SB Recommends Wii U Games

Nintendo's kinda-awkward followup to the Wii. Their first HD console and the first entrant into the eighth-generation console wars, its default controller is a large, strange combination between tablet device and traditional gamepad - a hi-res 16:9 touchscreen with traditional grips, buttons and analogue sticks on either side, plus built-in peripherals like a camera and microphone. Some games and apps can be streamed directly onto the controller, eliminating the need for the TV altogether, while others use it as a supplementary second screen, much like a DS. It is also backwards-compatible with most Wii games, controllers and peripherals.

The combination of odd hardware, a small but intriguing software selection, and a dismal market performance is already earning the system comparisons to the Sega Dreamcast, though Nintendo shows no signs of backing out of the console race just yet.

• Bayonetta 2

• Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut (also on: 360, PC, PS3)
  • Ni Go Zero Ichi: Out of all the seventh-gen games haphazardly ported to the system by third parties, this is the only one that's generally accepted as actually being superior on the Wii U.
  • Felix: Others that are at least acceptable, by the way (on top of being great games to begin with, which cost almost no money on Wii U because no one bought them), include FIFA 2013 and Mass Effect 3.

• The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD
  • Ni Go Zero Ichi: Allegedly smoothes over some of The Wind Waker's problems with pacing, fetch-questing and lax difficulty, at the bizarre cost of actually looking aesthetically worse, by a significant margin, than the original version of the game released over a decade prior. Considering that the visuals are nigh-universally agreed to be Wind Waker's strongest point, your mileage may vary on whether this constitutes a dealbreaker.

• Mario Kart 8
  • Ni Go Zero Ichi: I'm no MK maven, but this is definitely head and shoulders above the Wii version. Cheap items are nerfed and/or marginalized, and the prominence of items and luck-based shit in general is diminished; the visuals, music and SFX are far less obnoxious; and customization options are even deeper. A lot of the new courses are a little… funky for my tastes, but there are an equal number of “classic” courses so whatever. Haven't tried out online play yet.

• Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate (also on: 3DS)

• Ninja Gaiden III: Razor's Edge (also on: 360, PS3)
  • Ni Go Zero Ichi: Razor's Edge restores the disastrous Ninja Gaiden 3 to canonical franchise status - mainly by getting the combat to play like Ninja Gaiden 2 - but doesn't fix the game-ruiningly broken health system, which makes boss fights unreasonably infuriating on top of being poorly designed.

• Pikmin 3
  • Felix: My wife played this up until the first or second boss when it actually got tense and immediately lost interest and I couldn't really blame her. It's good at being facile and is visually interesting, but it had no excuse for actually being challenging.

• Super Mario 3D World
  • Felix: Actually as fantastic as everyone says. My biggest complaint is that it feels like a shame to “waste” the easy early levels on single-player if you don't have three friends around right when you start the game, since it starts out very accessible and gets very challenging toward the end.

• Super Smash Bros. for Wii U (also on: 3DS)
  • Ni Go Zero Ichi: Unimaginative title aside, this is a huge step up over Brawl in pretty much every respect, while remaining different enough from Melee to be its own thing. The 3DS version is a glorified demo.

• The Wonderful 101
  • Felix: I really don't think this is very good – there are a lot of dual-screen gimmicks, more stuff to do in the menus than I wanted to look at, and most of the combat seems to take an artificially long time. Only played the demo, though. It's definitely aesthetically well-realized, but to be honest, so are all of Platinum's games.

• ZombiU

• SB Recommends Wii Games - Playable via backwards compatibility.
• SB Recommends NES/Famicom Games - Some titles playable as Virtual Console downloads.
• SB Recommends SNES/Super Famicom Games - Some titles playable as Virtual Console downloads.
• SB Recommends Game Boy Advance Games - Some titles playable as Virtual Console downloads.
• SB Recommends Nintendo DS Games - Some titles playable as Virtual Console downloads.
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