An Evening with Wii U

YAY!!!

So, my lovely Wii U arrived, and my heart was just filled with rainbows. There's nothing like the thrill of setting up a new electronic. Or, how's this for weird, the new plastic smell of them...don't judge. Hooking it up took a considerable amount of time for me, given I had to rework some wires and what not, but it was worth it. Before I get into why it was worth it, lemme say first what made me want to bang the game pad into my head repeatedly during the two hours it took me before I could play. It's not all the Wii U's fault, but here's the adventure.

Yeah. Just have a few wires to juggle... Like the Old Man in A Christmas Story.

 You Wanna Know What Really Grinds My Gears?

• I couldn't get it on the internet. I've had this problem with my Wii (not my 3DS, oddly), so I finally decided to hit the laptop and pull up good ol' "ipconfig/all" and go that way. It worked almost instantaneously. That's not really the Wii U's fault, but still annoying.
• System Update! All right then. Two episodes of Dick Van Dyke later (I gave up just sitting there waiting), that was done.
• Dafuq are these stupid messages and drawings all over my screen from people I don't know? This is a little more substantive. I absolutely hate the Wii U menu/interface. First of all, the music sounds like Enya or something, like when on South Park when Stan's grandpa makes him listen to that terrible music to make him understand what being old is like. Like that. I don't like how the game pad, Wii U menu, and Wii menu are all seperated. They should have just kept it to one menu with tiles for each of these things. I realize people with PS3's and Xbox's are probably more into this, as it seems to me to be more similar to their interfaces, but I don't like it. I think the tile system on the Wii was great, and I would think with the advent of everyone having smartphones and tablets (I have a stupid BlackBerry, what's wrong with me, amiright?) with the "apps" the kids these days are using being arranged in the same sort of tile layout as soon as the device comes on, it would make sense for Nintendo to do the same by keeping the old menu at startup. But there again, I'm a curmudgeon.

• So I was so excited to see there was a relatively simple way to transfer my Wii save files over to my new W--wait...wait what? The Wii U is going to eat my Wii's brains!!! I don't understand why transferring the save files to my Wii U had to result in them being deleted from my Wii. Good grief, wtf? I made a backup copy on a secondary SD card just in case and reloaded them back onto my Wii, but that doesn't help me with my Brawl or Mario Kart file. Nor does it help with my Wii Miis! I probably read they would be deleted but it didn't sink in. I'm really sick over that, as I didn't back them up. And, bonus, during the transfer, after it got stuck downloading a VirtualWare game, my Wii U gave me an error and told me to restart at 73%. At least it picked up where it left off and went smoothly after that. Except for killing my poor Wii. I seriously debated doing the transfer at all. I love my Wii. I love my Wii so much. All the good times we've had...all the laughs, the tears, the glory... Alas:

Apparently

• I really, really, really hate the Miiverse. This is my biggest complaint, I think. Like, so very, very much. I don't play video games to play Twitter. I don't even have a Twitter. Or a Facebook. What are you bothering me with this mess for? I want to go Goomba stompin', not look at fanart (I especialy dislike the weird Zelda or Mario fanart, because those are my favorites and I don't like sharing them or seeing what other people do to them...). Le'me alone. So I go to NintendoLand (yeah I immediately played the Zelda game), then these sonsaguns are all over my Plaza. GTFO! To be completely fair on this, it's actually a very well-done interface, and I realize everyone but me wanted Nintendo to move in this direction. But I just hate it. If you're not in the room with me, a friend online, or a random competitor that I don't have to listen or talk to, I don't have any interest in interacting with others when I play video games on this pointless level. I put parental controls on myself so I don't hear from anyone.

• Just another bit about the interface. I'm sure I'll become more accustomed to it, but that's the thing. I didn't have to give my Wii time. The Wii was so simple and sleek. That was part of the charm. I love playing games with my Wii Remote turned sideways like an NES controller. I even play Brawl that way most of the time. I loved Nintendo being bold and cool enough to whip out a new console and the freakin' controller can be an NES controller. Awesome. Perhaps this really is a bias on my part--I like that style. I like mid-century-modern furniture, clean lines, no clutter. I like things organized and concise. The Wii U menu is anything but that. The Wii menu, however, was simple; everything was right there in one place. On the Wii U, if you're playing a Wii game with your Wii remote and want to go to Netflix, you have to exit the Wii menu, get out the game pad, go to the Wii U menu, keep the Miiverse zombies away, then go to Neflix. I know I already hit on this, but this is less about the interface and more about being user friendly. They could have simply added folders like the 3DS menu (which I think could do without the icons across the top) to further organize downloaded games and called it a day. A perfect day. The first square would be for whatever game is inserted, Wii or Wii U (like the Wii had for Wii or GameCube), another square if you want to go to the Miiverse (why?), another square for Mii Maker, or perhaps be able to combine the two into one "Mii Crap" square, and so on and so forth. You could make a "Zelda" or a "Mario" folder if you wanted, or a "Stupid User Warnings and Parental Controls and Other Junk I'll Never Look At" folder. And being able to just use the Wii Remote on its own would be possible if they'd done it this way. Instead, they divided the Miiverse into a menu, the Wii U into a menu, and the Wii into a menu within a menu. One menu, no game pad required!
• Oh. NintendoLand had to download an update. Wtf...?
• THERE'S NO KIRBY ATTRACTION AT NINTENDOLAND!

Pikmin? Okay, people love Pikmin...I don't but whatever... Mario, Yoshi, and Luigi all get their own games, and the Mario and Luigi ones are almost the same? Animal Crossing? Now you're just trying to piss me off, neglecting my Kirbster. ...NO STAR FOX EITHER?!

• NintendoLand froze the second time I played it. Gah. It was kinda hard to tell at first, since the games take so long to load.
• The controls for the Zelda game in NintendoLand are nice enough and actually require some strategy like Skyward Sword. But don't think it'll be like Skyward Sword. You can't go as fast, recover as quickly, have the actual 1:1 range of moves (they're more horizontal or vertical) or be as accurate. Moving slow works better.
• The F-Zero racing attraction. Okay. I liked it. I really did. It responds well and is fun. But I don't like the suggestion that I look at the game pad. They are overdoing the game pad. I realize that's the big feature, but look at Mario Galaxy and Twilight Princess. They integrated the Wii's big feature, motion controls to, I feel, perfection. I'm a fan of motion controls, but when I say that I mean the early version. I like the 1:1 thing in Skyward Sword. It's fun and adds another dimension, but I like swinging without Link stopping his run in Twilight Princess a lot. ...It's like Optimus Prime at the end of TF3. Awesome. I like playing "It's Our Fight" from the sound track when Link and I are mowing down fools that way (I really did put that in my Let's Play). I enjoy it too much, actually.I kinda just giggle to myself during those sequences. ...Anyway, in SMG and TP, the motion controls were fluid and felt natural. You didn't need to think about them. The game pad feels like it's being forced. Another thing on this is more personal. My dad loved playing Gran Turismo on my original PlayStation because of the throttle being the second control stick and you could adjust the amount of gas you're giving. He was stoked I got a racing game and a controller with dual control sticks. F-Zero Attraction (literally): "Look at the gamepad!" And now wiggle it around. Bummer and a half.
• The Wii U itself is loud and sounds like my hotter-than-hell laptop's fan spinning crazily when it's switching between things. It's also very slow to switch major applications.
• The TV screen dims after a period of inactivity. What the hey hey? Stop that.
• I wish the Deluxe version came in white. I liked the white. I also liked the postion of "Wii" on the game boxes for the Wii on the top right. I also liked the cases for them being white. I don't like the blue (and I don't like blue in general--why, pink, red, gold, white, and black are my favorite colors, thanks for asking); I think it's childish. The half-circle at the top reminds me of the GameCube. Which I hated (I don't like insulting people about their games because I know I hate receiving it, but the GameCube was just not my thing outside of like five games). And it's ironic that they chose to go back to the GameCube box style, since so many hate that GameCube support was dropped. Did I mention I don't like change?
• I super-hate having to turn the game pad on when I won't be using it (at least I don't think there' s a way around it). They should have made it so you can use the Wii Remote exclusively to start up a game. That's part of downloading a game versus buying a hard copy--you don't have to fool with as much to play. It seems like there's a thousand steps and a mountain of crap you have to sift through to play a game on the Wii U. The game pad should function like the bottom screen on the DS does when you're playing something like New Super Mario Bros. It should be an awesome bonus.

And the way they're abusing this game pad is making me nervous for future titles I'm going to really care about. I don't want to go back to pushing a button to make Link strike. I don't think I can go back, not after...all we've been through. Not anymore, I've closed that chapter of my life...shhh, let's leave it at that, no regrets... Wait, what was I saying? Oh yeah:

I think the game pad should house the HUD, be your radar on multiplayer, show your map and equipment in Zelda--what it should not do is be obtrusive, gimmicky, and an attention-wh*re. My TV shouting at me all the time: "Look at the Game Pad!" **** you! That's like looking at the bat instead of the pitch. I've been trained my whole life to play video games without looking at the controller. I can look down at a strat guide for a map, and the game pad shouldn't require me to look at it any more than that would.

• Navigating around NintendoLand is clunky. Over-used game pad strikes again. It's better after the tiles to the attractions open and you no longer have to walk to them and hold the game pad up like a moron trying to see the signs over the entrances. But what the eff is this pressing a shoulder button to jump in NintendoLand? You're supposed to press "A" to jump, Nintendo, gahw. First making me look at my controller, then assigning a weird jump button. What are you smoking over there.
• Monita in NintendoLand. Well well, Nintendo. Hey, why don't you send out a patch to have Fi and Navi and the Mario Party 8 hat guy join her for a group performance?

The Navi my little cousin made me and the fairy in a jar were she should be that I made.

• They should have called it the "Super Wii". Because that would have been awesome.

So those are my complaints. My top three would be:

1) Hey, you got social media in my video games!

2) They should have stuck with the Wii menu at startup.

3) Game Pad rape.

Why the Wii U is Still Amazingly Awesome. Cos It Is.

I love Cartman, obviously. Fun fact: My mom calls me Cartman, and my dad calls me Sheldon. Actually, not sure how fun that is.

• The game pad works beautifully. As much grief as I've given it, that is directed only toward its implementation. The device itself has a beautiful screen, is shockingly lightweight but durable, is well-designed and easy to use, and the touch screen is astonishingly responsive, as is the motion sensor.
• The picture the console displays can make you cry with its beauty. I've played it on two TVs, my lovely and wonderful Panasonic Plasma, and my I-hate-the-friggin-sound-and-its-a-piece-of-crap brand new Toshiba LED TV, and it was amazing on both. The Toshiba has passive 3D on it that I applied to my Wii U, and it was sweeeeet playing in 3D. Looked fantastic.
• I spent a lot of time at the Zelda attraction (and the sky is blue). It. Is. Really. Good. It really does seem like a ride at a theme park, and hearing the music and seeing the familar areas recreated as "fabric", like a play almost akin to a SMB3, was just great. So creative and well done. It's really deep, too. There's a lot to play through, and you are actually challenged to think about what you're doing and use some skill. The controls aren't on par with Skyward Sword, and sometimes I'd swing and my character wouldn't (and yes, I realize that happens in Skyward Sword, too), but it was still really good and those times of misreading were minor. And moving forward isn't just about hitting some arbitrary high score. The depth to these games really surprised me and I'll play them a lot.
• The console itself is slick-looking.
• This one I think is very important: You can use your Wii's RCA cable on the Wii U. This is great if you have an older TV (I almost had to use an older one when my Panasonic went doody--but has since, probably temporarily, come back to life...friggin' love this TV, it's like the NES), but I was worried about my Dazzle. I needn't worry more! Nintendo also did a solid by making the Wii cable compatible and not making me buy anything new. I remember those RF switch days. Channel 3. My dad finding out an RF switch had to be bought to make my NES usable on my TV and saying to the clerk, "Oh, of course, they want to make you buy more." I don't want to do that again. No sir, no thank you.
• I despise the Miiverse. However, I'm sure I'm the only one. I mean, I hate it with a burning passion, but I bet y'all like it. And I give props to Nintendo for listening and including it. The Nintendo Network and adding friends is amazingly well done. I like this inclusion, and again, kudos to Nintendo for coming to the front with this.
• You can play Wii games and access your good old Wii Menu. Imagine how riled I'd be if they'd skipped the Wii Menu entirely. I love that my old remotes work on it. Because I love my Wii. So much.
• Brawl. Looked. Awesome.
• Syncing Wii Remotes: Easy as bread sandwiches. Bonus if you know what game that's from.
• There's a lot of care put into the console. I can't quantify that, really. It's just Nintendo magic. It's about what's in here that counts. *fairy dust*

I would say that about sums it up, really. For my grumblings, I still adore this thing and I'm so glad I've got one. Just the pack-in game proves why I'm a Nintendo fangirl. When I get Mario U, I'll be hopelesslly in love. Hope I didn't get too crazy for you guys (little punch drunk writing this lol). I'd love to hear what you all think of your Wii U's!!!

I can't describe how happy this makes me.

And please look at http://www.ign.com/blogs/unoclay1/2012/11/20/a-big-crybaby-lists-things-hed-change-about-wii-u/, where unoclay1 wrote a much more professional piece earlier :)

ETA: I forgot to mention a completely awesome feature: The Wii U demonstrated talking to my 3DS, and it worked without a flaw. It was also just cool as heck. The Wii U asked if I wanted to retrieve my Mii from my 3DS instead of making one, and a few taps on my 3DS later, my 3DS Mii now also lives on my Wii U. The functionality of the Wii U and the 3DS complimenting each other implemented from the get-go was really awesome.