Last Sunday I went to a Nintendo event in which they were showing up the Wii U, along with some games. That said, I would like to share some personal thoughts on the system:
• The controller itself (the main draw) is surprising light for its size; I'd say it weighs less than a regular DS. Its main functions (touch screen, gyroscope) work pretty well, and the screen itself has really good resolution, plus it feels natural holding it.
• Graphic-wise, it barely feels like a step up from the Wii. Only time will tell whether that’s a good or bad thing.
• Game library is where the Wii U is suffering the most. Sure, most the games available were fun in a way or another, but nothing there convinced me to buy the system altogether. Hell, the game that caught my attention was Project P-100 from Capcom, and that’s just because of gameplay alone (imagine Pikmin with a heroic tone), not because it utilized the system to its most.
With that out of the way, here’s hoping game designers be daring with the system, since it has potential for several things, such as:
• First Person Shooters: Only because of this:
Either make a game that involves full immersion, or use the screen for secondary sets like eyesight for a sniper rifle or similar features.
• Horror genre: Fatal Frame is a good example: http://www.thextremepulse.com/nintendo-now-owns-the-fatal-frame-ip/
Just imagine being able to use the controller like a camera, in which ghosts appear off-screen the TV and can only be seen by pointing the camera around you.
• Heist-type of games: Think multiplayer versions of Ocean 11 or Mission Impossible, in which the player holding the touch screen controller is essentially “the eyes in the sky”; mission control if you will.
• Alternatively, games in which you’re either an overlord (Evil Genius) or a different type of Mission Control (I’m thinking Night Trap as an example).
Again, these are just speculations of possible uses of the Wii U that would make it unique in a good way now that I've actually held the device itself. I may be too idealistic in some of them, but again, time will tell.
Your assessment of the graphics is disheartening. Here's hoping that either
1) You have poor eyesight
2) These are prototypes and you're comparing them against the best looking games on the Wii.
I'm gonna go with the later, since again, they had Nintendo Land and similar games around. Sure, they Had Rayman Origins and Arkhom City and they looked gorgeous, but so they did in the other systems.
We'll see what happens when they finally release the new Legend of Zelda game, since the screenshots alone look promising.
I could see the controller finally bringing RTS (or any kind of strategy game) to consoles successfully if they tried at it.
So here's to you Mrs. Robinson. People love you more- oh, nevermind.
Crazy_Bastard
Title: CeeBee
Joined: Feb 25 2007
Location: Tulsa
Posts: 489
Posted:
Aug 08 2012 05:28 pm
Nintendo is hosting an event like this in Denver and I got an invite, and I can bring up to three friends. I'm checking it out on the 25th, I'll post my thoughts when I get back :O
This kind of implementation for FPS games does look cool though. I wonder how long after release it'll take before people are hacking it for use with a PC.
The Opponent
Title: Forum Battle WINNER
Joined: Feb 24 2010
Location: The Danger Zone
Posts: 3495
Posted:
Aug 09 2012 09:48 am
Virginia sucks.
I'm not a bad enough dude, but I am an edgy little shit. I'll do what I can.
taterfyrings
Joined: Sep 25 2009
Location: Bergen, Norway
Posts: 395
Posted:
Aug 10 2012 03:23 am
Two comments:
1. P-100 is not from Capcom, its as much a Nintendo-game as Gears of Wars is a MS-game or Resistance is a Sony-game, that is made by an independent developer (Platinium Games), but published and funded by Nintendo.
2. Of course the graphics is waaaay better than on the Wii. You wrote yourself that Arkham City looked gorgeous. Now, that game would never have been possible on the Wii, so the system is definitely a huge improvement spec-vice. If the graphics looks better than on the PS360 is on the other hand much less likely. I guess we will see.
Anyways, your general thoughts line-up pretty well with mine. I will probably get one for launch for 2D-Mario godness, but im not really sold on the innovations the system supposedly brings to the table. Looking forward to read more of these from other members in the future!
Syd Lexia
Site Admin
Title: Pop Culture Junkie
Joined: Jul 30 2005
Location: Wakefield, MA
Posts: 24882
Posted:
Aug 10 2012 05:36 am
taterfyrings wrote:
If the graphics looks better than on the PS360 is on the other hand much less likely. I guess we will see.
Being as it's been 6-7 years since those systems came out, it is not "much less likely" that Wii U will not look better than those systems. It is, however, entirely possible that it doesn't look better.
Developers and analysts have said everything from it looks "as good" to "three times as powerful" as the current gen Sony and Microsoft systems.
We'll see what happens when they finally release the new Legend of Zelda game, since the screenshots alone look promising.
Pretty sure that was a tech demo.
taterfyrings
Joined: Sep 25 2009
Location: Bergen, Norway
Posts: 395
Posted:
Aug 10 2012 03:06 pm
Syd Lexia wrote:
Being as it's been 6-7 years since those systems came out, it is not "much less likely" that Wii U will not look better than those systems. It is, however, entirely possible that it doesn't look better.
Developers and analysts have said everything from it looks "as good" to "three times as powerful" as the current gen Sony and Microsoft systems.
Yeah I agree, it was a bad formulation on my part. It is definitely less likely that Wii U-games will look better than PS360-games than Wii-games, but I still think we can with what we know say with a fair degree of confidence that Wii U is more powerful and therefore will have prettier games. For once, it has 2gb ram, four times the amount in the PS360.
