Kifa

I don't understand really why would anyone want Doom 3 on Wii U when it can be purchased cheaply for PC and runs on virtually anything more modern than a refridgerator by now... Seriously, why? I am a Wii U owner and I understand the platform support thing, but unless something special was added to the game I wouldn't buy it for the second time. Heck, I'm not even considering BFG because it really does not give me anything worth the price over the standard version...

I am currently in the process of replaying Pikmin 1 in an attempt to leave no Pikmin behind. After 6 days my account is clear, so it shouldn't go bad. I'm pretty sure I've not left a single one during my last playthrough, but I might be mistaken.

That said - I always tend to loose a few in combat, especially when my Bomb Squad mixes in. After almost a week of ingame time I have 8 casualties, one of whom was a brave yellow who, chased by frenzied Bulborb, detonated his bomb and thus saved many lives while forfeiting his own. He died a hero... T_T

What I'm trying to say - Pikmin is by far the only "action strategy" game that makes you care for every single of your "soldiers". And that is probably what makes it so awesome.

I was afraid that they won't put any time constraints on exploration (which made Pikmin 2 a little bit worse than the original to me, as I like when something pushes me forward in a game), but reading about the provisions eased my worries a little, though I imagine that it's very easy to simply stock up on food early on and be safe (wrong assumption?).
The graphics look a little disappointing on some screenshots, especially the fact that apparently the game runs at 720p only, and all those flat surfaces with low-res textures just don't do Wii U hardware justice. I hope that this runs at 60 frames per second, otherwise I'll need to whine even more. ;P
All that said - I'm buing a disc once I have some spare funds, which may or may not happen at the beginning of August...

Played the early demo on my PC (with a gamepad, for those who will jump out pointing out the... "obvious disadvantage of playing with a keyboard") and the game did not catch my interest, so it's a skip for me. That said - world switching mechanic is quite interesting.

@KaiserGX - And what kind of reaction would you expect? It's good they reversed their decision, but the bad press is already there, at least for me, just because how absurd this is.

@theblackdragon - What kind of "protection" are you talking about? And from what? Was there any violation happening there? Because I surely can see none...

Seriously - can anyone name any other example of a company shutting down a tournament in which their game was used "just because"? Because I surely can't, and I wouldn't even ever try to imagine anyone doing that. The amount of bad press, Internet rage and (possibly) customer loss would be just unthinkable.

And yet somebody at Nintendo thought it was a good idea to shut down a 11-year old Meelee tourney. I am starting to be really embarassed of being an advocate of their systems - company which does such things is on the verge of being not worthy of supporting.

And the fact that they backpedalled on it does not help at all. ;/

The Android version looks pretty ugly on the Google Play screenshots (I've not downloaded it yet to test despite the game being "free"), nowhere near as good as the video here. So it's either a, ahem, 'target render', or it was improved. I just hope the framerate is not abysmal as on the trailer... ;/

I remember having a simple slot car track back when I was a kid, so I might be interested. Might be...

Kokuga is an immediate buy for me. I think I'm going to go get a eShop card right about now.

Nice atmosphere, smooth framerates, well-balanced weapons, uninspired enemies, repetetive environments and difficulty spikes - I had mixed feelings about "Moon" since I bought it a while back. It's a functional FPS, even a good one at times, but at the same time it does many things wrong IMHO and gets a little bit more credit than it deserves.

I'd like to see a sequel, but Renegade Kid would have to iron out some problems with the original. 3DS is badly in need of FPS games, and this could actually turn out better than the episodic thing they are preparing right now. If they fixed some problems with the design.

I'm not buying the additional Plaza content any time soon because in my area there is literally noone to Streetpass, but the delay for US (where most 3DS owners would probably utilise the DLC to it's fullest) is baffling. I guess there could be some licensing issues, because - what else?

@SanderEvers Source? Because I can't find any information about Wii U discs being able to store more than 25GB of data, and certainly haven't seen anything about dual layer discs.

@Tony_342 Modern GPU's have the ability to utilise texture compression, which allows four times the resolution without increasing the file size. As Wii U's graphics chip is based on (roughly) Radeon 5000 series of PC GPU's, it can not only decompress textures on the fly with 4:1 ratio, but also use normal map compression (3Dc). Thus, I'd not worry much about graphics quality here. ;]

@Mahe I feel excluded...

Seriously though - what would everyone expect, a 40MB limit again? Still the game is far less than the supposed Wii U disc capacity (22GB), so I guess that it's Wii roots are still evident even on technical level.

But that does not change the fact that Pikmin 3 is a day one purchase for me without any doubt.

I don't have Angry Birds installed on my cell phone. I don't have Angry Birds installed on my tabled. I don't have the 3DS edition nor for PC in any form.

And I will certainly NOT buy this for neither my Wii nor WiiU. Gosh, what is so appealing in this pointless and primitive title that EVERYONE on the planet seem to be loving it?! Just... What?!

@x-mas_mii Keyword: minority. I guess those people are very few compared to the whole number of 3DS owners, so it should not matter much.

Besides - many retail game cartriges contain firmware update and force it before the first use.

@ErnisDy Oh sure they can, but there are only so many ways you can bypass security and they will eventually run out of options. And every exploit can be patched, unless it's a major flaw in security architecture, and that is unlikely because such a hole would have been discovered long ago.

Honestly I've never met any single person that used a flashcart to backup their original DS software. All I saw was enormous amounts of pirated content, but even more troubling was the fact that those people didn't really think they were doing anything wrong. "It's just a stupid small 'mobile' game, why would I pay for it?" they said...

It's great that Nintendo keeps the 3DS secure, and I hope that it will keep it that way right until the end of console's lifecycle. Way to go, N!

@Lobster I'd rather not make it, believe me.

Still, with all the great first- and second-party games coming and those few interesting third party efforts I think Wii U owners, myself included, will have their gaming timetables filled for the remainder of the year.

Step 1: Make a rushed, butchered port of the game for WiiU.
Step 2: Make said port a full-priced retail game.
Step 3: Complain about nonexistent sales and that you will never support the platform again.

This is what Wii was getting, and Wii U is getting exactly the same. I think the problem is not with the console as much as it is with mentality of developers...

@RupeeClock Well, that is silly-willy-nummy-nums. Nintendo clearly has little knowledge on how to design a logical way to buy stuff... Still, it does not work at all for me, one way or the other, so I'm waiting for the fix anyway. Maybe they will figure that out by the time...?

Mine reboots as soon as I try to purchase anything, and the Combo Pack is not even listed with the Sales Bunny... My population is 713 (with invitations, of course) and few of them got any hat somehow. Oh well, that probably saves me from spending my money on something I don't need at the moment.

I liked the time limit original Pikmin imposed on the player - the sense of being stranded on an alien planet with toxic atmosphere and life support failing was quite unique (I don't think there is anything similar in any game released so far) and I found Pikmin's 2 eased-out approach somewhat less appealing. Still - it's Pikmin. Still gonna buy it day one, if only for Flying Pikmin abuse...

Not bad, but a little on the forced side. Besides I counted on some random spontaneous posts, not a purpose-made series. Still, C for effort.

Time - gaming experts. Except not...

The Gamepad is mostly underused, that is true, but tell me - would you rather have a forced, illogical mechanics stuck onto it just for the sake of being there, or some simple functions that make subtle enchancements to the gameplay while not being overly intrusive? And what exactly would ditching the Gamepad do to improve Wii U status? Absolutely nothing, because it would get robbed of the single thing that sets it apart from competition.

@Yasume - Yes, doomed, indeed. I've heard exactly the same about 3DS back in 2011 and look where are we now. Wii U is just starting, and I am personally sick of all this negativity. Looking at how PS4 and (especially) XBone look now, I'd say Nintendo's home system has the most potential of the three. Would not touch MS or Sony system with a grapnel - I already have a decent PC...

Also, @Nintendolife - Just stop those articles. Unless of course you want people to stop reading this site...

@Lionsgate What "sense" are you talking about? New overpowered and imbalanced characters that make it easier for all Visa Warriors to beat opponents online?

With Zelda this would actually make sense - DLC can add whole new quests, and some games in the past already demonstrated that such addons can, in fact, be very good and worth their price.

All in all - it's all about execution, not the idea, and we'll have to wait to see what comes of it.

It is as though Wii U was not considered a "console" at all by publishers. Would be funny if it weren't so sad, to cite a classic...

I'm not sure about the lack of analogue triggers either. If any one of you ever drove a real car then you know that precise control over the amount of power coming from the engine and the brakes is crucial. Heck, even the clutch is essential, though I imagine most of US NLife readers never used a car with manual transmission... Bottom line - if that is going to be a sim, we'll need a new controller.

And no, right stick does not work as a trigger equivalent. At least not for me - i need to have something reminiscent of pedals, otherwise I'm just lost.

Making games from one series for so many years straight does not sound like a good thing, and I'm really interested in what Anouma could possible do with some other, brand new IP. Still - with the Wii U Zelda looming on the horizon I doubt he's getting the break any time soon... ;]

@PokeTune He. :] The nick has a long story. And I love me some Metroid that can't crawl for an avatar.

Also I really hope that Retro manages to produce something that will make jaws drop, and not some gimmick demonstration for the Wii U. They have a spotless record so far, but still...

@Midnight3DS I'll answer your question - on PC it is a year, maybe a year and a half as of now. And with that measure applied Latte IS several generations ahead of current-gens.

@Midnight3DS You sure you're not overreacting? The numbers themselves show us a GPU that is much, much more powerful than what X360 has onboard. It's 48 SPUs at 500 Mhz on MS console versus 320 SPUs at 550 Mhz on Nintendo machine, and I don't think that those are based on anything older than R700. That alone puts this GPU eons ahead of what Xenos was capable of. Of course there are other factors to that, but my point is - "several" is not completely unreasonable. And WiiU's CPU is an entirely different story altogether.

@PokeTune Well that is the problem with every Nintendo console since N64 - those are powerful machines, but few companies take advantage of that or even care, because it is commonly accepted that those are consoles for younger and casual gamers, so you don't have to put effort into your games. I figure we're going to see that power when big first- and second-party titles show up during E3.

@Shiryu Diablo 3 on 3DS is impossible due to the console being simply too weak.
As for Wii U - I guess Blizzard does not have interest in consoles in general, and PS3/PS4 outing is more of an experiment than something that will regularly happen.

Besides - why even want Diablo 3 on a console? It runs on almost every PC that is not coal-powered and is not all that expensive... Besides - it's worse than D2 or even D1, so... Yea, why even have it?

... And I still expect massive disappointment and final blow to WiiU.

Yes, I'm always that positive.

Good show! It is quite painful to read some Super Metroid Miiverse community posts, and it's good that somebody manages to get a laugh out of it and share it with us.

And to all who didn't get the joke here - y can't you crawl away? (Yes, that was bad, I apologise.)

@Einherjar They are not giving them out for free. A few were distributed that way to a limited number of studios to promote the system, but that's it. A devkit is an expensive piece of software and hardware, and no company would give away this stuff for free. Shareholders would rip executives apart...

Hmm, a Sonic kart-racer with Mario universe characters would be a direct competition for upcoming Mario Kart U. What came to my mind is that next MK will simply include Sonic universe characters and courses...? O.o

Nope. Just nope.

@RainbowGazelle I could not care less for Sonic... As for the dates - great, but still far away. What is there for us to play during summer anyway?

That was... depressing. The console is struggling, software support is nonexistent, and they do what? Delay titles, keep it quiet about games they promised back at E3 2011, and publish DLC as standalone disks... This. Is. Just. Sick.

I'm really starting to regret ever picking up Wii U... ;/

@PvtOttobot Wrong. I first played Super Metroid when I was 26, and that was two years ago. I was never stuck and I've not used any online FAQ or walkthrough. It's just that modern gamers expect games to show them everything they have to do with big, flashing arrows, and reward them for making a step with a pointless achievement.

@Conzo The problem here is that they are stuck on the very beginning of the game, which means that they probably won't be able to advance anywhere further without being led by the hand. I don't believe Super Metroid offers anything to gamers trying to play it that way.

Also as NinjaWaddleDee said - SM is leagues behind first Metroid in terms of difficulty, so... Yea.

And if I see one more post calling Samus a "Metroid", and a "he", I swear I'm gonna frag somebody through standard TCP/IP. Just saying... ;/

I'll keep my guard up an remain sceptical. WiiU has disappointed me so far, mainly because of no apparent interest from Nintendo to breathe some life in the system. And as I've already stated many times - mobile conversions do not solve the problem for me. If I wanted to play those, I'd use my tablet... They better give us something tomorrow... ;/

I already have SM on the Wii VC, but not getting it for that price should be punishable by law. Full stop.

Also the RE:R demo seems to be a no brainer - I wonder how it will compare to the 3DS original screen-to-screen...?

So they are really trying to release it onto every platform imaginable? Great...

If I was to buy it again (I had it on my PS3 before I sold it a few years back), I'd still get the WiiWare version because of local multiplayer...

For this type of game retail will probably never happen. Still - eShop release almost guarantees a lower price, which is good for us all I guess...

@Midnight3DS Probably "Tempest 2000". It had a bit similar graphics style.

As for the game - I'll still pass (provided that this version ever comes to Europe). Endless racers are not my kind of games...

I'd like to remind everyone that "overclocking" updates already happened in the past. Namely - the PSP originally had it's clocks capped at 222 Mhz. Later on Sony released firmware update that allowed both CPU's to run at 333 Mhz no problem.

Thing is - games written for 222 still used that speed (unless hacked, of course), so they didn't benefit from that bump. It could be the same case with the WiiU - software may be able to select CPU operating speeds, or even the number of active cores, so we may not see any performance gains in existing titles. But that's just theory, we have no real evidence...

That said - boosting the CPU by 2 Ghz on a humble cooling solution WiiU has is highly unrealistic. Underclocking is one thing, but even with standard voltages the temps will go up because of clock increase alone.

I'll put it this way - if somebody bought a WiiU to play smartphone games, then he or she is not quite right in the head. Most of those "quality" mobile games are not even close to the level of quality that we, handheld gamers, are used to. Shadowgun, often cited as "Gears of War for smartphones" is really a mediocre game, with nice graphics and terrible mechanics, dumb enemies and catastrophically linear levels. Those other little titles I'd not even bother to pay for - it is not the kind of experience I want on a home console.

If this smartphone-port trend continues, I'll seriously consider getting rid of my WiiU. It's not what was announced back in 2011, it's not what any serious Nintendo fan expects. If I want to play smartphone/tablet crap, I'll just use my smartphone or tablet...

I'll need to pass this week. Already spent too much on videogames over the past month and the day has only 24 hours... Still, Damrey and new Minis games are on the top of my "to buy" list.

I'd play that, with sound off. Seriously, this... noise... is hurting my btrain. I prefer my shmups with audio that does not kill... ;P

@SCAR392 You're right, my bad.
@firebowser I've noticed that it does not actually consume additional space in WiiU's flash, at least not on my Basic model.

@SetupDisk Hmm, my drive has no power-saving mechanism like that, so this might be the cause. Also - WiiU supports up to 1TB AFAIR, so you are wasting a third of your HDD. But that would not cause the lockups.

With some drives it's possible to disable the auto-parking feature, maybe you could try that?

@cornishlee No, the console completely powers off as soon as it finishes downloading and installing stuff, at least that is how mine behaved.

I think the future update will add the proper SpotPass behaviour, that is: keeping WiFi and the ARM core powered at all times to perform background tasks while most of the system is off. This would still consume little energy - 1 to 3 watts for the controller/ram and another 1 watt for WiFi maybe, so it would not increase electricity bills much.

And I agree - it's not a proper "standby mode", perhaps they are coining the term in advance or something.

Also - age probably has nothing to do with anything here. I'm also puzzled by how this thing works exactly (all my responses are "logical speculations", based on my limited knowledge on how such systems work and how Wii behaved), so until Nintendo makes it clear, we're running blind. Still gonna keep my "standby functions" enabled and see what transpires in the long run. ;]

@SetupDisk Odd problems you're having, and brand of external HDD should not matter as long as it obeys all USB Mass Storage standards. I have an external USB 2.0 casing from Welland, coupled with old 160GB Western Digital drive from AAJS series (neither is on any "WiiU compatibility list") and all runs smoothly. I'd rather blame messed up microcontroller in the external HDD casing or damaged drive...