Remember back in the good ol' days when video game consoles did one thing: play games? You bought the system, bought a game, took 'em home, connected it to the TV, inserted one into the other and started playing right away. Well, those days are long gone. Not that I'm really complaining, though. All these new features just make my WiiU final evaluation more difficult to pin down.
I've indeed had time to explore every new feature that I plan on taking advantage of. Some features, though, I will probably never use, like the Wii Channel, and vid-streaming channels like Hulu and Netflix. There may be some peculiarities lying in said apps that won't be covered here, and for them I can't give an honest appraisal.
Also, some new features like Nintendo TV that may appeal to me aren't ready, so what I'll do is just sum up the rest of my thoughts on new discoveries and perhaps revisit some topics from a refined perspective.
VIDEO CHAT & LOADING TIMES
My first video chat went smoothly. It was actually with a friend I made here at 1up when 3DS launched and since carried over to WiiU. We didn't talk long (my buddy and I had just sat down to play ZombiU), but from that short experience I can vouch for the overall quality and say that it's on par with and surpasses anything I experienced on Skype.
The only drawback from it was the pronounced loading time, which took longer than most WIIU apps, and lends further weight to the argument that the load time between apps on WiiU seems previous gen, like PS1 previous gen.
Please do not mistake load time between apps with in-game load times. Once a game or app is up and running, load time is minimal. It's the 'booting up' process that takes so long.
HOW THESE LOAD TIMES HAMPER THE EXPERIENCE
Again, I can only comment on what I experienced, and so far the aspect I see this impacting the most is the ease of cross-access use between the WiiU "Mii Plaza" that appears on the main menu and "Miiverse". Allow me to explain.
The Mii Plaza on WiiU displays insignias for various topics (NintendoLand, NSMBU, eShop, etc). Around each insignia are a bunch of Mii's from Miiverse walking around. These Mii's are not randomly selected, they are chosen when one of their tweet-like messages reaches a certian threshold of popularity in the form of "yeahs" (Miiverse's iteration of Facebook's "like" button).
This works well, as these popular messages are usually interesting and contain some nice stylus-drawn artistry, plus it works as an incentive for users to be creative with hopes of their Mii ending up in Mii Plazas across the nation, futher accelerating their popularity.
The crux of the matter here, though, is when it comes time to click on a message and perhaps investigate user replies (which are not shown in the plaza) or maybe send a friend request. The process seems simple enough, just click on the message and get sent to Miiverse to learn more, however, the load-time for booting up Miiverse kills any slight curiosity dead in its tracks. And it takes just as long to return back to the Mii Plaza.
There is a quick bypass to this. Just ignore the Mii Plaza altogether, go straight to Miiverse, find the respective topic and sort comments by popularity. The same Mii's that appear in the Plaza will be listed at the top. That's all fine and dandy, but it reduces the Mii Plaza to more of a quick-view gallery than the fluid interface it was meant to be.
(Quick Note: As I edited this I thought it necessary to add the Video Chat app as another suffering device of the WiiU load time. Considering the steps (apps) it takes to finally get from the app you are running when the chat invite arrives to the chat app itself, actual time between invite and running chat exceeds 60 seconds.)
I HAVEN'T PLAYED ONLINE MULTIPLAYER
I mention this mainly to point out that although I haven't played multiplayer games, I'm curious to see how game-invites
and other features will play out load-wise.
I'm also a bit disappointed, because I expect NSMBU to be online multiplayer. The point is, I feel a bit slighted by the hoopla of the Nintendo Network at this point. Yes, I like Miiverse, but I'd like to see an online multiplayer initiative like Microsoft pushes with Xbox.
I LIKE MIIVERSE
I use Facebook almost every day, and Miiverse is a surprisingly competent clone. And I like Miiverse for the same reasons I like Facebook: crafting one-liners, reading other posts. I also like sending hand drawn sketches ala Swapnote, so it's double the fun for me.
Miiverse is more than its own secluded app, it's also incorporated within the games themselves. In NSMBU, players get a chance to post a message when they accomplish something, like collecting all 3 star coins. They choose between a text or hand-drawn message, and that message, along with the accomplishment, will appear to other players who play that same area shortly after your posting.
The "Spoiler" tag allows you to post whatever you want without ruining the experience for spoiler-free fun seekers. When posting a spoiler, click the "Spoiler" button and that message will only appear in the Miiverse app forum and also warn users of its spoiler classification before it can be seen.
In short, Miiverse is well tuned to help build and sustain an organized friends list which also doubles as a see-all be-all message app.
MORE ABOUT GAMEPAD FIDELITY
In my last blog I stated that players are not vulnerable during moments when the Gamepad loses fidelity and prompts the "Losing Signal" screen. After more playing, I found this to be untrue, and indeed players are vulnerable and can die by not being able to see their character.
This resulted in the realization that there are actually 3 layers of de-sync scenarios instead of 2.
Scenario 1 - The Gamepad has lost some connection, but not enough to interrupt play. When this happens, the warning screen appears, but the game can still be seen playing in the background along the edges of the screen. This is when players are vulnerable, as the warning image blocks 90% of the screen.
Scenario 2 - The Gamepad has lost enough connection to interrupt play but is still barely connected. In this scenario, the warning appears and the game cannot be seen in the background and instead only white can be seen along the edges of the screen. Game play has paused and player is not vulnerable.
Scenario 3 - The Gamepad completely loses connection. In this scenario, the background behind the warning image goes black. Gameplay has paused and player is not vulnerable.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The Gamepad is rockin' my world right now. I don't own a tablet or laptop, so now I finally have a worthy option for surfing the web around different areas of the house at my leisure. I tend to get couped up in the studio during long browsing sessions, so it's nice to be able to roam around and be more social.
I also like the games I have: Nintendo Land, NSMBU, ZombiU and Nano Assault NEO, which I downloaded from the eShop. Without going into too much, Nintendo Land is about 50% amazing, 50% dull, NSMBU is IMO the best New Mario to date, although multiplayer still feels cluttered, ZombiU is fun, but I still haven't palyed a lot of it, and Nano Assault NEO is a great twin stick arcade style shooter.
On the downside, there are 2 main complaints I have at this point:
1 - The OS is seems buggy and is already in need of an update. I've had issues when an action I take that requires internet connection gets disrupted and freezes the WiiU. For example, I wanted to change the name of my Mii, and when I registered the newly named Mii with my Nintendo Network account, my modem or router had bogged down, need a reset, and the failed connection caused my WiiU to freeze and require and unplugging. This has happened to me a few times, and I can forgive it for now, but it needs to be patched.
2 - The Gamepad is heavily advertised as an alternative option to a TV, hence alleviating schedule conflicts and whathaveyou, but this is not 100% so. Indeed, ZombiU (from the experience I had so far, and, believe me, I tried everything) could not be played solely on the Gamepad. As I say, I could be missing something, and if so, I will make the correction, but this discovery disappointed me.
All is not lost, though. I have faith that Nintendo's future first party hits will keep me engaged well into the next millenium. Well, maybe not quite that far, but I'm really looking forward to Mario Kart WiiU! Please don't make me wait too long!
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