Me and U, Wii U

November 21st 2012 my second full day of just me and U, Wii U that is. Ah days like this don't come along all that often anymore. Used to be every 5 years now it's every 6. The day when a brand spanking new video game console comes out and you get to spend all day in your jammies vidding out on the coolest new stuff they got to offer. Last time I got to do this was 6 years ago on Nov 18th 2006 when the Wii came out. The Zupancic brothers and me all slept out in front of the Greensburg Target all night. While an interesting event to be a part of, that was the week after I started the job I have now and I did get sick and miss the days leading up to Thanksgiving. Wii Sports and Twilight Princess kept me alive long enough to get better and return to work the next week. ;)

As much as I'd have loved sleeping out somewhere again I figure I can probably afford one-day shipping so that's what I did. I was waiting to get it thru Amazon but Gamestop did their preorderes first so I went with them. I got a Deluxe Set with New Super Mario U, ZombiU and Lego Undercover. I figured I could get the system and mess around with Nintendo Land for a day or so until the other games got there or I could just go out and buy them at a store. (This is what I did actually but Gamestop still shipped my other games even after I cancelled. Guess I'll have to fight to get my money back there.)

I had requested off Monday thru Wednesday this week but since I didn't know how the one day shipping was going to work I figured I'd save a day and go in Monday to make sure all was good. I even bought Assassins Creed 3 to throw in the mix. It figures that I get a text as soon as I get to work Monday morning saying the shipment was delivered. At least I didn't have to sit around all day wondering where it was.

I got home and all was good. of course the main thing everyone is talking about is that the moment you turn it on you have to download and install an update that take well over an hour. I wasn't happy about it but I know the PS3 does that all the time so it's not like I haven't had to suffer that before. I got a taste of how everything was that night by the time everything was ready to go.

November 20th was the day I got to sit around all day and play. Good times!

The Gamepad is so sweet. It's like having the best gaming Nintendo branded tablet thing. It's like having a huge 3DS, the top screen is your TV and the bottom is the touch screen in your hands. There is going to be some sick stuff taking advantage of this.

It took them a few days but the YouTube app is now turned on. You can do your searching on the Gamepad but it looks like you need the TV to watch the videos which isn't as cool as the Netflix app where you can bounce the video back and forth at leisure. Hopefully an update will fix it. At least it's working now. 

I thought they would expand on the Activity Log app they started on the 3DS but it seems to me it's been cut down greatly and that is disappointing to me. If you don't get trophies or a score of whatever for your overall game play it's nice to at least know how long you've spent playing each game and be able to do all kinds of cool reports and comparisons on that. Doesn't seem to be the case here. You get daily and monthly totals by user. That's it.

I'm also disappointed the system can't recognize a media server. If Nintendo wants this to be the center of my entertainment then it should be able to play all my stuff everywhere.

If you want to save everything off you old Wii you are forced to perform a strange ritual. Lots of sd card swapping and downloading the Wii Transfer program twice and internet connection tests, it's a real mess but it at least seemed to work for me. It goes and gets all your licenses for all the games you purchased off the Wii Shop Channel and all your game saves and Miis and moves them all over to your Wii U. This wipes your Wii clean. There is a channel on the main menu that just makes the console go into Wii mode. The Wii U just reboots itself as a Wii and there you go. It seems like they could have done that a little cleaner but I can't see myself using it all that much anyway.

QUICK IMPRESSIONS:

ASSASSIN'S CREED
I'll admit that I have yet to really play a game in this series. I played a tiny bit of part 1 but didn't get into it. A lot of watch a cut scene, get control back long enough to walk out of the building then back into another cut scene.I like the weird effect of seeing glitches in the Matrix interface. I do not know what you'd call that.

ZOMBIU
The twist here as you've probably heard is that the character you play is a random citizen of the UK and when being chased by zombies he/she happens to run by the right place and the guy in the panic room controlling all the the cameras shows you his hideout. You start with missions and if you ever get overwhelmed by the undead you wake back up in the hideout as whoever the next random citizen he saves is and so forth. If you find prior (now zombie) you, you can kill them and get your backpack with all your stuff you acquired back. That is a cool mechanic, different at least. The gameplay is typical fun adventure, search ruined city, buildings etc on this guys mission to turn on more cameras and eventually find a cure for the virus. Sometimes I find a room with so many zombies in it, it takes me 4-5 survivors to clear it all out. It's not fun to waiting for loading to go thru all these boards to get back to where the action is only to finally get there and get killed by the first zombie only to have to wait to do it again. I'm still not clear on when they can jump you. Sometimes it seemed like a had a lot of health left but they took me anyway. My record I think for 1 guy is about 2hrs. I have no idea how many survivors you go thru affects anything. I could imagine a gold trophy for winning the game on your first guy but Wii U didn't pick up on trophies. It's an original game I support it. It's fun and it uses the Gamepad well.

NEW SUPER MARIO BROS U
I just played thru New Super Mario Bros 2 on 3DS not a month or so ago so I thought I night not be as thrilled with this as I could have been. Wrong. This game is awesome. This may not be the next level Mario game but it totally satisfies me as far as new Nintendo system launching with a Mario game. Same formula, got thru the stages and each one has 3 big coins you eventually need to come back and collect to fully beat the game. The over world is like Super Mario World but next level. Everything interacts with each other. Plenty of secrets and challenges. Do not miss playing thru this one.

NINTENDO LAND
I didn't get this one at first. The interface was off putting to me. I eventually got it and we've since had some mega awesome multiplayer matches. It's fun. It shows you interesting uses of the Gamepad. Just buy the Deluxe set so you get this for free.


We're now waiting for Lego City Undercover. Hopefully it will be available by Xmas. Can't wait to see what else they come up with soon.