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Summary
Noah interviews Evan for all his Wii U launch, hardware and games impressions, and Evan grills Noah for his lack of the system.
You can send in feedback to showmail at nintendojo dot com, facebook.com/nintendojo or twitter.com/nintendojo! You can also leave a comment below!
Recording Date
November 19, 2012
Hosts
Noah and Evan
Show Contents
00:00:00 Introduction and Game With Us Stories
00:03:16: Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion Update
00:04:24 Evan’s Wii U Saga: From Pick Up to Hardware to Miiverse and the Games
00:53:00 Why Noah Has No Wii U
01:10:15 Listener Feedback
01:33:49 Conclusion
01:35:44 Credits
01:37:33 Total Length
Links
looking forward to hear why noah has no wiiU section
hi guys i have a question, if you are playing wii U games like super mario bros U or Call of duty black ops II on the gamepad, what happens to the sound? it goes trough the controller or can i play the game on the controller but listen the sound trough my soundsystem?.
great show guys. I’m am really enjoying Miiverse and the Wii U in general. It definitely has some faults that needs to be ironed out. All in all, the positives outweigh the negatives imo. Will there be a Wii U gamenight in the future?
(I’m posting on my gamepad, the browser is awesome!)
Evan, have you had any freezing during Nintendo land gameplay? I had some at times. What is it going to take, Noah…? A new Retro Studios/Nintendo produced Star Fox game? A Mysterious E3 title next year? Name your title. Do you think that since some third party games are downloadable on eshop, you’ll get points from the Club Nintendo program?
A Purple Wii U! Obviously!
Also, this freezing happened to my friends Wii U, a couple times in a row. We just disconnected it from the internet for a couple of hours, and now it works with Internet just fine now. NintendoLand’s mini games are offline anyway.
Just a side note (comment spamming again, sorry!), when we noticed this issue, we went on MiiVerse and instantly found the advice we needed to get playing again. I’m beginning to like-ahem, YEAH! it already!
Please, on the GamePad, place your thumbs on the + Control Pad and ABXY face buttons.
Now, let’s say that you’re playing a fast-paced 2D fighting game, like the King of Fighters, Marvel vs Capcom, or Street Fighter.
Just how comfortable is it for you to hit all 4 shoulder buttons (L, R, ZL, ZR) WITHOUT moving your thumbs from their starting places?
Do you have to stretch?
Are the shoulder buttons in good or bad positions for 2D fighting games?
Comfort: 7.5/10 (no stretching needed)
The shoulder buttons are placed well enough that you can access them swiftly and easily.
However, if you really are serious about fighting games you are better off getting a fight stick, I heard the Tatsunoko vs Capcom fightstick for the Wii works great on the Wii U. (Wii Remote required)
I believe Hori released a Wii U specific one too. http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2012/10/hori_set_to_release_wii_u_arcade_stick_at_launch
Also, the I played with the Wii U GamePad without ever feeling discomfort of any kind. I never noticed it’s buttons, which must be a good thing. And Metroid Blast is a pretty button heavy attraction too.
I never had to use my chin on the right analog stick on the Wii U (AHEM, AHEM, Uncharted 3!).
All right, here are MY Wii U (Mainly NintendoLand) impressions!
Now, I didn’t get it (Sad Face), BUT I just stayed over a few days with a friend of mine who bought it. We were even able to get four people and controllers to play some of the multiplayer games to their fullest potential!
First off, the games we spent the most time on were Zelda: Battle Quest, Metroid: Blast, and Luigi’s Ghost Mansion, with a dash of Mario Chase near the end.
Zelda we mostly just played 2 player, one archer and one swordsman, before the rest of the party arrived. I wouldn’t say it was the strongest game, in my opinion, and they could have gone just a tad bit farther in tickling my nostalgia bone, though that Link to the Past intro theme was almost enough in itself. In terms of audio, it was brilliant, standouts being Lost Woods, Astral Observatory, and the aforementioned TItle Theme from ALttP, but the graphics weren’t indicative enough of their supposed locations. It just didn’t look very Zelda, I should say. The gameplay was fun, though a little enemy variety would have been nice.
Metroid Blast was awesome, and I have a hard time finding a fault with it. I thought it would have the Mario Party-esque 1 Vs 3 balance issues, with either the solo player or the team being too powerful, but both the ship and the foot soldiers balanced out well. The ship has more mobility and fire power, but it is a bigger target. The on-foot Samuses, while given certain limited options for dodging and movement, as well as a smaller target size, have a slower movement speed, and have to keep an eye on the ship’s line of fire and stick close to cover. The option to change the number of lives and the surprising number of stages and modes kept us coming back to Blast. Maybe a few more options would have been nice though …
Mario Chase was pure fun, but I think everyone has talked about it plenty since it’s initial E3 showing. I thought the camera on the tablet player was a nice touch, though with certain players we only saw they eyes and the tops of their heads thanks to their preferred controller posture. We also laughed a bit at the overhead map recap, especially during the one match when the Mario player ran in circles behind a far pillar nearly the entire game. We assumed that he was constantly on the move just because we could hear his footsteps from the pad, but boy were we wrong.
Luigi’s Ghost Mansion was my last highlight, and possibly my favorite of the bunch, if only because of how many times it made me shriek like a little girl! The ghost seemed overpowered at first, but once you figure out how to work as a team with the other players, the game becomes as balanced as the others. You just have to remember what every horror movie ever has taught you: stay together! I thought the battery system was a little annoying at first, but I realized why it was necessary when it occurred to me that you could just stand in a corner, turn on your light and instantly reach a stale mate.
Anyway, while I thought NintendoLand overall was awesome, I think it was a mistake to package all of these mini games all together like this. I think it would have been cool if each of these attractions were their own eShop game, games that could sink or swim on their own merits. I would have totally payed 10 bucks on Metroid: Blast, Pikmin Adventure, Mario Chase, or Luigi’s Ghost Mansion, and maybe slightly lower prices for some of the simpler games. Maybe Nintendo could have packaged each Deluxe console with some eShop credit that could be used to buy one or two of the NintendoLand mini games. Not only would this have forced them to provide a little more storage on the systems, but it would have encouraged more people who are under the impression that Nintendo won’t support the eShop like Microsoft and Sony support their online stores. That probably would have meant no NintendoLand hub, though… would it have been worth it?