I'm officially part of the Wii U family. Where my peeps at?

[The 1-2-3 Killam]

...well, almost. According to UPS my console is out for delivery. It's almost 9PM so I guess I'll be a part of the Wii U family on Monday.

It's been two years, and until this month the Wii U was not worth the price tag. Until this month, in my opinion, none of the current-gen consoles were worth the price tag.

Hyrule Warriors, Super Smash Bros (and really the list can stop there), and Bayonetta 2 are finally enough to make me pull the trigger. I've played about 60 hours of Mario Kart 8, so I'm pretty excited to pick up MY OWN copy of the game and...do all that over again...

Where my peeps at?

 

[The 1-2-3 Killam]

UPS delivered at 9PM in the pouring rain on a Friday night. That driver seriously rocks.

IT'S HERE!

 

[Torgo]

Lucky. I'm still running a 2009 circa Super Mario Special Edition Wii...


Let me know how it goes i might get one.

 

[Stormtrooper]

You missed out on 2 awesome Mario games. You are in need of getting them.

Oh, and NES Remix 1 and 2 are incredible.

 

[The 1-2-3 Killam]

You missed out on 2 awesome Mario games. You are in need of getting them.

Oh, and NES Remix 1 and 2 are incredible.

My friend has one, and lives about a mile away from me, so I'm not really missing much. I've played all the way through 3D World and that was a really enjoyable game.

I didn't like New Super Mario Bros Wii U (or whatever it's called) because I didn't enjoy the others in that series. I played with some friends and it's alright. When I'm through the first 3 worlds and I haven't died yet, and I've got like 89 lives, it's just not my kind of Mario game. I'm glad you liked it though.

 

[The 1-2-3 Killam]

HYRULE WARRIORS...

...is the bomb. Dot com.

 

[V Dogg]

Smash Bros is where it's at.

 

[The 1-2-3 Killam]

My roommate (house...mate?) is in Washington picking up his copy from the Best Buy he pre-ordered it at. Something about a Nintendo golden coin.

Happy with Hyrule until he gets back with Smash Bros. I'll have to get my own copy when I get paid next. I've got the 3DS version to tide me over though.

 

[The 1-2-3 Killam]

So...here's my thoughts on my first 24 hours with the console. Long rant incoming, for the few people who repped me, asking for feedback.

I love the gamepad. I thought I would hate it - even called it annoying and gimmicky when they announced it in 2012 - but it's pretty great. I prefer the Wii U pro controller for playing pretty much anything, but I didn't have the extra cash, and thus far I haven't wanted to throw this giant tablet out the window yet. It's well designed, feels comfortable in my big-ish hands, and has all sorts of functionality. With less than 5 button presses I had it hooked up to my TV, my DirecTV box, and able to control all of it while simultaneously playing a game.

Major frustration right off the bat, as I linked my Nintendo ID to a friends console last year. I didn't know it at the time, but DONT EVER DO THIS! Nintendo's online shit is archaic and made me want to punch walls several times during set-up. The servers run great and I had no issues getting on the internet or downloading things. No. But if you link a Nintendo ID to another console, you CANT link it to another console. So I had to create a new Nintendo ID, but you can't link two ID's to a Club Nintendo account, so I had to make a new CN account. Luckily I had no digital games, but the 900 CN points I've accumulated (not to mention my Smash Bros Mewtwo download) are now fucked.

Yes I called Nintendo support. No they haven't gotten back to me. But in order to link my 3DS and my Wii U, and start adding friends and having fun with all the system has to offer (you know...like saving game data to a profile), I had to make new accounts. This process was MADDENING, and I couldn't believe Nintendo won't let you move accounts. This is a fairly simple process with any other company. The bottom line is, I will NOT be buying digital games on this console, because if it breaks, I don't want to go through the nightmare that is Nintendo support in order to get my account on a new system, and re-download all my stuff. That really sucks.

Wii U online store still doesn't have half the shit the Wii had. Still no N64 or Gamecube games.

Netflix, YouTube, Hulu and Amazon Prime came pre-installed, which was nice.

And that's basically all my thoughts. I love the system, but I hate Nintendo's account bullshit. I don't ever want to have the feeling that a company is basically keeping my games hostage because they're too stubborn to do intelligent things with online profiles.

And Hyrules Warriors is fucking awesome. I got it 24 hours ago, and I've put 14 hours into it already. I could probably play for another 15 this weekend if I didn't have the WWE PPV tomorrow, and not be anywhere near burnt out on the game. I was expecting a fun, mindless hack-and-slash game to hold my interest until Smash. What I got was an incredibly deep hack-and-slash experience (yes, experience lol) with endless replay-ability and an awesome, epic, albeit over-the-top Zelda story.

Seriously...the story is actually really interesting. I'm not altogether sure what's happening, but I'm pretty sure time and/or space (in the form of three different Zelda games) just came crashing together to resurrect the soul of Ganon. I don't know. It was awesome, in a total fan service, never-going-to-happen-in-a-real-Zelda-game kind of way.

 

[Uncle Sam]

Nintendo's services are essentially ten years behind those of Microsoft and Sony. However, for the most part, that's been beneficial to the players. For example, Mario Kart 8 doesn't have you get to a point where your kart isn't fast enough to compete and tell you, in order to be competitive and unlock the good karts, you'll have to grind for a further five hours or - just an idea - maybe just spend an extra $5 ontop of the $60 you already spent? No, instead Mario Kart 8 is a finished game and then, several months later, offers to give you eight additional tracks, four additional racers, numerous additional karts and a number of new costumes and other trivial crap that you - here's the key - wouldn't expect to have been in the game.

I'm not sure how I feel about this Amiibo shite but it doesn't seem as if they're forcing it on me.

Smash Bros. doesn't come out for another week in the UK. I've changed my mind - fuck Nintendo and everything they stand for.

 

[Lee]

They brought smash foirward an extra week for us.

 

[Uncle Sam]

Make it two and we're cool.

 

[Lee]

It means I can get it for my birthday though!

 

[The 1-2-3 Killam]

Nintendo's services are essentially ten years behind those of Microsoft and Sony. However, for the most part, that's been beneficial to the players. For example, Mario Kart 8 doesn't have you get to a point where your kart isn't fast enough to compete and tell you, in order to be competitive and unlock the good karts, you'll have to grind for a further five hours or - just an idea - maybe just spend an extra $5 ontop of the $60 you already spent? No, instead Mario Kart 8 is a finished game and then, several months later, offers to give you eight additional tracks, four additional racers, numerous additional karts and a number of new costumes and other trivial crap that you - here's the key - wouldn't expect to have been in the game.

I'm not sure how I feel about this Amiibo shite but it doesn't seem as if they're forcing it on me.

Smash Bros. doesn't come out for another week in the UK. I've changed my mind - fuck Nintendo and everything they stand for.

I like that Nintendo doesn't - in general - mess around with the micro-transaction state of the video game industry. I was a bit disappointed that Bravely Default offered them, but that's on Square.

Mario Kart 8 is so freaking good. Without even owning a Wii U, I have beaten that game and gotten gold 150cc on every cup (excluding the DLC). What an incredibly well-designed game, and honestly it might just be the best Mario Kart (read: racing game) I've ever played. I've only played a bit of the DLC (each of the tracks once) but I loved what I did get to see. The tracks didn't feel like add-ons, but fully realized courses. I can't wait for Villager!

Also, I was against Amiibo at first, but it's...kind of cool. I ended up liking the customization of the characters in Smash Bros 3DS, so that sold me on the idea of taking your character, or characters, and building your own sort of "super fighter". It also gives you an incredibly challenging AI to fight against, when you get bored of level 9 opponents.

And you can use it in small ways in other games. They give you Mii skins in Mario Kart, a weapon and bonuses in Hyrule Warriors, and are supposed to be in more games in the future. It's gimmicky, but the figures are built well, and once the second/third wave comes out, I'll probably pick up a few. If for nothing else, because they don't look bad sitting on a shelf with my POP! vinyl figures.

 

[Torgo]

I liked Mario Kart Wii a little better, just because the controls were awesome. Of course, nothing compares to the original.

​