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.

GameStick is Coming Soon

It seems like Android consoles are pretty popular right now. By "popular" I mean multiple companies are making them and shipping them out soon. Whether or not any of these will be successful is yet to be seen, but GameStick looks like it could be a contender.

 

 GameStick is being developed by PlayJam. It was funded by Kickstarter and it made $650,000, which surpassed it initial goal. It was originally going to release in April 2013, but after being so successful they had to delay it's release. Amazon.com has it listed for an August 26, 2013 release date.

 

 

 

Here are the Specs for the GameStick as listed by Amazon

• Includes: 1 GameStick HDMI Console + Bluetooth Controller
• Easy to navigate user interface with access to Android games at 1080p
• Under the hood: ARM Cortex A9 CPU / MALI 400 GPU
• Storage: 8GB internal flash storage (expandable to 32GB via SDMicro)
• Connectivity: 802.11b/g/n WiFi / Bluetooth 4.0

You get all of this for only $79.99 ($20 cheaper than an Ouya).

What really stands out about the GameStick is it's portability. All you do is plug in the HDMI dongle to your HDTV and you are ready to play.

GameStick is based on Android architecture, however it has it's own UI built specially for it. It looks nice and easy to use, but I'll have to play around with one to know how well it actually works.

One downside to the GameStick is that it wont use the GooglePlay App store. This means you will need to repurchase games you own. Also game selection could be limited since they must be approved by PlayJam. PlayJam has said that it has over a hundred developers who say they want to make games for it. So hopefully they will make good on their promise and keep the games coming.

We will have to wait and see if the GameStick is successful. It looks promising and hopefully it will deliver.

Injustice DLC on Wii U

This has been out for a few days, but just a reminder to those who may want it. Injustice Gods Among Us on Wii U finally has dlc. This brings it mostly up to par with the PS3 and 360 versions. Hopefully all new dlc will also release on Wii U(and on the same day).

Wii U's Best Feature

Sometimes I forget why I bought my Wii U. There was one main reason I bought it, for that awesome tablet controller. Most games really haven't used the Wii U's tablet in any original way. Most companies just throw a map and inventory screen on it. Actually both of these come in handy while playing a lot more than you'd think. It's nice to be able to look down at the screen and see how much ammo you have, or where you are on a bigger map. Plus having these on the map free's up the screen of clutter.

However the main reason I like the tablet controller is for the off screen play. In case you don't know what this is I'll explain. If the game supports off screen play (and most do) you can send the picture from the TV to the gamepad and play the full game on the tablet. The screen is a good size so most games this works fine on. This works with two player games as well. Player one can play on the tv, while player 2 can use the gamepad screen. This way both players have their own screen. To be honest I really like playing on the tablet.

So you may ask "why do I need to play on the pad while I have a TV"? Well I'll give you an example. Last night I was playing Injustice on my Wii U. I had the game on my monitor and the moves list on the tablet screen. My wife wanted to use my PC (it's faster than her laptop and I have a 26 inch monitor). So I just sent the the game to the gamepad and kept playing. I've done this plenty of times to share the TV(monitor) or just so I can lay in bed(or couch) and keep playing.

This alone is a great reason to own a Wii U. It really is a great feature. It's hard to tell you why the gamepad is so great. If you haven't played a Wii U go the store and demo it. After a few minutes of playing you will really like the controller tablet.