Xenoblade Chronicles X Wii U

I own but haven't played more than an hour yet of the original Wii game but from the reviews and YouTube videos I've seen this is something special.

When I heard a remake/revisit was occurring on the Wii U I was excited but not by the price point.

£50 boxed is too much for a game that I may never get to play and I started to see it appear on the 2nd hand market at a £35 price mark. I managed to pick it up today for £25 at CEX and it's gone on the shelf for when I can dedicate a couple of weeks to play it.

Reorganising my Consoles

As previously mentioned, I am slimming down my console collection, but its not going to happen as quickly as I initially thought. Most of what I sell is sold on eBay, and I have a ton of material (mostly old CDs and Role-playing books) that need to be sold first, so I will be hanging onto my consoles for a little while longer.

Still the only TV I have left to play on is the old B&O in the loft. The other current gen consoles have been distributed or will be distributed around the house in various forms, mostly serving as a Youtube portal or Netflix device.

Hand Helds - I am selling the PS Vita as it doesnt really earn its keep, and I expect to get back what I paid for it. I will be keeping the Nintendo 3DS for now as it has an R4 card and access to unlimited games, all it needs is a new battery.

Retro Consoles - The Megadrive and Gamecube are going to be the first 2 consoles to go as I dont feel any love for the Megadrive, and what games I do want to play, I can managed perfectly well on the Raspberry Pi. The Gamecube was more of a novelty as my Nintendo Wii plays all the Gamecube games without a problem.

The next batch would be SNES because of a lack of access to games, and both the Dreamcast and Saturn for the same reasons. For now I will be holding onto the Nintendo 64 and Playstation as both of these are earning their keep as emulation isnt great yet for either machine.

Modern Consoles - here comes the tough choices. The Playstation 3 is in the lounge, and the Playstation 4 is in the master bedroom, which leaves me with the Wii U, 2 Nintendo Wiis and the Xbox One.

I have configured one Wii to run Wii ISOs and the other to run Gamecube ISOs meaning I can sell off any unwanted Gamecube games I have on ISO. The Wii U will most likely join the Playstation 3 or 4 and the Xbox One the same.

The final console choice is going to be where I put my Xbox 360, as I have too many Guitar Hero/Rock Band stuff to just sell off.

I will keep what I can in the loft and use the CRT TV, and maybe sometime down the road buy another LCD TV.

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.

Welcome a New Baby - the Wii U

Picked this up finally last night and got the Mario Kart 8 pack. I did have the option of Lego City Underground, but choose a big name game instead. I got the Deluxe version which has 32GB of memory and all the extras.

Because my youngest daughter no longer plays with her Innotab, I intend to steal the 32GB SD card in it and plug into the Wii U. I understand also that the Wii U accepts USB hard drives up to 2TB, so I will consider getting one for support storage of downloads, DLC and other extras.

Im pretty pleased, all I need now is the time to set it up. Gone are the days of say the SNES or Megadrive where you unpacked it, plugged it in and started playing. Now you have to configure the system and all the other nonsense, plus Im sure you will have to update the system as there was a day one patch.

2nd Lounge - Man Cave Progress

My Xbox360 is the first console set up in the loft.
At the same time I filtered out all the games Ive played and dont intend to return to (but intend to keep just in case) and I was surprised to see almost half my collect get put in a box. Also about a third of my games are Guitar Hero and Rock Band so that doesnt really count.

Tonight I intend to complete the move with the Wii heading to the loft as well.

Carpet gone, boxes being cleared and more eBay stuff being queued up. Its getting very empty upstairs, but exciting too.

I also got my Raspberry Pi rainbow case and apart from one small crack (which you cant see when assembled) it looks terrific.

I found my TV lead for the Playstation 3 and that will suffice for now until I get a decent HD TV for the loft. On the basis that I still have a lot of games to play on the old consoles and lack of a decent TV, I have decided to buy the Wii U first as it has its own inbuilt screen. And its cheaper and has more games Im interested in that the other 2 new consoles.

Wii U vs Playstation 4

I decided that its a toss up between buying a Wii U or Playstation 4 first. In theory the Wii U should be the better choice as its been out longer and its software has had time to mature unlike the other two main consoles, but apart from Mario Kart 8 and a series of games that aren't not exclusives yet, there is nothing to get excited about. The touchscreen is very novel and to be able to play games on it without a television a huge boon. There will be a Zelda game, a Pikmin 3 game, and the next episode of Star Fox but what about another Metroid?

I will wait for at least a year before looking into an Xbox One or Playstation 4 to give the market and games time to mature and come down in price. TitanFall is a popular Xbox game but has nothing new to say, and Destiny just looks and plays too much like Halo from the same developer, which I dislike as a first person shooter. The weapons in Halo are very unsatisfying to use and especially the main gun you are given at the start is virtually ineffective, and has the stopping power of a bubblegun, it is very unsatisfying to fire. The general consensus appears to be everyone will own a Wii U for the game exclusives and one of the other consoles for gaming, its just a shame that the exclusives are few and far between.

Zelda Wii U

This is likely to the THE reason for me to consider purchasing a Wii U. And no other.

Id like to less explosions and more discovery, but Im certain that will come.