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Wii U

So, this past weekend, Nintendo's new system, the Wii U came out.  I was all set to do an unboxing when I discovered that everyone around me sucks - none of the places I would have went to were going to do a midnight release, and they weren't even opening earlier the next day.  It would have seemed a little late for me to do something that's been done at least a dozen times already.  However, with that being said, if even one person tells me they want me to, I will do something a little different: a boxing video.  Seriously, how can you get all that stuff back in the box the right way?

Onto the hardware itself.  My Wii U experience on Sunday was abysmal to start.  There was a 2 hour system update that pretty much had me twiddling my thumbs while I was waiting to play with my new toy, and after that, each one of the games that I played had a short 3-5 minute update to set them up as well.  I'm an unabashed Nintendo fanboy (though I try to remove the bias when I'm reviewing anything), so you can take me on my word that the Wii U has some problems.  The system, a deluxe in my case, also seems to have a problem about 33% of the time where it won't read the most recent disc that I put into the system.  I'll have to eject it and retry.  That can get a little annoying too.

The gamepad is gimmicky to everyone who hasn't actually tried it, but everyone who has played my system so far has been really impressed.  The Wii U browser (not even internet) is very convenient, even if load times are a little excessive.

Though it seems a bit of a small thing to praise, the way the Wii U gamepad can control your TV is a nice touch.  You can do a little bit of everything in one place thanks to the gamepad, from watching a television show and searching IMDB to find out who that actress was, to dragging the game onto the smaller screen so you can let your girlfriend watch one of her shows.

Miiverse, Nintendo's social network, is a fun way to connect gamers.  In games like New Super Mario Bros U, the Miiverse lends itself wonderfully to help players learn the secrets of levels that they weren't aware of.

I picked up four games, in addition to the packed in Nintendoland, but so far, I have yet to play Darksiders 2. 

Assassin's Creed 3 looks and plays beautifully on the Wii U, though it did take a little while to acclimate myself to the controls, since I'm used to playing the series on the 360.  I did have one problem where the game froze, which was a bit inconvenient while I was trying to tout the system to someone, but other than that, the franchise doesn't seem to inhibited by the jump to a new console.

ZombiU is a lot slower than I had anticipated, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.  The game is still very unforgiving and difficult.  It just requires more foresight and less of a twitch factor than typical zombie survival games.  The gamepad also forces the gamer to be more conscious of time constraints.  You can't lazily look at items you could loot, or effortlessly punch in numbers on a keypad.  It makes the game a little more intuitive and immersive.  In a real zombie apocalypse, it wouldn't be as easy as hitting a start menu to sort through your equipment.  Definitely keep your eye out for this game.

Mario U is a lot better than I was prepared to give it credit for.  After seeing how poorly reviewed the latest 3DS installment was, I was cautious to give much hope to the plumber's latest foray, but perhaps it was because of my pause that I was so pleasantly surprised.  The game itself is as much a spiritual successor to Super Mario World as I've ever seen, and that is a great thing to strive for.  On top of that, they throw challenge mode at you, which really ups the ante and ramps up the difficulty.  I haven't really had the chance to play it with multiple people, but I can imagine it is just as awesome a party game as the one on the Wii was, although I'm not so sure I trust that boost mode is a welcome addition.

Finally, let's talk about Nintendoland, the pack-in title for the deluxe models.  This game absolutely blew me away.  I think most people were looking at it as a Wii Sports type entry, but each of the twelve minigames are so well put-together that it seems well worth the retail price.  This is going to end up being people's party game around Christmas and Thanksgiving this year.  It's quirky, and the gamepad is used properly for awesome assymetric play.  With players getting unique experience based on their controller, this was the perfect opportunity for Nintendo to show that the idea could deliver.  Now it's up to third party developers to pick up the torch and follow the house of Mario into the future of that style of play.

All in all, I'm satisfied with my purchase.  There were missteps, but it isn't anything prohibitive for too long, and once you've got your system set up, most of the kinks are ironed out.  Now all we have to do is see what software Nintendo and their third parties can line up for us.


Black Ops 2

While my experience with Black Ops 2 has gradually been more welcoming, I still randomly get tossed into matches with people who are lagging so poorly that, when compensated, will get a 1 or 2 second drop on me.  I'll see them on my screen, and shoot them point blank with six shotgun blasts, and they won't even flinch, whereas they've already killed me in their own personal experience.  I'm still hoping that Treyarch manages to tweak the netcode, because this is just absolute BS at this point.

When I'm fairly placed with people who aren't time traveling, I'm typically landing in the top three players of each game.  In those circumstances, when lag is not a burden, I'm having a very good time with the game.  I'm a big fan of a couple of the new pieces of equipment that have been added, including what I call the shock sticks, and the microwave dish.  A lot of people seem to be complaining about the UAV situation in the game.  That is, there are just too many of them, and no effective counter.  I'd agree with them there, but as long as you're mobile, you shouldn't have too much to worry about.  Barring that, it might be a good idea to take a launcher along with you so that you can bring those UAVs out of the sky.


Go On

The show just keeps getting better.  You should definitely watch it if you don't already.  The writers for Go On consistently nail it out of the park.  My only complaint throughout the whole show is that the editing seems a little choppy here and there.