Watch Nintendo's demo video of my experiences embedded above, or click here for the HD option.
Despite my high expectations being let-down during Nintendo’s media briefing where they unveiled Wii U, I was still excited to get my hands on the system - or at least on that new controller.

From the stage presentation, and released images, it didn’t look all that comfortable, and in fact, pretty cumbersome. So I was surprised when holding it that it actually felt pretty good, and was a decent weight (Games On Net’s Bennett Ring complained it was too heavy, but we all know that’s because he’s just weak :P). Moreover, the two thumb sliders (analogue sticks, but they’re more like the 3DS) were quite comfortable, which was another nice surprise because I was worried about first-person and third-person controls on the system, while, equally surprising, the gyroscopic controls were incredibly tight, like, 1:1 tight.

As for the touch-pad, I didn’t see enough software pushing it as a tool on the show-floor, so it’s tough to say whether it’s responsiveness is as good as, say, the iPad, but the little interaction I did have with it seemed okay. We’ll have to reserve judgement though, because Nintendo have gone with a resistive screen instead of Apple and HTC’s much preferred capacitive screen.



Still, at 6.2 inches, it’s a decent size and at that resolution, gaming looked crisp enough. It’s likely this was done to keep costs low, and might equally have something to do with bandwidth from the actual Wii U console unit, but Nintendo is still being very tight-lipped about a lot of the technical details, so we’ll have to wait and see what else they reveal down the track.

Aside from the touch screen, the controller’s gyroscopic motion control and the two thumb sliders, there’s also two trigger buttons, two shoulder buttons, a D-pad, the usual A, B, X, Y face buttons and a Home and Start and Select buttons. It also has a face camera, speakers and a microphone, all making it a veritable handheld as well as a controller.

Most of the above is easy to manage, despite it’s wide size, and it pretty much reminded me of a tablet crossed with an Xbox 360 controller, which really isn’t too bad considering. The first title we jumped into was a three-player competitive/co-operative affair called Battle Mii. Essentially I had the new Wii U controller, and Dan and our Nintendo rep had Wii Remotes. With the controller, my view of the battlefield was confined to the touch-pad, but I had motion control of a mini Samus Aran spaceship with a Mii in it. Dan and the rep were Miis on the ground, and they’re view-point was on the TV running the game, in split-screen.

The ship, it turns out, is more powerful and obviously has the ability to fly, but elevation isn’t necessarily a good thing when you have tiny Mii characters below trying to shoot you out of the sky. A time-limit saw Dan and the rep having to take me down within three-minutes, or me them, and I could charge up my weapon for a more devastating affect, but it meant I was an easier target due to the charging distraction. Flying was also handled by a combination of the circle pads and motion-control and, to be honest, was a little tough to get used to. If anything like this ends up in the final release window for software, I hope there’s an inclusion for traditional control as well.



Visually this little demo was pretty cool, and all Metroid themed, but barely showed off the power of the system. Still, I’d be lying if I wasn’t slightly happy to be finally playing a Nintendo title in HD. Overall it was a good demonstration of just one multiplayer application for the Wii U, but in this multi-platform development environment, titles like this might end up few and far between, or from Nintendo in-house alone.

Next up I played a music game featuring a pirate ship full of pirate archers firing sticky arrows at me. The idea was to use the Wii U controller as your shield against the arrows which would come from left, right, centre and up. Based on the beat, I would move from whichever direction the arrows were fired, raise the controller, block the arrows (as indicated visually on the controller’s touch-screen), then thrust down to remove them and ‘reset’ for the next batch. Again, it was an interesting application, but just had that typical Wii party game feel to it that hasn’t interested me since wearing myself out on the first Wii Sports when Wii initially released.

The final piece of software we had a chance to interact with was Chase Mii, another multiplayer title that leveraged the combination of the Wii U controller and Wii Remotes. Here, the person with the Wii U controller had their own screen and played as a little Mii running away from everyone else who had the TV to look at. The difference was on the TV, the view was more traditional third-person 3D, while on the Wii U controller, it was birds-eye-view. So I had the controller and also had a head-start on everyone else, and they were all essentially ‘it’. If you’ve ever played Pac Man Vs. you know what I’m talking about. The cool thing here is that this was a five-player game, with four people using Wii Remotes and one on the Wii U. Pretty neat, but again, just a party example of the system’s potential application, and not something that would really work in a core single-player experience.

Before leaving the demo area though, I also made sure to check out both the Legend of Zelda real-time graphics demo, which was pretty cool. It was excellent to finally see a highly detailed Link in HD, running at 1080p, but it wasn’t quite the visual leap people have been suggesting the system is capable of. Obviously it’s early days yet, and I’ll play a Zelda title on this machine if it looks even half as good as I saw (being the Zelda fanboy I am), but i really want to see what the machine is capable of graphically down the track.



We also took a look at the Japanese Garden demo, which was an interactive graphics demo, but you really only had control over the camera. There was some impressive stuff happening with bloom lighting, god rays, water, snow and more. But nothing we haven’t really seen on either of the other consoles. The wow factor really stems from this being a Nintendo console finally capable of doing this sort of thing, but it was hardly the most impressive thing. Again, we’ll need to see how this fares down the track in the right technical hands.

In all, I was more impressed when I walked out than when I walked in, but I’m still not fully sold on it. The announced software line-up from third-parties is as barebones as they come, and I’ll have likely played them all on other systems by the time the Wii U comes out, so we really need to see a greater list of more compelling games, especially from Nintendo. The days of waiting half a year or more between in-house releases from them needs to come to an end. They have the most recognisable franchises in the history of the biz, and if they want to make an impact with Wii U and recapture the core gaming market, while leveraging the mainstream audience they’ve nabbed, they need to utilise them to their fullest. I can see solid potential for, say, a Legend of Zelda title or a Metroid Prime title with the Wii U controller; adding a greater sense of control and immersion, but I, and many more like me, need to no longer imagine or hope, but believe from Nintendo’s own proof. One thing’s for sure, the lead up between now and when it’s released next year is going to need to be proactive and communicative. But for now, we’re intrigued.