Late last week we managed to get access to an early Wii U unit, the first thing I did? Play Mario in HD on Allure Media HQ’s fancy new TV. The second thing? Well, I was super keen to mess around with the new Wii U GamePad.
Long story cut short? I’m a fan. I love the weight of it, I love the feel. I quite like the idea of it, particularly when it comes to multiplayer and Nintendoland. The appeal of what Nintendo calls ‘asymmetrical gaming’ is pretty difficult to quantify or describe, but I love the ‘I know something you don’t know’ concept of messing with perception. Luigi’s Mansion portrays it best, when playing as a ghost hunting down other players. Using the GamePad, and a different screen from the other players, is so empowering and interesting.
I have some minor worries — will new players be disappointed in the context of what tablets can do? Will this affect expectations? The Wii U GamePad is primarily a controller but hopefully we’ll see different types of functionality come to the fore in the near future.
More Kotaku AU Video: How Do Wii U Third Party Games Hold Up?
And so the honeymoon period has begun...
Oh boy.
#RideTheSwan
What is it with that hashtag? I need to know!
Because who'd wanna ride the hype train when there's a pedal powered swan boat floating in the pond?
#RideTheSwan
looking forward to picking mine up... i haven't got high hopes after the wii... so this will be interesting :D
More Australian video content would be appreciated, man! Thanks for that!
@markserrels - More videos please. That was awesome.
Plus one for the video content. Always great stuff from you guys.
As far as the context of what tablets can do - hell im not impressed with tablet gaming. Very few games I have actually enjoyed playing on the iPad 3, so much over rated fluff. So adding buttons and allowing me to use both I think is the best of both worlds approach.
Thats exactly what i wanted from the Wii U. I dont want a console thats trying to out do the PC. I want something that the PC cant do, and this is it (for me anyway). I think sony and microsoft should stick to traditional consoles, and leave Nintendo to do something different. After all there is still a strong market for traditional consoles.
More Kotaku AU video content, thanks.
Awesome Guys. Cannot wait to hear back about the job application i applied for.