With having the WiiU for a little bit now, I figured I could lay down a few thoughts in review of it.
The controller I have already touched on, and I will still say that it's a very comfortable hold still. While the touchscreen could be slightly better, it does everything I need it to do with ease and I never think to myself "I sure wish this was multitouch".
I think the idea of the main menu is nice as well. While a lot of people will think it's childish or whatever, I have let it sit there to see what people are saying about games and the like just out of curiosity. You can also switch the screens from the TV and GamePad for use with the Wii-Remote with ease.
Miiverse might be my favorite thing about the system thus far. It's a huge community for all the different games where you can chat and discuss things about the games or even ask for help. Spoiler content can be labeled by you to avoid annoying other games, and even if you tried to, Nintendo is quick on the draw for flagging it as such material. It's also cool that even though I'm not friends with someone, I can follow them in a Twitter like sense to see what they are up to and what they are playing. It's cool for say, like me, I follow the Giantbomb guys and like to see what they are checking out. It's also where you interact with your friends; sending messages and sharing photos and all of that.
Nothing on the system thus far has really proven it's graphical prowess yet in my opinion. While ZombiU is a fantastic game that looks pretty good, I don't consider that to be up to snuff with what we will get in the next year. Also, most of the rest of the games have been ports, and some of them a tad rough around the edges. But of course, launch titles isn't what it's all about. If that were the case, Perfect Dark and Lair would have killed the other 2 systems for me.
Of course there are a few really odd things to note here, and we must address them.
First to note is the idea that the virtual Wii mode on the WiiU still has the same memory limit as the old Wii and does not share that with the WiiU. I'm not sure why that is, but it's just kinda crazy.
The first thing (and this is sort of my fault) I tried to do after the long update was add a friend. I had no idea how to do it, and while it's a super simple process once you know it, I think Nintendo needed to be a little more clear for the audience. I was trying to add a friend and it would keep telling me to initialize my friends list but would not direct me to what they meant at all. All I had to do was hit the home button and click on friends list (which I never used again because all it shows is who's online; MiiVerse is where you go for everything.). It just would have been nice to have that more clear for the consumer.
The biggest issue for a lot of people is the load times of the menus. While they seem faster a little into the launch, they are still not ideal. The 15 second wait between some things is long, but it's not unbearable. The main thing's that I switch between don't load up like apps so they usually switch between each other just fine. For instance, if I'm playing ZombiU and want to share a photo within the community, I can simply hit the home button and click on MiiVerse to post and comment. It takes but a few seconds to jump in, do my thing and jump out. And it's also nice because when you hit the home button, it saves both a picture of the TV screen and I do believe a picture of the GamePad screen as well to share. Now, going to say, Mii Maker is a different story. That will still take about the 15 seconds, but I have some news for everybody - it takes just as long to go to your Avatar editor on your 360. I think, while it does suck because it takes a bit to go back to home menu and it happens in more apps on WiiU, that people are getting WAY to over stressed about this for WiiU as every console has slowed me down. The 360 takes a bit for certain apps, and it used to be notoriously known for being slow to access games on your hard drive. The PS3 used to slow down every time I was backing up after a download from the store, and don't even get me started on syncing trophies. There is a reason I never do it guys. It sucks on different things on all three systems to me, but in all honesty, it has never really bothered me on any.
The Nintendo ID is an awesome addition in terms of no more friend codes and going into MiiVerse with buddies, but it sucks that it seems to be console locked. While the ID is tagged to your Mii, you couldn't take that Mii or account to another WiiU like you could for say like, Xbox Live, to play a multiplayer game on a friends system but keep your progression going.
With updates I could see a few of the problems going away. With the 360 (using this as the better account and online example here) has been out for a while with a lot of these issues fixed, there isn't a solid excuse for Nintendo to not have a better set up for some of the issues at hand. It's wacky, but yet understandable to me at least, that the Wii Shop and the eShop of the WiiU are separate, but the 3DS and WiiU should (and hopefully will) be an integrated shop and just be one thing.
I forgot to mention too by the way, the WiiU has be best internet browser, and I have found it super convenient to have next to me in an iPad sort of way for quick browsing.
The battery life sucks on the Gamepad, 3-5 hours, but I guess I haven't run into it being an issue yet, especially because (the deluxe anyway) had the charge dock - where my GamePad goes every time it's not in use just like my 3DS.
Overall I am very pleased with the system. While a lot of games haven't done this whole asymmetrical thing to much yet, there are still some interesting ideas to be had with the games. CoD: Black Ops II would let me swap load-outs quickly instead of pausing the game and going through menus mid-match and Mass Effect allows for much better power and weapon usages having the wheel so accessible with hot keys as well.
We will see some great titles come, and I know Nintendo will deliver an experience I want to play because to me, it's all about the software. Honestly to me, a lot of these games that people find silly and kiddy are the ones I have a lot of fun with playing with friends. Also I love Metroid, Zelda, Mario and the like of course. If you have a 360 and/or a PS3, you might think it stupid to get this, but I'm sure a lot of people think (nah, I know) it's stupid that anyone would own a PS3 and a 360.
We do it for the games, the software - nothing else.
-Eddie
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