Re-Review: Another look at the Wii U – Our updated review

We originally wrote a review for the Wii U a year ago, we had the console before launch and reviewed it as it was then. A year later though the Wii U deserves another look in, we all know its troubled year its had – but what if you bought a Wii U now? How has the OS matured? What about the games? The eShop?  If you’re yet to buy a Wii U then this is now the review for you.

A year later, here’s out snapshot of the Wii U.

The Hardware

Nintendo build great hardware, the Wii U has been no exception. The system itself and the GamePad are well built and solid, apart from a couple of niggles we’ll talk about later. The console itself isn’t much bigger than the original Wii but it is a little longer. It’s still the smallest console on the market and is dwarfed next to an Xbox One or even a PlayStation 4. That size comes at a cost.

The Wii U can be placed horizontally or if you pick up the Premium Kit it’ll come with little vertical stands. We’ve found the stands however have scratched and scuffed our Wii U over the course of the year – be very careful how much you move the console with them on. The Wii U comes in two colours, typically the Premium Sets will be Black and the Basic Sets white.

What doesn’t different between the two consoles is the cheap plastic coating the Wii U has, a year on our Wii U consoles is scratched and scuffed from simply moving it around from between Vooks HQ and other family members homes. The plastic is very malleable, thankfully the GamePad seems to be of thicker construction.

Once powered up, the system itself generates little to no noise – we can safely say it’s about as quiet as the Wii. That soon changes, however, once you insert a disc the system begins to make a little bit more noise. Nintendo has made changes to how much the disc drive spins as well, at launch the drive would spin at 100% regardless of whether you where playing from the disc drive or not – now if you’re playing from the internal storage or external storage it’ll quiet down.

The rear of the system features a new style power plug, while the sensor bar port and AV port remain unchanged from the Wii. The HDMI port now a standard feature on every console on the market will pump the video and audio to you TV, one is included so you won’t have to worry about that.

The Wii U has a rather unique situation with it’s audio output. The console supports only LPCD, it doesn’t do any Dolby licensed formats like Pro Logic or DTS, nor does it have an optical out port. This means that unless your HDMI receive supports LPCM, then you might have a bit of trouble getting surround sound working. Nintendo hasn’t made any improvements yet to the sound capabilities, something that is still disappointing.

With regards to inputs, there are four USB ports on the system and an SD card reader. At the moment, the reader is used for transferring stuff from your original Wii to the system. The USB ports are used to expand the Wii U system memory with a hard disc drive (up to 2TB) to store digital downloads and purchases. Something people with the Basic Wii U set should definitely consider, if they plan to download almost anything from the eShop.

Having the sync button on the front of the console is a real blessing now too, as it’s not only easy to access it now but also the on screen display walks the user through what they need to do. There’s no more blankly pressing buttons on either sides of the communication and just hoping they’ll eventually sync, the Wii U actually helps the user do it now. It’s incredibly intuitive and user friendly.

The GamePad

The first thing players will notice about the GamePad when it’s picked up is that not only is it light, but that it actually feels like a controller. This is might sound a little bit odd, but when you consider how little it actually resembles one, it’s nice to actually hold the thing and for it to feel like a natural controller.

The overall quality of the controller is solid, both the quality of the plastic used and the mechanics of the buttons are well implemented. Despite this, our unit rattles and seems to have “loose” face buttons and a loose volume slider. While other writers on our team can confirm the “looseness” of the buttons, the volume slider issues may seem to be isolated in this case.

As we’ve eluded to with our description of the GamePad, actually using the controller feels much ilke any other controller. You’ve got nice click-able analogue sticks and a traditional (and somewhat iconic) D-Pad that has been enlarged to outdo the tiny one on the Wii Remote. The should buttons and triggers feel nice, but the triggers aren’t analogue which could prove troublesome later on in racing games that might require varying amounts of pressure. Some players may have to “re-adjust” to the placement of the buttons and the triggers and switching between the two during gameplay, others might get settled in just fine. Another oddity that baffles us is the stick placement, a symmetrical setup in which the ABXY face buttons appear below the right stick. This means that in games that require both sticks, you’ll have to get used to using X as the primary button (that’s Triangle or Y for you other console players) for most things. Games that don’t use the second stick, obviously, can be played as normal.

The touchscreen is one of the most controversial inclusions on the Wii U’s GamePad. It’s a resistive touchscreen, meaning single touch only and the more than likely need to use the stylus that comes with it. We honestly haven’t had any problems with the touch screen in all the games we’ve played, and we’ve never felt like it was doing wrong by us. The screen itself is 6.2 inches (roughly 15cm) and no where near the quality of screens like the Vita or the iPad, but still strong enough to bring games to life with rich colours and clear acuity, even if streamed off the console. The brightness is also nice and bright (and adjustable through the settings) although it has to be given how reflective the screen is.

The GamePad contains speakers, and they are of a reasonable quality. Don’t expect anything too dynamic or too much base out of these though, for that you’ll need a headset or headphones. The volume is loud enough for most games, however some games seem a little bit ‘softer’ than others.

The battery within the GamePad, to be blunt, is rubbish. I’ve had the GamePad on the charger more than off it. It doesn’t last long at all. Nintendo sells a large capacity battery that if you’re serious about playing games on the Wii U you’ll want to pick up. To be fair, the GamePad is doing a lot, streaming a Wi-Fi image from the console, powering the speakers, rumble and of course the touch screen mechanics. But if you’re a heavy player you’re going to have it in the charge quite a bit. Worth noting, however, is that the GamePad does come with a cradle in the Premium Set however it can just be plugged in directly using the charging cable if needed. Essentially, this means you can charge the GamePad and play without having interruptions.

The range on the GamePad is less than what I thought it would be, but my house is probably not the best example to test. We’re under a tin roof, with double brick walls and we’d argue there’s more radio signals in this room than the Channel 7 headquarters. Your results will vary, so judging the range in this review is pointless. One of our writers, however, is able to play in all rooms of his top floor and even on his couch downstairs, where the console is not setup. As we said, your mileage may vary.

At any time you can hit the TV button on your GamePad to take control of your TV. This feature is configured during the initial setup of the Wii U and worked straight away on my Sony TV set. Again, your results may vary depending on the brand of TV you have – we know for a fact that some of our community members have been having trouble with Kogan brand TVs, so maybe research this a bit if the feature is important to you. It’s also worth noting that the GamePad also allows players to turn their TV on and off without the Wii U even being on, pressing the TV button brings up the screen with an option to “Play Wii U” if you wish.

The Wii U is fully backwards compatible with nearly every Wii game and accessory. You can even boot straight to the Wii mode if you have a Wii disc in just by holding B on the GamePad when you boot up the system. You’ll still need an original Wii Remote to play the games however you can stream the vision of the Wii game to the GamePad. The controls won’t work and you’ll still need ti play with the original controller – but it’s something.

The Power

Only now a year after release are we beginning to see the Wii U’s power shine, unfortunately it’s right to the next generation consoles – lucky for us Nintendo still knows how to make pretty games. The Wii U isn’t the most powerful console out there, but if you’re considering a Wii U it shouldn’t even be something you’re wanting.

The Games

The Wii U launched with a decent amount of games, it was the following 7 months that were the problem. Games were delayed, the launch window was smashed – games were rated and not released and it all looked very bad until after E3.

Things have been getting better since then though, games like Lego City Undercover took forever to load but are great fun. Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, Pikmin 3, Ducktales, The Wonderful 101, Rayman Legends, Splinter Cell Blacklist, Disney Infinity, The Wind Waker, Sonic Lost World, Assassin’s Creed IV amongst others have meant there hasn’t been a shortage of things to play on the Wii U.

See our full list of Wii U reviews

Things for 2014 are looking up too, there’s Mario Kart 8, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Super Smash Bros, Bayonetta 2, X, Yoshi’s Yarn, Shin Megami x Fire Emblem, Watch Dogs and an entire army of indie games mean the console is set for most of the year.

The Wii U Menu

The main screen you’ll see when you boot up the console consists of two screens (obviously). There’s a simple menu screen on the GamePad, but also the Mii Plaza on the TV. The Plaza is a congregation point for Mii characters from all around the world. It gives your system a feeling of liveliness, seeing the general mood of game players around the world. It’s usefulness however is less than useless and outside the launch period we’ve rarely used it.

The main menu looks almost the same as it did at launch, it’s the speed at which it moves which has improved. It would like literally minutes for apps to close, apps to open – now we’re talking seconds. Now two updates later things a much more bearable and Nintendo is updating things all the time.

Speaking of updates Nintendo’s dream of pushing content to your system while you sleep lives. Updates for games, games themselves and system updates are all downloaded while you’re not using the console. You can even download then turn the system off and an orange light is the only hint that the Wii U is working while you sleep. This is of course all optional.

The Nintendo Network ID system is still as frustrating as ever, while you can easily add friends and follow people there’s still no account system. Purchases are still tied to hardware and not your account. This is great for sharing a game across all of the users on the system but not much else – if your Wii U was to die you might have trouble getting these games back.

Applications included on the Wii U menu vary in quality. The internet browser is still the best browser on a console, it’s quick and easy to use and can display on either screen or even during a game. Wii U Chat is slow and painful and we’ve only ever used it once during the entire year.

MiiVerse

Miiverse is the complete opposite of what the Wii U has been up until this point, it’s always updated, lively and only just a little bit slow. For lack of a better term, it’s a “social network”. Each game has it’s own community, which players can post to either to ask for help or just comment on different aspects of the game. You can even post screenshots too (but remember to mark them as spoilers if needed!). Drawing or texting are available at the moment.

eShop

The eShop much like Miiverse has come a long way in such a short time. It’s gotten faster, better looking and easier to find things. Retail games on the system are still more expensive than at retail, this is helped with the constant sales we’ve seen over the course of the year. The Indie game range continues to go from strength to strength, some of the systems best games are on the eShop.

Conclusion

Nintendo have built a terrific system with the Wii U, it is well built and the GamePad is a real marvel – no other system can offer such a perfect Off-TV play experience.

In its first year Nintendo have improved the systems operating system to be actually useable without frustration and Miiverse and the eShop have matured. The issues with licenses still being tied to hardware don’t look like going away any time soon though.

The systems library too has also matured, albeit mostly in the past three months. The first 7 months of the system’s life was brutal and a disappointing show from Nintendo and third parties. Nintendo will have to work hard to regain that trust and ensure third party titles actually arrive. The future of indie titles on the Wii U is a shining bright star.

A year on the Wii U is a more honed experience, it’s still the same fun it was to play at launch – just with no 6 month wait for a follow up. The Wii U is still fresh, it’s still exciting and fun to play by yourself or with friends.

Disclaimer: Vooks was originally provided a retail Premium Wii U set from Nintendo Australia. We’ve looked after it like a baby. We only meant to drop it once. Review contains 60% recycled material.