Thursday 4 December 2014

My Life with a Wii U

I did not take an initial strong interest in the Wii U, but it is growing on me, it helps that it is significantly cheaper than either of the two big hitters by around one hundred pounds in 2014. Although a Zelda game that just begs to be played, or a Mario Galaxy 3 comes would convince me otherwise. I like the concept of a controller with an inbuilt screen for added gaming elements. One downside to the inbuilt screen is that it is not multi-touch. I will most likely eventually own a Xbox One, but many years into its development cycle and with already cheap games and system exclusives. I will most likely buy a Playstation 4 first. The Wii U is essentially a graphically enhanced up Wii with HDMI output and a processing power equivalent of an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. The release of games from Nintendo shows that they held back a lot of Wii games to be released on their Wii U. The Deluxe version has 32gb of internal memory, and lets you add an additional 32gb Secure Digital card. It also has multiple USB ports, and has the facility to let you add a self-powered 2tb external hard drive for data storage, both of which is impressive, and helps keep the cost of the main unit down.

I finally found out about Hyrule Warriors the first of the Zelda games by Nintendo for their Wii U. And it looks to be a disappointment. Essentially its a open world hack and slash game akin to Dynasty Warriors and other such blade combat games. I had a look at the credits and the only thing about the game thats Nintendo is the name. They have even farmed the work out to a third party company who has made these kind of games before Koei.
 
I’ve owned my Wii U for a week now and am proud to say I’ve opened the box and thats it. I haven't plugged anything in or installed any updates and not even registered a Mii Wii Universe character. It came with Mario Kart 8, and I am aware that the number of good games is very limited, but I didn't buy it for millions of games, probably at best a dozen or so quality first party releases.
 
Sad that my Wii U still has been set up, but I'm getting closer. I have bought a 32gb Secure Digital card which will act as quick instant storage for the unit for doing upgrades and data saves. And I also bought an external self-powered 2tb Western Digital hard drive for saving games, downloadable content etc. When I first turned the Wii U on, it recognised the hard drive and instantly formatted it ready for use, great news. I’ve yet to check to see if it knows I plugged a 32gb card in as well.
 
I finally setup the Wii U in the loft, and I immediately fell in love with the interface and the way the gamepad makes music which compliments the music from the television. A perfect Nintendo harmony. I set up my Wii Mii and now have to find the time for an hour and a half to update the console before I can start playing anything. Its a lengthy day one update. The internet connection in the loft is not very good at the moment, and the connection does drop out. What I liked about the Nintendo Wii U is that when its downloading an update, if the connection drops it carries on from where it left off, rather than starting again from scratch.

A mixed night of Wii U updates whilst playing Half Life 2. I'm very impressed with the Wii U, but really need to see it on a decent television to appreciate it better. That will come later. I played Super Mario Bros Wii U and enjoyed the game. On the gamepad it looked and played just a Nintendo DS version of the game, albeit with a bigger screen. The graphics were excellent. The controls are tight, but I noticed something about the gamepad that I had never heard of or heard before. The A B X Y buttons rattle. Not just a little bit, but a lot. Its not a big issue, but its odd. Everyone seems to have the same problem, and its not just me.
 
The Mario Wii U game installed an update to the external hard disk drive so I am happy its working. When I get a chance I will check the storage of the three main devices and see how it is configured, internal memory, the 32gb Secure Digital card and the 2tb external hard disk drive.

Because Nintendo recommend an external self-powered hard drive as opposed to a normal USB powered external hard disk drive, I am contemplating moving my entire Wii game collection from three mixed external hard disk drives and putting them onto one single 2tb device, and then keep the external drives as emergency backups. Having worked out home much the main console cost, along with the Secure Digital and Hard Disk Drive upgrades added on top, the machine has cost the same as a Playstation 4.
 
I have been playing it more now, as I have played and enjoy Mario Kart 8, and looking forward to more Mario and Nintendo first party games, after all that was the sole reason I got this console.

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