potential aspect of it on the head. With that in mind, I have hope that some of its annoying nuances will be stamped out.
Right now, my main gripe is that I can't access, or even connect with Nintendo TVii. I tried when the feature launched last week, I tried yesterday, and was still unsuccessful. It's not a feature I'm drooling over, but it should work, and I can't help but wonder why it won't for me.
My next complaint is that I should have been able to play a game online by now, because I believe some of the games I own - NSMB-U, NintendoLand, ZombiU - should've been online-enabled since day 1. These games would be absolutely killer online, and the fact that they're not, in my mind, is a travesty. Imagine how much more life could've been pumped out of Wii Sports if it was online? Would Mario Kart Wii be as popular as it is if it wasn't? Online multiplayer is the sole reason I still own that game, while every other game since has been resold/traded.
I appreciate Nintendo's communal gaming agenda, however it's just not possible for someone my age, with friends my age, to consistantly gather, even on a weekly basis. Playing NintendoLand by myself just isn't as fun. What good does upgraded online friend management bring to the table when so few games are online enabled? Yes, Miiverse is cool, but its in-game message sharing feature seems more like a tease to me now than a novel idea. We know data is being shared between our games, the infrastructure is there. How hard would it have been to make these games online multiplayer?
Another thing I've grown to disdain is the name "Wii U". This is especially true when explaining to someone the difference between Wii and Wii U. As I mentioned in a comment to another blog here at 1up, it seems to me that Nintendo is trying to blur the line between the 2 systems. I don't disagree with Nintendo retaining the "Wii" trademark as their flagship console brand. Microsoft does it with Xbox, Sony with Playstation. But Wii and Wii U, in my estimation, are too similar of terms.
Because of this, I recommend that the Wii U simply be referred to as the U. Just thinking about it like that relieves some tension. I'm not saying that U is a sexy term, but it beats saying "Wii", "Wii U", "Wii", "Wii U" over and over again. That's just ridiculous to me, fanboyism be damned! If the next Nintendo console is called Wii Mii, it would surpass "Who's on first?" as the most confusing item reference bit of all time.
Thanks to the holiday season I was able to rev the U up to some 5-player max sessions with gamers of different backgrounds and intensity. Nintendo fans praised the system, admiring their brilliance in creating new gameplay experiences via the GamePad. I agree that the GamePad adds some cool new features that stand out as exclusively unique.
Neutral, less intense gamers found the system fun, but not as inspiring. They enjoyed maybe 20% of NintendoLand, whereas diehards loved everything about every game.
What I took away from this observation is that the U will not strike casual wildfire like the Wii. The GamePad will not offer an expansive enough evolutionary leap in gameplay like the Wii did when it introduced Wii-waggling. In my opinion, the best shot Nintendo has at enticing reluctant Wii users to join the U revolution is to offer considerably superior upgraded sequels to their hit Wii games. Their improvements must be focused such that render the GamePad secondary to the primary waggling nature of the original Wii game (like the golf demo I saw in one of the early U videos that displayed the lie of the ball on the GamePad lying on the ground as you swing your virtual club over it).
Having said that, the GamePad still has a shot at winning over some hearts. I don't completely rule it out. We'll have to wait and see.
One last tidbit I'd like to add is game pricing. I have a really hard time swallowing the $60 pricetag nowadays. I think it's justifiable for certain games that offer the right amount of content, and to be fair, I've only played 4 retail launch games.
One of them I received for Christmas: Scribblenauts Unlimited. Maybe it's because I already played throughScribblenauts on the DS and know many of the key objects I'll need to progress in advance, or maybe it's Apple's competitive pricing, but I really hope whoever purchased it didn't pay full price. I think iOS pricing is going to make a bigger impact this generation, at least for me. To be fair, I'll play through Scribblenauts Unlimited and see just how much content it has before passing final judgement.
At any rate, I wish you all a Happy New Year, and offer a video of a song I wrote inspired by the holidays. Enjoy!
I didn't intend for it to go blurry, but it was the best live take I shot...
No comments:
Post a Comment