The Nintendo Wii U is Great Thread

[kaputt]

Hnnggggg... You are making it so hard to resist. Damn it, I'm going to buy this game this afternoon, the digital version, since the retail prices here in Brazil gone a bit crazy after Nintendo left the country. I hope the game isn't too big to download.

I'm not a big multiplayer fan, but had a great time with Titanfall and Chivalry recently, I believe I can find enjoyment in Splatoon as well. Will post my ID on the exchange thread, will also add the ones who posted there, hope we can play some matches together =)

[Zeusthecat]

My kids are completely enraptured by the WiiU. My daughter and I are on world 6 in Super Mario 3D World and we've been having an absolute blast. I really do think it's one of the best Mario games ever made and I feel like it does an excellent job of pulling in elements from previous games and honing them to perfection. I would put it up there with Super Mario World and Super Mario 64 as one of my favorite Mario games.

We also delved into Nintendo Land a bit today and I really like everything I've tried so far. The standout has been the Mario Chase game where the person with the game pad runs away and the other players have to catch them. My favorite touch is how the players looking at the TV screen can see a feed of the gamepad player's face from the gamepad camera.

The only negative so far has been the battery life of the gamepad. It seems to only last a few hours before I have to plug it in again.

[Sno]

If you turn down the brightness of the tablet display, it seems to dramatically improve the battery life. (That backlight is probably the primary power drain on that thing since there's likely very little else in the way of power-intensive hardware in the thing.)

 

Splatoon maps: I dislike the skate park and arowana mall, those two maps have been very frustrating to me. They're super awkward to navigate and... I mean, well... They also just heavily favor snipers, so maybe i would like them more if i played snipe. I love a lot of the other maps though, the warehouse has a ton great sightlines and the underpass makes for a lot of really frantic chokepoints and close-range fighting. The fight for a few centralized blocks of land in the oil rig map is also super entertaining.

 

Also, i'm sure people have realized, but some of the solo levels are based on retooled versions of multiplayer maps, several of which have not been present in matchmaking rotation yet. Nintendo did say they were going to hold back some of them for a bit, but i assumed that they would be later downloads and not just in the game and inaccessible.

 

- I'm really torn on the supers, i've had a lot of cheap deaths to those, but i can also realize that a lot of those cheap deaths are for those people probably actually really inefficient uses of those abilities.

 

- I continue to feel that the .52 gal is probably a touch op, especially the deco variant. (i've had games where upwards of four people were all using the .52 deco.)

- You don't run into a lot of snipers, but good snipers are terrifying in this game.

 

- In the ways the game evokes so many other shooters for me, just in bits and pieces, i feel fairly confident in saying that Nintendo has  made a "real" shooter, but it's super weird playing this bright and colorful kids game and intermittently having flashbacks to playing Gears of War online.

 

- People are definitely sleeping on the ability to teleport at any time, because in the games i've had against people who are able to effectively use that ability, i've just been demolished. It's clearly meant to be a big part of the game, beyond just teleporting out into the field after a respawn. (Also, If you see an enemy dropping spawn beacons for their team, please destroy those. Holy shit, i'm terrified of those things now.)

 

- I feel like i'm having this weird disconnect with the wide visible spread of projectiles from the splatterguns, and seemingly needing to have a very precise aim to actually land any damaging hits. As it is, i'm not really at all clear what the mechanics of the projectiles are, if the damage is dealt separately from the visible paint projectiles as a hitscan attack or something. It's entirely possible that i'm just overthinking it though.

 

It's probably worth making a Splatoon thread at this point.

Also: Check inklings in your main hub area and order any rarity 3 items you find. The stacking benefits from gear buffs are enormous and high-rarity gear is worth pursuing as soon as possible.

[miffy495]

Whether or not I buy Splatoon depends on the strength of the single player. Anyone have thoughts on this to share?

[Sno]

I think the solo game is very good, it's the thing in the game that is most stylistically in synch with Nintendo's traditional design sensibilities, it plays like a spiritual successor to Super Mario Sunshine by way of Galaxy. It also takes Splatoon's mechanics in some admirably cool directions and has some terrific boss fights. It's not as long as a Mario game though, and there are some shortcomings such as excessively repeated mini-bosses and multiplayer maps being lamely repurposed as filler levels.

I can't recommend Splatoon purely as a single-player experience, the game's focus is absolutely in the multiplayer, but if a good singleplayer mode is just that little extra push you need to play a game that you know is primarily multiplayer-centric, there you have it.

[Sno]

I have been getting dropped from a bunch of games today in Splatoon, has anybody else had issues?

[Kolzig]

Japanese Nintendo Direct yesterday showed first video of the Bandai Namco game still with codename Project Treasure.

Looks like a four player 3rd person hack'n slash game with a slight vibe of Left for Dead.

This game is going to be f2p if I remember correctly?

[undermind9]

If you turn down the brightness of the tablet display, it seems to dramatically improve the battery life. (That backlight is probably the primary power drain on that thing since there's likely very little else in the way of power-intensive hardware in the thing.)

 

theres a power save mode that seems to drop display even darker, can get ~4-6hrs then (dont forget to turn off rumble or any of that other silly auxiliary stuff)

[undermind9]

I have been getting dropped from a bunch of games today in Splatoon, has anybody else had issues?

 

today was really wonky for games.  i was getting dropped and even had a few searches end in some error code which was midly frustrating.  Playing mostly PC MP games where dropping out just means joining back in this interface is aggravating.  i wasnt expecting a BF style list of servers, but it doesnt seem to me that they care about region or level grouping

 

ill take my skate park distaste to the other thread though

[Merus]

The only negative so far has been the battery life of the gamepad. It seems to only last a few hours before I have to plug it in again.

 

It's worth noting here that the Wii U Pro Controller has an incredibly long battery life, and it's a great controller besides. If you don't need the gamepad for a game, the Pro Controller is absolutely the way to go.

[N1njaSquirrel]

theres a power save mode that seems to drop display even darker, can get ~4-6hrs then (dont forget to turn off rumble or any of that other silly auxiliary stuff)

You can also buy a larger battery for like £20 which gives the pad silly battery life. Like 10 hours+. Definitely worth investing in.

[Griddlelol]

Or just leave it plugged in. The wire is long, and it doesn't have to be from the TV since it goes into an outlet. 

[Thrik]

Plugged in?! Bloody hell, what do you think this is — the early 2000s?

[Zeusthecat]

I'll try the power save options to see if that helps. I guess it's not too big of a deal since I can just plug it in to a nearby outlet.

 

Unfortunately, even ignoring the battery life issues, I'm not terribly impressed by the tablet controller. My hand kind of cramps up after extended play sessions and the R/L and ZR/ZL buttons are spaced out a little too far from each other making the whole thing just a tad too uncomfortable for me. And with the exception of using it for some of the Nintendo Land games, I'd rather never have to look at the screen on the controller. The display quality is noticeably poor and it's kind of jarring going from looking at my crisp, HD TV screen to this cheap looking 480p display.

 

I'm still loving the system though and looking forward to catching up on a lot of sweet games.

[Zeusthecat]

Man, I am really really liking Super Mario 3D World. This game is just incredible in so many ways.

 

My daughter and I have continued making our way through the game and 

we just recently beat the final(?) Bowser fight in Bowser Carnival World and have made our way through most of the Star World that opens after the credits. First off, I love that psyche out in World 7 where you finally free the last fairy and then Bowser shows up again, snatches the fairies back up, and takes them off to the Carnival World. I remembered hearing that there were other worlds that open up at some point after the main game but I was still surprised when that happened. Then, when Bowser shows up at the end of the Carnival World and turns himself into a cat, I lost it. That was so unexpected and hilarious and I loved it so so much. Finally, after doing a couple of levels in Star World, I was surprised to see that the game just randomly unlocked Rosalina as a 5th playable character. My daugher was super excited when she saw that there was suddenly another girl character she could play as and we have been running with Peach and Rosalina ever since. Makes me wonder if there are any other secret characters that might show up (what I wouldn't give to be able to play as Waluigi).

 

Probably the biggest surprise with this game is just how fucking difficult it's gotten. I've played a lot of Mario games in my life and haven't really felt too challenged by any of them in a long while. At the point we're at now though, this game is just destroying me and I'm loving it. There is something about doing these levels over and over and perfecting every little jump and maneuver that just makes it so satisfying and engaging. Between this and Destiny I'm starting to re-discover just how awesome games are when they get really fucking difficult.

 

In my opinion, this game just does so many things right that I may have to go as far as to say it is the Greatest Mario Game Ever Made. They even smartly left Yoshi out because fuck Yoshi! The only thing it's missing is FLUDD and Isle Delfino.

[tegan]

They even smartly left Yoshi out because fuck Yoshi! The only thing it's missing is FLUDD and Isle Delfino.

 

You had me and then you lost me.

[Twig]

Super Mario Sunshine is fantastic though.

 

Splatoon makes me want a new one of those. (Which is appropriate.)

 

Ah it was so good!

[undermind9]

Probably the biggest surprise with this game is just how fucking difficult it's gotten. 

 

It certainly turns up the dial after the first 2/3rds of the game.  Some have commented that Co-Op gets significantly more difficult in these areas because of how narrow & precise some of the jumps/mechanics need to be.  I've no off spring to co-op and test this, but i could see the frustration - especially when "carrying" a group through - and ESPECIALLY in the final level.

 

I've gone back and done through star-world all 5-character finish on the pole - that final level and I are going to have fits though, it has to be one of the hardest Mario levels i've ever played.  Reminiscent of 7.8 in SMB3 level frustration

[Zeusthecat]

It certainly turns up the dial after the first 2/3rds of the game.  Some have commented that Co-Op gets significantly more difficult in these areas because of how narrow & precise some of the jumps/mechanics need to be.  I've no off spring to co-op and test this, but i could see the frustration - especially when "carrying" a group through - and ESPECIALLY in the final level.

 

I've gone back and done through star-world all 5-character finish on the pole - that final level and I are going to have fits though, it has to be one of the hardest Mario levels i've ever played.  Reminiscent of 7.8 in SMB3 level frustration

 

Wait, so is the level with the weight sensitive moving platforms where you have to use the cannon suit to hit switches as you go the final level in the game? If so, that is what we're on and we are finding it nearly impossible to beat. You pretty much have to get to the checkpoint and then die and restart from the checkpoint if you want to have enough time to even get close to the end. And jumping up the staircase of bullets always eats up a decent amount of time too.

[undermind9]

Crown world

Champion road

You'll know it when you face it

it was all consuming for a few nights for me

[Zeusthecat]

Crown world

Champion road

You'll know it when you face it

it was all consuming for a few nights for me

 

Wait, there's another world after Star World?

[undermind9]

Mmm? Perhaps

totally, I look forward to final end game and if "best mario" title stands

[tegan]

So for anyone who missed it yesterday, before the Nintendo World Championships...

 

 

 

 

I'm amazed that they managed to do the trademarking and ESRB registration without anyone noticing and spoiling the surprise ahead of time.

 

 

Also, that NWC was a lot of fun, even if it was pretty rough at times. I feel like it's probably a good idea to brief all your commentators on how to pronounce your contestants' names in advance, especially your celebrity guest contestant.

[Professor Video Games]

I only watched the final of the NWC, but man, Mario Maker looks fantastic. Hopefully they get a good system in place to find good levels because god knows I won't be making any.

[tegan]

I only watched the final of the NWC, but man, Mario Maker looks fantastic. Hopefully they get a good system in place to find good levels because god knows I won't be making any.

 

You missed watching amateurs play Splatoon with commentary by Youtubers and the children of Youtubers!