Nintendo Are You There?

Hello, Nintendo...where are you? Seriously this is how I feel right now. We are now in November 2013 and basicallly have not seen much from Nintendo in months. In the past two months the Wii U has had great games release like:
1. Pikmin 3
2. Wonderful 101
3. Rayman Legends
4. Deus Ex Human Revolution Directors Cut
5. The Legend of Zelda, The Wind Waker HD
6. Batman Arkham Origins
7. Assassin's Creed 4 Black Flag
8. Call of Duty Ghosts
9. Sonic The Lost World
10. Lego Marvel SuperHeros

I'm on Wii U, but nobody knows

That's the main games, but there others as well. So where the hell is Nintendo? The only commercials I've seen for any of these games was Sonic Lost World, and I'm sure Sega paid for those. All these third-party games are heavy hitters. I've seen both Sony and Microsoft have commercials for all of them. Yet Nintendo doesn't even make a commercial for its first-party games.

The average person has no idea that any of these games are on the Wii U. That's somewhat an over statement; most people don't even know that the Wii U exists. It's been out almost one year now and it's still practically unknown to the average consumer. It seems like Nintendo doesn't want the Wii U to sell. Iwata and Reggie keep trying to tell people the Wii U will be fine, but it's getting harder to believe.



The Wii U has an amazing line up of games right now. If Nintendo would just tell people about them the Wii U would be flying off the shelfes. I just beat Batman Arkham Origins (very fun game). Now I'm playing Wind Waker HD. Once I finish Wind Waker I'll get either Assassin's Creed 4 or COD Ghosts. This is what most every gamer would love to do, play the best first and third party titles back to back on one system. All Nintendo has to do is tell people that they can do that with the Wii U.

Batman Arkham Origins on Wii U

So hows the new Batman on the Wii U? It's pretty damn good. I wont go into detail about the game, since there are a lot of reviews that will tell you about the story. However I will say that if you enjoyed the previous two games you will also like Origins. Nothing was changed to the game formula, and to me that's a very good thing. The old saying "if it ain't broke don't fix it" comes to mind.

The real question is how does it look and play on the Wii U. Well the game looks awesome on the Wii U. It really is a good looking game. I did notice a few weird shadows, but in an open world game that's not abnormal. Also during some of the cut scenes there is a little slow down. Nothing major, but it is a little jarring. Other than that the game looks great. 

When I first started playing Batman Arkham Origins I used the gamepad. I actually used the gamepad until my battery died, then I switched to the pro controller. While the pro controller felt good and worked fine; I really missed the gamepad. When Using the gamepad you have access to the map at all times. You can not set a way point with the map, but it's still nice to have the map handy. This is especially handy when finding Enigma's stations. 

Also during the crime scene analysis you can use the gamepad to view the crime scene. I personally didn't care to do that, but it's a cool feature. When your in the batcave the gamepad will act as a finger print scanner. It's not important but still it's kinda fun to scan your finger and see it welcome Bruce Wayne. 

The Wii U version does not have the multi player that both the 360 and PS3 have, but from the reviews I've read that's probably a good thing. Plus it's $10 cheaper than those versions. If you like the Batman games then this one is no different. It looks great and it plays great. Don't be afraid to buy this. You will not be disappointed.

UPDATE
I felt like I needed to address some issues I found. On completing the game and going through the city I've experienced a lot of slow down. I also had one hard freeze. Neither of these make the game unplayable, but it does greatly detract from the overall experience.