Wii U Review

The underdog is here.

As for the current state of affairs, the One has been vastly improved upon from the DRM laden machine we remember all too well from reveal and the PS4 has been standing on solid ground since; both trading relatively equal punches. My last two console reviews on them were pretty general to say the least since both the PS4 and the Xbox One were quite similar and had their ups and downs. I can't really say the same about this review though, I had to look at it a bit differently and writing it was almost like telling a story. You see this review is about the Wii U, the quirky little 8th generation console that's been cowering in the shadows of the two giants since they hit the shelves in 2013. How's it been faring since then? Let's find out.

I bought the Wii U for no reason what so ever. Usually when I buy consoles, I buy them with a purpose, but in this case I basically said "Eh, screw it. It's Spring Break, let's buy a Wii U." So I did, and I bought the black 32 GB model with Splatoon and Super Smash Bros. I knew this was going to be totally different from what I'm currently accustomed to. You see the last Nintendo console I owned was the original Wii and I sold it along with it's millions of accessories to replace it with a PS3, a decision I never regretted. All I have from Nintendo prior to the Wii U was two dusty Gameboys, an even dustier N64, and my trusty Advance SP on my desk that I pick up now and then for nostalgia's sake. Nintendo thrives off nostalgia but the story of the Wii is a bit depressing.

The original Wii was almost destined for failure from the start if you look at it today. It's biggest selling point was it's motion controls; totally revolutionary to the market at the time and from the lines I remember at Best Buy on day one, it worked. It had a strong first party lineup and it was fun for the whole family. However it was a whole hardware generation behind the 360 and the PS3 and it lacked the strong multiplayer and third party support the big two enjoyed. They also continued to improve, the Wii tried too but it was still too far behind to make a difference. As time went on, the novelty of waving a stick with buttons tied to your wrist, daisy chained to a joystick on another stick at your TV wore off pretty fast. What was once touted as being game changing was now a childish gimmick. The Wii died a quiet death, and so did Microsoft's and Sony's attempts at motion controls. The world moved on back to what was tried and true, a regular, no nonsense controller. Nintendo tried to revolutionize it, again.

Not my box but still very much the same.

Once you get the box of the Wii U open you'll find that there was much less attention put onto the packaging. The original Wii's interior packaging was a nice shade of blue, it's contents neatly organized into drawers and little individual spaces. The Wii U's packaging is in stark contrast, just dull plain cardboard with it's components wrapped in plastic and twisty tied. I know the box is a minor detail to most people but the original Wii welcomed you with how tidy and pleasing to the eye it's interior packaging was. The Wii U just tells me "We tried, just hook the damn thing up already.". Again it's a very minor detail but it can make a console look very well presented when you open up the box. That $360 hole in my pocket was starting to feel a tinge of regret.

I don't think any of the 8th Generation consoles look all that normal. The One looks like a Betamax player, the PS4 an eraser, and the Wii U is probably the most normal of the three but it just looks like the old Wii, turned on it's side and stretched out the back a lot. It's notably smaller than the big two and that may or may not look right for some people but I simply just stuck the vertical stands on and slid it in next to my PS4. Almost right away the gloss black began contracting fingerprints and dust, my PS4 probably irritated I made it share it's space with this inferior device. The console sports two USB ports in the front(Suck on that one Xbox) as well as two in the back and an SD card slot because Nintendo apparently forgot nobody uses transferable memory cards anymore and there is such a thing as cloud storage. There is also no Optical audio output which basically rendered my Skullcandy PLYR1s completely useless. The console itself runs quite silent but considering it sits in a room with four other consoles, a mini-fridge, and a ceiling fan, noise isn't a very big problem for me.

I know the diagram says otherwise but setting the Wii U up was a a bit of a pain in the ass for me. Most modern consoles only have two cables coming off of it, one for HDMI, the other for power. Same can be said for the Wii U if you don't include the vestigial Sensor Bar and the separate charging cable for the Gamepad. That, paired with my almost too big 55 inch TV with those dumb ass split stands meaning it just delicately balances on top of my entertainment center.

Stop it. This is terrible.

Seriously, these stands fucking suck. I know they were designed to make sound bars fit under the TV easier or just another instance of bad minimalism, but they show your whole mess of cables and because the stand isn't in the middle of the TV, they don't sit on my entertainment center properly and every time I move the TV it wants to fall off to one side. No I won't buy a smaller TV, I should be allowed to have a 55 inch TV on whatever furniture I want. Who ever designed this at Vizio should be promptly taken out to a field and shot. So pair that with my cable nightmare which is rivaling the International Space Station in terms of complexity and that disastrous combination made the Wii U the hardest console I've setup of the three. The Wii U uses that stupid line in power supply which basically means you have to find a place to set the clunky brick along your line of power cable, a task I had to complete without knocking the TV down. The sensor bar was easy enough and I just tossed it on top of my Kinect, and then I realized I didn't actually need it if I didn't have a Wii Remote so I just sighed and moved on. The Gamepad charger is it's own separate power cord and supply so I had to get an outlet splitter to accommodate it and the console. Because I also had the nifty little docking cradle my OCD self had to find a place for it on my shelf which involves me trying shove the cable behind the nailed in backing of the shelf just to get it out the front. It shouldn't be this difficult, it's my fault for having such a complex setup, but it's finished and now we can play some games.

Well, actually we can't yet because the Gamepad needs to charge. This takes about 2.5 hours and the Gamepad is the most power hungry controller ever so it need to be charging every time you aren't using it. I'll take this time to talk about the rest of Gamepad itself and the rest of the Wii U's accessories.  I could probably make a whole review on the Gamepad itself, it's so packed with features but it's also completely integral to the console itself. The Gamepad is basically Nintendo's new revolutionary controller now that motion controls have fallen out of fashion. It's essentially a big 6.5" inch tablet with joysicks, buttons, and a D-pad on it. It's actually fairly comfortable to use although I could opt for real triggers and a more standard button layout since Nintendo still relies on the old SNES style layout which is normal but for a guy coming from the Xbox and Playstation I can't tell you how often I hit B thinking it was A, and considering that those have become more and more the standard, Nintendo should go that route in the future. The body of the device also contacts fingerprints like crazy, they could have just went with a matte finish. The touch screen however is very responsive and it even comes with a DS stylus to draw with. There is also the NFC touch point which allows you to communicate with your Amiibo figures.

The Gamepad in a way can seem a lot like Nintendo's attempt at a second screen as well as remote play. The device can be used to control your TV as well as your set top box which is really neat. Paired with the second screen you can stream games to the Gamepad while mom watches TLC, however this feature has really limited range and it seems to get interference from walls. It pretty much has to have a direct "line of sight" with the console in order to work. When you are playing it normally off a TV though, it just shows things like inventory or score if you want. The biggest problem I have with the Gamepad is how overly reliant the device and the console are to each other. I've had numerous instances in several apps where the Wii U would force me between Gamepad and TV a lot, even the basic setup makes you use the Gamepad. The constant switching is unnecessary and yeah, there are some apps like the Web Browser utilize the feature to great effectiveness, but overall it just starts getting a little annoying. I feel like what Nintendo was trying to do was somewhat replicate the feel of playing a 3DS for the living room but didn't really foresee how underused the second screen concept would be on the Xbox and PS4, having it an almost mandatory thing is a little annoying. Eventually the Gamepad starts to lose it's novelty because of how unconventional it is, quite a lot like the Wii Remote.

The Wii U does offer other options to control your games if the Gamepad winds up being a bit of a nuisance. You can get the Pro controller which is essentially an Xbox 360 controller with both sticks on top and the SNES button layout or for SSB4 you can plug up the old yet quite excellent Gamecube controller using an adapter(Fun fact: Nintendo recently re-released the Gamecube controller with the popularity of it as a choice for playing Super Smash Bros.) If you really, really want to, you can use your old Wii Remotes too using the packaged in sensor bar. What really sucks is that you need a Wii Remote in order to use the console's backwards compatibility feature but this is because the Gamepad isn't able to support the Wii's vastly different control scheme of waving your arms like an imbecile.

The UI is also a bit unconventional in terms of how it operates. On the Gamepad, you get this tablet like interface that's very much like that on the 3DS. You can move your apps around and from here you can access the old Wii menu but like I said you need a Wii Remote to use it. There isn't anything really wrong with it apart from the fact that nearly all the menus loop annoying music. Honestly, I've never thought I'd have to mute my TV while looking at games in the eShop, just give me silence please. Silence suits everybody. Other apps like the Web Browser, Amazon Video, Netflix, and YouTube are available and they work quite well which helps make up a bit for the console's lack of DVD or Blu-Ray capability. Mii's also return from the Wii for those that really care about personal console avatars and they play an integral role in the second half of the UI.

This other half of the UI is called the Plaza and it's basically a social hub that displays the communities of certain games you like. Communities on the Wii U are basically like Facebook groups for gaming. You join into them and you post screenshots, drawings, and even start Reddit-like discussions on it. This does require a Nintendo Network account but online costs nothing on the Wii U and that's awesome. It's a neat feature and I feel like it can be further improved on with game clips like the One and the PS4 offer. It's probably the best social feature out of all the 8th generation systems but the Wii U does fall short of the big two in one huge area. There is no party chat, in fact chat in general is restricted to certain multiplayer games. Party chat was probably the most demanded feature on the PS3 and when the PS4 included it, everything was smooth sailing. Having no party chat feature this late in the game is quite ridiculous. The main "dashboard" and the Plaza can be switched between TV and Gamepad with the push of a button. Having them linked like this is neat and but the social Plaza could do as a separate app going back to the Gamepad's quirkiness compared to traditional controllers.

The Wii U's game lineup is a little mixed to say the least. Like the old Wii, it has very strong first party support with tons of great games like Mario Kart 8, Splatoon, and Super Smash Bros. to name a few. But a lot like the old Wii it has very dismal third party support and just give a few examples, there are only two Call of Duty games, Black Ops II and Ghosts, neither of which have any large DLC support and EA has drastically scaled back development on the Wii U. The Virtual Console selection is also pretty shallow when compared to the original Wii that even had TurboGrafx 16 games. Granted the old Shop Channel can be accessed from the old Wii menu and these games can be downloaded so at least that's worth something.

The console has 8 GB and 32 GB storage options which may seem small but considering  it does not have mandatory installs like the PS4 and One do, it uses this storage sparingly. It has no options for expandable storage apart from the SD card which is used almost purely for console transfers and some in game storage requirements.

The graphics hardware capability of the Wii U is sadly a whole generation gap behind the PS4 and the One. While the games, especially the first party titles look fantastic in HD, some third party games like Ghosts and Black Ops II for example look roughly the same as the 360 and PS3 versions but they run nearly 20 FPS down from those two from around 60 FPS. That's pretty bad and compared to the PS4 and One that run even prettier games at solid 60 FPS make matters even worse.

The Wii U is a very odd case indeed. I really want to like it, and I know that gets thrown around way too much but I'm not kidding, I really do want to like it. Playing games on it is a blast, it's got nifty social features, and it great for just binge watching YouTube or Netflix. But it just feels way too unfocused, like Nintendo doesn't know what the gamer audience actually wants. It lacks many key features of the competition plus it's less powerful than them. Third party support is dwindling and the Gamepad, it's key feature is just too unconventional and flawed in areas. I know the Wii systems have always had this reputation of being the family friendly console but it's not like the Xbox or the PlayStation can't cater to that same demographic either along with the masses of the "hardcore" gamers. The Wii U tries too hard to be the good kid in a room of troublemakers but the catch is, they aren't making any trouble. The One and the PS4 appeal to everyone because of their simple, clean, no nonsense approach to entertainment, while the Wii U feels the need to throw kiddie carnival music into the background of it's menus. It just can't outright compete with the big two and I feel like it had to do with poor decision making and coming a little too early into the game. I seriously feel like even the 3DS has better longevity than the Wii U does.

We don't know where this will take us.

However the real scary thing is that the Wii U can almost be seen as a foreshadowing of Nintendo's possible demise. It's backed itself into the same corner as the old Sega Saturn, the underdog in a three way fight with two giants. The rumored NX which there has been very little information of as of lately could be their Dreamcast, the end. We don't know, we can only hope that they make the right choices with the NX. I believe that in order for the NX to succeed in a market dominated by Sony and Microsoft, they would have to go above and beyond what the One and PS4 are capable of, win back third party support, and add features that the people actually want. They need to cut the cutesy nonsense and get more serious about everything, bottom line. I'm not saying this because I want to destroy the image Nintendo has built over the years but I want to see them last. Keep what works, but build something that truly appeals to everyone and make it justifiable over the competition. Nintendo isn't my go to for gaming but I don't want to see a company that made history fall to pieces because they didn't understand the market. I hope the NX changes that, it might win not just me, but a lot of people over but only if it does the right things.

As for the Wii U, I'd go as far as to call it underrated. It's a solid system at it's core but it's too quirky and it lacks what the majority of gamers want in a new system. The PS4 and the One are much better systems overall plus the fact that they aren't that much more expensive hurts the Wii U even more. Actually I'd go as far to say the 360 and the PS3 are a bit better too and that makes it really hard for me to recommend the Wii U for a general audience. I'd probably lean towards the 3DS over the Wii U if you really want to play Nintendo but if you have to have a Wii U, at least know what exactly you're getting it for, otherwise it's a bit of a waste. I'm going to continue to give it chance and hopefully it's one of those things that get's better with age. It may be flawed, but it has a bit of charm.

The Wii U currently costs $299.99.

Is It Better Than?

Xbox One- No, at first the Xbox One was a system plagued by a ton of poor decisions. Now with it's fresh new UI, and plethora of new features, it continues to gain ground away from the Wii U. It's more powerful, has some great first party games and a strong third party lineup. The One is the way to go over the Wii U but the PS4 might be your cup of tea instead.

Playstation 4- No, the PS4 is very similar to the One if terms of features and power. The main reasons you would want to buy either one is for certain exclusives but either system is very good. As for the PS4 versus the Wii U, it's virtually no contest once again.