Nintendo Wii U
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Product Features

Genre
Consoles
Publisher
Nintendo
Release Date
November 30, 2012
Available Platforms
Nintendo Wii U

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Nintendo Wii U 32GB Premium Pack Black

Product Description Discover a wealth of exciting new ways to enjoy home entertainment with Wii U, Nintendo's next home console. With a revolutionary new touch screen controller, precision motion controls, and full HD graphics, a whole new world of play styles and gaming possibilities is on the horizon. The time is coming to truly expand your idea about what a game console is - and can be. The Premium Pack includes the 32GB Wii U console, the amazing new GamePad controller, the Nintendo Land game and more. A New Wii Console Experience According to Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, "Wii U redefines the structure of home entertainment by fundamentally changing how the TV, the game console and the Internet function and interact together," he continues, "The experience enabled by Wii U and its new...

  • George Orton February 11, 2013 WIIU
    ****

    To understand the appeal of the Wii U, you really have to play it.

    OK, so that might sound like a cop-out as the first sentence of a review. But in the case of Nintendo's latest console - the first entrant in the next generation of consoles that is also expected to include a new Xbox and a Playstation 4 - it's the truth. Because the Wii U doesn't have the obvious appeal of the original Wii, which instantly captured imaginations around the world with its motion-sensor baton-waving technology (and which was almost immediately copied by Nintendo's rivals). And it's not even as though the Wii U represents a huge leap forward in terms of graphics, with most of its games looking pretty similar in terms of visuals to what we've already got on the Xbox 360 and PS3.

    What it has instead, though, is a lot of smaller, subtler innovations that combine to make this not only a worthy successor to the Wii, but also a forerunner for features that are sure to become far more commonplace on consoles in the near future.

    Chief among these, and most obvious, is the revolutionary design of the WiiU controller, which incorporates a second display-screen into the gamepad itself. This might not be the very first time a company has tried this - remember the primitive Tamagotchi-style Visual Memory Units on the Sega Dreamcast? - but it's certainly the first time it's been done with this kind of style or sophistication.

    Firstly, this means that the controller can be used as a secondary display that can serve backup functions for games being played on a full-size screen (for example, the controller screen might display a map of the area you're exploring on the main TV screen, or provide an inventory of items that you can flick through without having to interrupt the main action on your telly).

    But secondly - and more significantly - the Wii U also allows you to transfer the events of the main screen onto the smaller screen, allowing your TV to be used for something else entirely. This means that if somebody else comes into the room and wants to watch TV, you don't have to stop playing your game - you can simply transfer it onto the smaller screen in the controller and carry on playing it there. It's such a simple idea, but implementing it like this is a stroke of genius, especially for families like ours (where it's not uncommon to see fights over what's on TV) - and it's definitely an innovation that I can see taking off for other consoles in future.

    However, the sophistication of the controller does make for one major drawback, which is that anyone wishing to play two-player games in which each player has their own gamepad is probably going to have to shell out a pretty hefty sum of money for a second controller. None of the available Wii U packs comes with two gamepads (presumably because they'll be so expensive), and they aren't available to buy separately yet, so admittedly this is a bit of a hypothetical problem at this point. But you can be sure that when more than one child is playing on the Wii U, there are going to be arguments over who has the "proper" controller and who has to put up with having a (lesser) second controller without a screen (which are more traditional in design, and which are already available to buy separately - I've already picked one of those up so that we can play multiplayer games more easily).

    Other advances over the original Wii include the Wii U's enhanced graphical capabilities: yes, the Wii U sees Nintendo finally enter the world of high-definition graphics, with an HD display that's as good as anything you'd see on the Xbox or PS3. And an extra bonus for Nintendo afficionados is that that Wii U is backwardly-compatible, meaning it'll play all your old Wii games (although unlike the Wii, it doesn't play old GameCube games - so anyone who still enjoys a blast on the GameCube's Star Wars: Rogue Leader or Super Mario Sunshine will probably need to hang on to one of their old consoles for a little while longer).

    The final important thing to mention about the Wii U is the launch lineup of games, which to be honest, could have been stronger. A lot of them are kid-oriented titles - like "Nintendo Land", which comes free with the more expensive 32GB Wii U package and which is a great way to show off the system's capabilities. Like Wii Sports on the original Wii, it features a lot of mini-games that demonstrate the possibilities offered by the new console, including the secondary functions of the Wii U controller that I mentioned earlier. But aside from that, the Wii U's catalogue mostly seems to consist of straight ports of existing games (the usual selection of sports and action-y stuff) - although there are one or two games that the Wii U can boast as an exclusive, like the wonderfully fun New Super Mario Bros. U (which is as enjoyable as you'd expect a Mario game to be - especially in stunning HD).

    The only 'adult' game I've bought for myself is ZombiU, which is fun but not particularly special (and which I'll cover later in more detail in a separate review). And whilst other grown-up games are available - like Assassin's Creed 3 or a beefed-up version of Batman: Arkham City - I'd frankly still rather play stuff like that on my existing Xbox 360, as the chunky and distinctive controller design for the WiiU isn't quite as well-tailored to those kinds of games. But to be honest, it's clear that Nintendo isn't trying to corner the same market that the Xbox and Playstation, and the Wii U works much better as a family console (like the original Wii) than it does a "serious" games machine.

    Since buying my family a WiiU for Christmas, I've held off on writing this review because I wanted to get used to the system before writing down my thoughts on it. Like the Wii, it's definitely a console that takes some getting used to, and which probably has a way to go before it fulfils its true potential, as developers work out how to make the best use of its technology. Whilst it's a little worrying to hear recent reports about the underwhelming sales figures for the console, and about the planned Wii U-exclusive games that are now being repurposed as multi-platform titles (like Ubisoft's Rayman Legends), I'm hoping that more consumers will still be enthusiastic to try the Wii U, and realise why it's such a fun console. Because there's undeniably a huge amount of potential here, and if enough games exploit that, then we could be looking at another success story on the same scale as the original Wii.

    But as I said at the start, the appeal of the Wii U isn't as immediately obvious as the Wii, and people really need to have a go on it to understand why it's worth a look. Hopefully my review has encouraged you to do that, and as one of the early-adopters of this console I feel it's my duty to encourage others to jump on board. If you're a lover of Nintendo or a gamer who wants a console that the whole family can enjoy, then look no further - but if you're an adult gamer who steered away from the original Wii because it was more of a novelty toy than a "proper" console, then admittedly you're probably not going to find much to change your mind here.