Six of the best Nintendo Wii U games
Half a dozen titles for your two-screen console
All new consoles need the right line-up of games to make them a success. The Wii U, however, finds itself in the unusual position of not only having brand new games built for it at launch, but also having numerous games ported over from Xbox 360 and PS3.
Batman: Arkham City, Darksiders 2, Assassin’s Creed 3, Mass Effect 3, FIFA 13, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, Trine 2 and Tekken Tag Tournament 2 have all made the journey. Each sporting their own take on GamePad interaction.
Throw in the Wii U-exclusives from third party devs with Nintendo's own collection of games and the UK's launch lineup - 24 titles in total - starts to look pretty tasty.
Here are six of the best for early adopters to ponder at playtime.
Batman: Arkham City Armoured Edition
The Dark Knight returns... again, as Warner Bros. unleash last year’s stunning Batman: Arkham City on to Wii U. It features all of the extra content found on the Game of the Year edition too. Namely, ‘Harley Quinn's Revenge’ and the Robin and Nightwing challenge rooms.
Armoured Edition also introduces Battle Armoured Tech (or BAT, see what they did?) which basically works much like Kratos’ ‘rage’ in God of War.
Simply depressing the two analogue sticks fuels Bats with kinetic energy, further punishing the thugs of Arkham by sending them sprawling. Still, bear in mind that great power tends to diminish your combo count. If there’s a sense that such gimmicks are tacked-on, there’s perhaps more to excite about with the GamePad functions.
Rather coolly, the GamePad essentially becomes Batman’s utility belt and remote link to the Batcomputer rolled into one. It displays a top-down map, links you to the various radio chatter amongst criminals, police and others – the sound actually emits from the GamePad, which is just plain great.
It also provides access to a vast library of character profiles. You'll even use the Pad to examine crime scenes when engaged in a little bat detection. As far as the port goes, I found the Wii U version seamless but ultimately identical in terms of frame rate, draw distance and so on. No doubt someone, somewhere will painstakingly prove one in inferior to the other, but Batman’s open-world city is rendered as well as ever here, albeit no better.
Batman: Arkham City plays just as smoothly today as it did last year and the Wii U version is the best iteration yet. The way the GamePad is used only adds further polish and while addition of BAT is frankly unnecessary, it’s easily ignored. Essential, if you’ve yet to enjoy Rocksteady’s Batman simulator, and still brilliant even if you have.
Reg Rating 90%
Next page: Darksiders 2
COMMENTS
re: sound ..
Well, since the sound that comes from the pad is the police radio chatter, a tinny little speaker is just about right.
(Worth noting: neither of us actually knows how good the speakers in the pad are, although I doubt very much that they are a match for your main gear.)
Gotta hand it to developers
They bring old games over to a new system to test the water, and when those old games don't sell well as the majority of the people who wanted it already have it on the original systems over a year ago have it already, they will say there is no market on the new Wii U, and screw it over for games.
I've seen this on the Wii, and other other systems they bring a old, and terrible edition of a game from japan over it bombs they cancel the good release in the US as there is no market.
As for people judging a system on the 1st round of games... seriously when has a game system even been remotely pushed at all when they 1st came out. I don't think I can recall a launch game really push any system or show what they can do.
" i didnt want it to use my £2000 B&W speakers or anything. 7.1? nah, can i just use some tinny little speaker on the pad...."
You won't need your 80" 4K TV either - just use the low-res screen on the Gamepad.
Damm
"If these are the best games on the Wii U right now I'm glad I haven't bought one. Mario Bros and ZombiU I'd be interested in. But the rest either don't interest me (nintendo land) or I can grab on a console I already own (batman arkham city / Darksiders 2.)"
If only Nintendo had asked you first. Then they wouldn't have had to go to the expense of designing, manufacturing and selling a new console.
I do hope you've written to Sony and Microsoft to prevent them from making the same mistake with *their* next consoles. I'd hate for them to go to the effort of releasing the PS4 & neXBox if they don't interest you.
Given that the previous Wii console also put some sounds through a "tinny" speaker on the game controller, I'd guess you were equally disappointed with that too, so you wouldn't really be the target market (and I don't know of anyone who complains about the noise through the controllers, to be honest - that's there for secondary sounds related to that particular player usually, not the main game action).
And the number of people with a £2000 7.1 amplifier setup AND who like playing Wii are probably lost in the intersection of the Venn diagram rather than a huge portion of the market.
Similarly, when I buy a laptop, the sound quality on it is pretty much irrelevant so long as it's loud enough. There aren't many people who hook up their laptops to the hifi either because that tends to be the audiophiles only anyway. And my TV has speakers on the back that are good enough that I don't even *OWN* a hifi or amplified speaker any more.
Never forget: Most people are happy with laptop speakers, iPod headphones, integrated TV speakers, and the little cheap plug-in iPod "speakers" that run on AA's. You are in the minority here, seriously.
