I took my Wii U to my mother’s house for Thanksgiving for the week where I played a little solo and attempted some party games with the family. Below is my review and experiences with the system with a little mix of pros and cons.
GAMING:
Nintendo Land was probably the game most played with the family. The party games were fun but not as addictive as Wii sports (bowling) on the last Wii launch. One of the main reasons for playing this game more is the other games other than Scribblenauts Unlimited were too bloody for the kids watching. This is something I would never expect with a Nintendo console , games too adult for the kids! Once the kids went to sleep then I brought out ZombiU and Call of Duty: Black Ops II. One of my favorite features for Black Ops 2 is the 2 player action where one player gets the TV and the other the game pad. This works great when you are on the same team but 1x1 it is so hard for the player with the game pad not to cheat by looking at the TV. The other thing about gaming on the Wii is the ability for many of the games to be played without the TV at all. I know it is not optimal to not be playing on the big screen TV but when someone in the family wants to watch TV you can game on.
PRO GAME CONTROLLER:
I was hoping to be able to use this on most of the games but in my collection Black Ops II was the only one it worked on. For some reason I played better on the game pad then I did with this controller. I may need to change the controls around a little and try again.
DOWNLOADING FROM WII U STORE:
I wanted to see what the experience would be to download a full game from the store. I chose to purchase Assassin's Creed III. The first 12 hour download never gave me and install option when it was complete. I downloaded it again and after another 12 hours it took an additional 2 hours to install. I know the speed was not due to the internet connection as other non Wii U store downloads were very quick and streaming video services on the Wii U were also almost instant. I hope the download speeds are just because of the amount of people at launch and will get better with time but 2 hours to install???
STREAMING VIDEO:
I have Netflix, Hulu Plus and Amazon Prime accounts and all 3 services did great. Hulu was a little odd in how it handled split screen and the virtual keyboard. To enter the username they gave you the old school keyboard A-Z in order and you must navigate using the controller, but then you go to enter the password and it is a QWERTY keyboard that uses the touch screen. Looks like they rushed the interface. You could navigate Netflix without the TV but Hulu and Amazon required the TV to navigate. Video and sound quality were great.
TV CONTROL:
The Wii U has infrared and allows you to control the TV and set top cable or satellite box. The setup is a breeze. You can even navigate the guide on the set top box. Feature lacking is a recall button. I tend to watch another show during commercials and it makes it hard to switch back and forth without a recall button. Also for DVR you do not have the options to navigate the other menus on the set top box. I also hope they add a DVD/Blu-Ray player control feature.
OTHER:
I found it interesting I could not delete a Wii U message from a friend. I guess the drawn pictures of boobs he sent me will always be there. The Wii U menu is easy to navigate but slow transitions. The video chat works amazingly. My niece pushed the eject button while playing Mario. We inserted the disc back in and the game played without a problem exactly where we were in mid air.
MY THOUGHTS:
I feel I am going to like the video streaming services the best, especially once TVii comes out. As far as games it will be hit and miss. I will probably not buy too many ports on this system unless they offer some ability with the game pad that makes it worth it. Games like ZombiU though I will buy as the game pad makes sense and other consoles currently cannot offer the same experience.
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