It's been a year now since I've purchased a Wii U system, so I think it's time for my review on Nintendo's newest baby. Sure we Otaku are neutral gamers, but that doesn't mean we can't still have a favorite. But don't think that just because Nintendo is my favorite console manufacturer that I'm going to just say, "Wii U is from Nintendo so it gets an S, end of story!" No no no, I'm going to give the Wii U a proper review.
I've been playing multiple gaming consoles for years, and I have to say that pretty much all of my best gaming experiences have always come from the big N. This is the biggest thing right here that Nintendo has always excelled at and continues to repeatedly top the competition in every way year after awesome gaming year. Sure I have some great gaming experiences on other consoles too, but nothing on any of them have ever come close to the richness and quality of Nintendo. And when you consider that this is exactly what these machines are first and foremost before anything else, then I feel that Nintendo is very smart to always keep this their number one priority above anything else. They know that all that other stuff that game consoles can do are just nice extras, the icing on the cake and NOT the cake itself. And Nintendo has once again delivered with the Wii U, giving me hour after hour of pure fun! I also love that Nintendo is wise enough to know that games do not always have to be pretty-looking. I actually prefer for my games to look like games, since getting a fun escape from reality is why video games are played. I usually don't like those "trying to look exactly like real life" kind of games because I feel that they're defeating the whole point of touching a controller in the first place. And speaking of.....
I absolutely love the Wii U gamepad. Not only do I think it's kind of cute, but it sure is nice being able to continue playing my console games even when I'm sitting on my toilet taking a dump( ok that might have been too much information). Fortunately I've never had the problem of someone else wanting to watch TV while I'm playing a game, but it sure is nice having that option. And with all of the technology that went into this baby, I can only imagine all of the awesome gameplay possibilities that Nintendo has in mind. When playing a driving game for example, the gamepad could function as your rear-view mirror, a GPS, or even a horn that you can honk in the same exact way as a real car. I can hardly wait for the next Mariokart to find out, which will probably be the greatest driving game ever!
Nintendo has really outdone themselves by incorporating into the Wii U one of the best Internet browsers I've seen. Sometimes I find that I prefer my Wii U over my own computer. Everything just flows smoothly from page to page, you have a tab function so you can look at multiple sites at once, and it saves the last web page you were on even when the Wii U is turned off and back on again. Not even a computer does that one.
The Wii U has a very solid line up of streaming services. Sure they may not have nearly as many as the 360, but I really can't blame them. This is all new territory for them, so it only makes sense for them to slowly feel their way forward and have only the best of the streaming services than to blindly rush in and have loads of crap. When considering their next streaming service, some of my suggestions to Nintendo are things like Crunchyroll, Neon Alley, and Manga. The Wii U would be far more appealing to us in the Otaku community if Nintendo were to include at least one of those three. Another suggestion is Crackle. PS3 has it already, but the service is a load of crap! You're constantly being bombarded with advertisements like every other minute, making it almost impossible to enjoy your show. The 360 has the service much better, but it will only work if you've paid to be an Xbox Live Gold member defeating it's biggest selling point of being free. But if Nintendo were to acquire Crackle with their free internet service and get it to operate just as smoothly as it does on 360, Wii U would really be kicking the competition's ass right in the "crackle," if you're catching my drift.
But one service that they really need to improve upon is their YouTube channel. Nintendo really should have kept their YouTube channel from Wii, which I felt was the best one on all the consoles. In fact, I still use my Wii just for the YouTube channel. YouTube on PS3 and 360 sucks, so I don't understand why Nintendo would ditch their awesome YouTube channel for the same crappy garbage used by their competition. On top of that, it doesn't even work. No matter what I do, the videos won't ever play. I really suggest that Nintendo switches back to the YouTube channel on Wii.
Another thing that I found disappointing was that the Wii U is not backward compatible with GCN. Well admittedly I've yet to try it, but even if the games did work there's nowhere to insert the accompanying memory card. You also can't hook up any GCN controllers, unless the games would work with the Wii U Pro Controller. Luckily I still have my GCN and my Wii, so not being able to play GCN games on Wii U is not too much a problem for me.
However, I'm willing to give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt in assuming that there's a very good reason for why they omitted this. That reason being, Nintendo has plans to add more game systems to their Virtual Console service and one of those systems will be GCN. When you think about it that way, then omitting GCN backward compatibility makes perfect sense. One GCN game that I'm really hoping they bring back is Phantasy Star Online, and it would be really awesome if we could play it online again.
Now this is a disappointment that I DID try out. This is their third disc console and still no CD/DVD playback?! What in the hell is Nintendo waiting for? You don't know how tiring it is to switch to Wii U to play video games, then have to switch to PS3 or 360 to watch my anime DVD's, then switch back to Wii U for video games again. I seem to recall a while back that Nintendo mentioned coming out with some kind of accessory that would give the Wii CD/DVD playback capability, but it never came out. Well at least as far as I know. Now if someone else out there knows that they did then I stand corrected, but I have never seen it at my local gaming shops.
But once again, I'm willing to give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt here. Piecing together all of the clues (Elementary, my dear Watson), I believe that Nintendo really did plan on bringing out that accessory. But they couldn't finish it fast enough because it was getting too close to time for Wii U. So they brought it back to the drawing board and as I'm currently typing this, they're remaking it to work for Wii U. That would explain perfectly why the Wii U does not have it built-in. After all, why waste time and resources making the same thing twice?
Now I love their Miiverse social media platform, but the problem is that they're waaaaaay too strict about protecting minors. This makes it pretty much useless. It makes me wonder if Nintendo grabbed a bunch of homeless bums off the street and told them, "Every time you catch someone revealing personally identifying information, you get a free meal on us." So the bums said, "Well in that case, every word that comes out of someone's mouth is personally identifying information. Yeah baby, we're going to eat good tonight!" I cannot begin to tell you how many times I got flagged with personally identifying information when nothing I said was personally identifying. "That game was fun!" "Personally identifying information!!!" "This level is hard." "Personally identifying information!!!" "What a tough boss." "Personally identifying information!!!" "What a cool puzzle." "Personally identifying information!!!" "I love this game." "Personally identifying information!!!" "I won the game!!!" "Personally identifying information!!!" "Hmmmm. Achoo." "Personally identifying information!!!" Cough Cough. "Personally identifying information!!!" Breathe "Personally identifying information!!!" Fart. "Personally identifying information!!!" Blink. "Personally identifying information!!!" Stretch. "Personally identifying information!!!" Take a piss. "Personally identifying information!!!" Take a dump. "Personally identifying information!!!" (Whoa, that's very creepy! The Wii U can actually monitor the size of your dumps?!!!!!)
But recently, it seems that Nintendo has done something about this. When I've been on there recently, I've been able to talk all I want and the bums have been quiet as a mouse. I guess Mr. Fils-Amie or Mr. Iwata must have caught them red-handed and told them to get their act together or he was going to throw some Wii fu on their asses (waaaaah).
But I must say, I was really hoping Nintendo would keep a lot of those apps from the Wii. I really loved things like the Everyone Votes channel, the Check Mii Out Channel, and the Forecast Channel. I really hate that Nintendo ditched them, and hope they reconsider bringing them back at some point. They used to be so much fun.
The Wii U is an overall great improvement of the Wii, and Nintendo has once again maintained their crown has king of the consoles. Sure the Wii U may be a little lacking in the infotainment department (the icing on the cake), but when it comes to playing the games (the cake itself) you can always count on nothing but awesomeness from Nintendo.
I've been playing multiple gaming consoles for years, and I have to say that pretty much all of my best gaming experiences have always come from the big N. This is the biggest thing right here that Nintendo has always excelled at and continues to repeatedly top the competition in every way year after awesome gaming year. Sure I have some great gaming experiences on other consoles too, but nothing on any of them have ever come close to the richness and quality of Nintendo. And when you consider that this is exactly what these machines are first and foremost before anything else, then I feel that Nintendo is very smart to always keep this their number one priority above anything else. They know that all that other stuff that game consoles can do are just nice extras, the icing on the cake and NOT the cake itself. And Nintendo has once again delivered with the Wii U, giving me hour after hour of pure fun! I also love that Nintendo is wise enough to know that games do not always have to be pretty-looking. I actually prefer for my games to look like games, since getting a fun escape from reality is why video games are played. I usually don't like those "trying to look exactly like real life" kind of games because I feel that they're defeating the whole point of touching a controller in the first place. And speaking of.....
I absolutely love the Wii U gamepad. Not only do I think it's kind of cute, but it sure is nice being able to continue playing my console games even when I'm sitting on my toilet taking a dump( ok that might have been too much information). Fortunately I've never had the problem of someone else wanting to watch TV while I'm playing a game, but it sure is nice having that option. And with all of the technology that went into this baby, I can only imagine all of the awesome gameplay possibilities that Nintendo has in mind. When playing a driving game for example, the gamepad could function as your rear-view mirror, a GPS, or even a horn that you can honk in the same exact way as a real car. I can hardly wait for the next Mariokart to find out, which will probably be the greatest driving game ever!
Nintendo has really outdone themselves by incorporating into the Wii U one of the best Internet browsers I've seen. Sometimes I find that I prefer my Wii U over my own computer. Everything just flows smoothly from page to page, you have a tab function so you can look at multiple sites at once, and it saves the last web page you were on even when the Wii U is turned off and back on again. Not even a computer does that one.
The Wii U has a very solid line up of streaming services. Sure they may not have nearly as many as the 360, but I really can't blame them. This is all new territory for them, so it only makes sense for them to slowly feel their way forward and have only the best of the streaming services than to blindly rush in and have loads of crap. When considering their next streaming service, some of my suggestions to Nintendo are things like Crunchyroll, Neon Alley, and Manga. The Wii U would be far more appealing to us in the Otaku community if Nintendo were to include at least one of those three. Another suggestion is Crackle. PS3 has it already, but the service is a load of crap! You're constantly being bombarded with advertisements like every other minute, making it almost impossible to enjoy your show. The 360 has the service much better, but it will only work if you've paid to be an Xbox Live Gold member defeating it's biggest selling point of being free. But if Nintendo were to acquire Crackle with their free internet service and get it to operate just as smoothly as it does on 360, Wii U would really be kicking the competition's ass right in the "crackle," if you're catching my drift.
But one service that they really need to improve upon is their YouTube channel. Nintendo really should have kept their YouTube channel from Wii, which I felt was the best one on all the consoles. In fact, I still use my Wii just for the YouTube channel. YouTube on PS3 and 360 sucks, so I don't understand why Nintendo would ditch their awesome YouTube channel for the same crappy garbage used by their competition. On top of that, it doesn't even work. No matter what I do, the videos won't ever play. I really suggest that Nintendo switches back to the YouTube channel on Wii.
Another thing that I found disappointing was that the Wii U is not backward compatible with GCN. Well admittedly I've yet to try it, but even if the games did work there's nowhere to insert the accompanying memory card. You also can't hook up any GCN controllers, unless the games would work with the Wii U Pro Controller. Luckily I still have my GCN and my Wii, so not being able to play GCN games on Wii U is not too much a problem for me.
However, I'm willing to give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt in assuming that there's a very good reason for why they omitted this. That reason being, Nintendo has plans to add more game systems to their Virtual Console service and one of those systems will be GCN. When you think about it that way, then omitting GCN backward compatibility makes perfect sense. One GCN game that I'm really hoping they bring back is Phantasy Star Online, and it would be really awesome if we could play it online again.
Now this is a disappointment that I DID try out. This is their third disc console and still no CD/DVD playback?! What in the hell is Nintendo waiting for? You don't know how tiring it is to switch to Wii U to play video games, then have to switch to PS3 or 360 to watch my anime DVD's, then switch back to Wii U for video games again. I seem to recall a while back that Nintendo mentioned coming out with some kind of accessory that would give the Wii CD/DVD playback capability, but it never came out. Well at least as far as I know. Now if someone else out there knows that they did then I stand corrected, but I have never seen it at my local gaming shops.
But once again, I'm willing to give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt here. Piecing together all of the clues (Elementary, my dear Watson), I believe that Nintendo really did plan on bringing out that accessory. But they couldn't finish it fast enough because it was getting too close to time for Wii U. So they brought it back to the drawing board and as I'm currently typing this, they're remaking it to work for Wii U. That would explain perfectly why the Wii U does not have it built-in. After all, why waste time and resources making the same thing twice?
Now I love their Miiverse social media platform, but the problem is that they're waaaaaay too strict about protecting minors. This makes it pretty much useless. It makes me wonder if Nintendo grabbed a bunch of homeless bums off the street and told them, "Every time you catch someone revealing personally identifying information, you get a free meal on us." So the bums said, "Well in that case, every word that comes out of someone's mouth is personally identifying information. Yeah baby, we're going to eat good tonight!" I cannot begin to tell you how many times I got flagged with personally identifying information when nothing I said was personally identifying. "That game was fun!" "Personally identifying information!!!" "This level is hard." "Personally identifying information!!!" "What a tough boss." "Personally identifying information!!!" "What a cool puzzle." "Personally identifying information!!!" "I love this game." "Personally identifying information!!!" "I won the game!!!" "Personally identifying information!!!" "Hmmmm. Achoo." "Personally identifying information!!!" Cough Cough. "Personally identifying information!!!" Breathe "Personally identifying information!!!" Fart. "Personally identifying information!!!" Blink. "Personally identifying information!!!" Stretch. "Personally identifying information!!!" Take a piss. "Personally identifying information!!!" Take a dump. "Personally identifying information!!!" (Whoa, that's very creepy! The Wii U can actually monitor the size of your dumps?!!!!!)
But recently, it seems that Nintendo has done something about this. When I've been on there recently, I've been able to talk all I want and the bums have been quiet as a mouse. I guess Mr. Fils-Amie or Mr. Iwata must have caught them red-handed and told them to get their act together or he was going to throw some Wii fu on their asses (waaaaah).
But I must say, I was really hoping Nintendo would keep a lot of those apps from the Wii. I really loved things like the Everyone Votes channel, the Check Mii Out Channel, and the Forecast Channel. I really hate that Nintendo ditched them, and hope they reconsider bringing them back at some point. They used to be so much fun.
The Wii U is an overall great improvement of the Wii, and Nintendo has once again maintained their crown has king of the consoles. Sure the Wii U may be a little lacking in the infotainment department (the icing on the cake), but when it comes to playing the games (the cake itself) you can always count on nothing but awesomeness from Nintendo.
Otaku Universe gives the Wii U a(n):
A
It's how U will play next!
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