Wii U: Games

Assassin's Creed III

I got this game about a month ago and have been playing it increasingly more ever since then. I've never played an Assassin's Creed game before, but took a chance on this, as it did look good, and was reasonably priced (£26 from Amazon). My first impressions weren't that great, as the early parts of the game are like one long, drawn-out tutorial, and weren't very exciting, and were either too straight-forward in the missions (i.e. 'walk with this person'), or too vague (i.e. 'take this person to the docks', when the docks cover about half of the map). Fortunately, at about Sequence 6 (of 12) of the main story, the game becomes much more open, and there is a lot more freedom and side missions to undertake, and it becomes a lot more interesting and fun. If you are someone only interested in doing the main story rather than grinding away on the side missions/trading/etc, then I wouldn't bother getting this game. If you're willing to explore the rather massive world of this game, it's worth sticking with. My only other criticism of the game is that the combat system seems kind of clunky after having played Batman (see below) first; I don't know if I would feel the same if I had never played Batman, but it can get frustrating, especially when you're fighting a group of people, that your character doesn't always seem to be respond to what you're pressing, and the randomness of whether a sword attack is successful or not.

Batman: Arkham City (Armored Edition)

An enhanced port of the game already available on other platforms, featuring improved graphics and combat AND with all the dlc built-in, this is considered something of a modern classic, and having played it, I would have to agree as this is a consistently excellent and very deep game. The story is great, the combat system is quite possibly better than in any game I've ever played before… pretty much everything about this game is brilliant. And with all the side missions, dlc, Riddler trophies, challenges and campaigns etc, there is a lot to do here. I've done over 50 hours on this game and am only 74% complete (though to be fair, it has said 74% complete for quite a while now, despite me having done a lot more stuff since; I think its calculations may be stuck/incorrect). This is perhaps my favourite Wii U game so far, and possibly even one of my favourite games ever, it really is that good, and I am planning on going back over the summer and completing the more difficult story+ mode.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

Like all Call of Duty games, this has a rather straightforward (and boring) single player campaign and much more exciting online multiplayer game. I haven't even bothered finishing the campaign mode yet, four months after I got the game, and don't know if I ever will. The multiplayer is pretty good though, hampered by the small Wii U community size; the most players I've seen online at any time is around 4,500, around a hundredth of what you can expect on the PS3 and Xbox 360. This leads to many game modes (such as the fun Capture The Flag and Headquarters games) rarely having any players on them as most bozos who play CoD just play the monotonous Team Deathmatch mode. To be fair to Treyarch though, they have tried to remedy this by having Wii U exclusive double xp game mode weekends, where they choose a mode such as Headquarters to give double xp to get players playing the rarely played modes. Unfortunately, this never lasts and people go back to TDM as soon as this is over. The only times in 4 months I have been able to get into a game of Hardpoint or Headquarters is during these double xp weekends where they are the chosen game mode, which is kind of sad. When I can get into one of the games modes I like (mainly Demolition), this is as fun as previous CoD games, i.e. the same.

Darksiders 2

I bought this game because it was £10 (new) in HMV. I have yet to play it. It does look good though, kind of like a Zelda game where you play as Death.

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate

This is perhaps the biggest and longest game ever made. Or not, I dunno. I've done 30 hours already and have probably only done 10% (if that) of what I will need to do in offline play alone. In case you don't know, this is a hack 'n' slash game where you play a hunter hired by a village to fight off increasingly large and difficult monsters across various maps. What makes this game different is the sheer amount of work you need to do within the game: to level up weapons and armour (which you NEED to do to progress in the game) and to collect all the resources needed for all the different types of potions, bombs etc, you will need to spend literally hours gathering, farming, mining or beating the same monsters over and over again to get what you need; for example, every large monster has an armour set associated with it, which will later prove useful against larger monsters or in different environments. To make this armour, you will need to beat/trap the monster on multiple occasions to get the resources you need, often with a specific weapon type to get particular body parts or rare drops. This is a "monster" of a game, and an essential purchase for all Wii U owners, though I would recommend people download the game; it's only around 6.2GB and the sheer amount of time you will spend on this game if you plan on completing it offline, and going online, will probably destroy your disc drive, and the in-game loading times are frequent and move MUCH quicker if you have the download of the game like I do. It may cost slightly more to download, but for this game, I would recommend it. And, it's a Wii U exclusive!

New Super Mario Bros U

What more can you say about a Mario game? Well, this game attempts to get back to the Super Mario World approach of having one large world and hidden level exits, Yoshi is back, though not nearly enough (you can never have enough Yoshi), there's some new power ups/suits, and so on. Overall, this is probably the best 2D Mario game since Super Mario World (the best game ever, btw), though not as good as any of the 3D Mario games (including Super Mario 3D Land on 3DS).

Tank! Tank! Tank!

This game has an interesting business model, at least for a games console: the basic game itself is free, then you pay for additional games modes and content. This is obviously fairly common for PC and smartphone games but doesn't really happen on consoles. To support this brave "new" idea, I downloaded the free (multiplayer) game and paid for an additional game mode (which just happened to be on sale for £1.59), even though the game looked kind of rubbish. Essentially, you drive a tank around and shoot at (a) other tanks, or (b) big, often-metallic, monsters. There's no real finesse to the game, the right analogue stick isn't needed to aim, your tank just shoots straight ahead of you. Also, the "multiplayer" mode does not have online play, so I ended up playing against computer controlled tanks, given that I have no friends or whatever.

Zen Pinball 2

Similar to Tank! Tank! Tank!, (a portion of) this game is free to download, then you pay for extras. Essentially, you get around 4 free tables, which you can play on for a limited time (about 2 minutes if I remember correctly), and can download any of the other tables for free also, but again with a time constraint. You then pay to "unlock" the table allowing unlimited play. The tables are around £1.69 each, though there are also packages where you get 3 or 4 at once and it works out slightly less. Again, similar to Tank! Tank! Tank!, I downloaded the game and paid for 1 table to support the game model, even though I have no real interest in pinball games. To be fair, I've played a few games on the Plants vs Zombies table I downloaded and it was pretty good fun, though I doubt I'll download any more. Or ever play the game again.

ZombiU

Even though I got the ZombiU edition Wii U, I did this more for the free pro controller than for the game itself, though I did like the look of it, a permadeath survival horror game set in London. As I focused on Batman for offline play and Blops 2 for online play when I fist got my Wii U, I decided to put this game back, meaning I've only played around 2-3 hours on it. What I played seemed very good though, and cleverly constructed, though I can't comment on it too much until I've played it more.

Virtual Console

In case you didn't know, Nintendo have been running a special promotion on Wii U to celebrate 30 years since the NES came out: they will release one retro game every month, for seven months, for just 30 pence! So far, those games have been Balloon Fight, F-Zero, Punch Out!! and Kirby's Adventure. Still to come are Super Metroid, Yoshi and Donkey Kong. Of the four so far, each of which I paid a hard-earned 30 pence for, F-Zero and Kirby's Adventure are the best, Balloon Fight the worst, and I haven't played Punch Out!! yet, even though I downloaded it, because I already have it on 3DS and can't be bothered. On top of this, I bought Super Mario World yesterday (when the "full" Virtual Console launched) for just £1.49, as I already bought it on Wii meaning I got it at a reduced price (it's normally £5.49). I've already mentioned that it's the best game ever and nothing will ever change my mind on that. Except maybe an even better game.