I bought a Wii U because I have a then-6 year old son and I wanted him to enjoy playing games with me that didn't involve shooting other people full of holes.
My fondest memories of my childhood aren't playing Contra or Street Fighter, but games like Chip N' Dale and Duck Tales.
The Wii U's game category has been much slower than others, but I feel like every single game Nintendo proper releases is pure gold, and there's plenty of 3rd-party games that have seen hundreds of hours of family gameplay (Rayman Legends).
Anyways, I hope this release brings about a new generation of Really Hard Mario levels!
That's what a lot of the commentary I've heard about Splatoon has focused on.
Nintendo took a really popular (and good) genre, the team based shooter, and made it perfectly family friendly. Easy to understand, lots of fun, no exploding heads, no dismemberments, nothing objectionable.
It's been tried before, but not with the talent of Nintendo behind it. I remember playing the Nerf-branded UT game with my nephew many years ago, for example.
I'm actually more interested in the Wii U than either an Xbox One or PS4.
I just don't want to have yet another console to worry about hooking up. So I'm waiting until I'm ready to retire my current Xbox 360 and PS3 (and with upcoming Dark Souls 2 DLC, that's going to be probably another half year at least).
That said, I'm probably going to be forced to pick up a PS4 to play Bloodborne when it launches (supposedly a sort of spiritual successor to Demon's Souls).
I am interested in consoles no more. Exclusivities are now rare and pc gaming looks so much better and you can enjoy ancient games and new ones all the same. I hate it when you have to buy again the game you played years ago just because the hardware is newer.
Exclusives might be rare on Xbox One or the PS4, but on the Wii U they're the norm. You're of course more than welcome to focus on PC gaming, but I for one love local multiplayer gaming sessions with my friends, and for that the Wii U is the best choice.
I'm thinking of getting Wii-U too - my son really loves Minecraft (in creative mode), and once in a while he gets the thrills in survival, but he loves creating more.
I've never enjoyed fps, although I happen to work in the tools team for one of the most popular fps's out there.
I grew up on turn based fantasy gaming and still do that (highly recommend Dragon Fantasy Book I & II, also Palm Kingdoms).
Wait. Minecraft is on (coming?) to the Wii-U? My son would love this, but up until this point we've not been able to find it for Wii-U (which we have for many of the reasons already mentioned).
So much potential in this - a few years ago myself and a bunch of friends were obsessed with ROM hacks for Super Mario World for the SNES; some of them were just really well-designed levels, and some of them were absolute hell, basically requiring the use of an emulator to save states and rewind. It created a completely different feel of game, and the simple and consistent physics of a Mario game was the perfect limitation for weird and strange things to happen.
I've never see Kaizo Mario World before. That's amazingly clever. It's easy to just, say, spam a screenful of koopas at you to make something hard. These levels, though are hard because they involve a complex interaction of Mario skills, with zero tolerance for getting it wrong. If you've played enough Mario, some of the sections are actually funny in the same way that comics are: I immediately see how difficult the task is, why, and the combination of both almost makes me laugh.
I actually threw up my hands when I saw not only that the player had to throw a baby Yoshi up in the air to eat an enemy, but that the designer of the level expected this! Same when I realized that the the length of an area was tuned so that it was juuuuuust smaller than the amount of time Yoshi held a shell in his mouth before swallowing.
The recent Link Between Worlds for the 3DS is a direct sequel to the SNES Link to the Past, and in many ways, it's like a remix. I was skeptical, as I also adore LttP, but I really enjoyed the new one for the 3DS.
I figured this, and I'm less impressed with the particular run than I am with the design of the level. Everything fits together in just oh-so-perfect ways that make it deviously hard.
This could be enough to push me over the edge and buy a Wii U. It is very cool that Nintendo have embraced user made content, after being so against it for what seems like forever.
edit: a couple of replies made me realize that I was off the mark slightly with my comment. I should have focused on how their attempts to support user made content have seemed to run into their legal department's over the top desire to "defend" their character IP.
I'm not disagreeing that they are against user made content per se, but there are plenty of examples where they've embraced user content, ever since http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Paint
and even to the more recent Wario-Ware games where you can make your own mini-games.
Are the Mii's not considered user made content? In the upcoming Super Smash Bros', you can customize your own Mii to be a fighter and it looks like there's a whole community of Mii customizers [1] who make celebrities and the like.
Miis on their own are a bit weak because they're just a little display object. Their little social network Miiverse holds a fair amount of content though.
Also, Nintendo has said that they won't be allowing you to see customized Miis when fighting other people online in SSB unless they're a friend of yours, probably to prevent copyright (and objectionable content) issues.
There was a free channel/game thing on the Wii where they'd give you a theme ("Pilgrim", "Mean boss", etc) and you submitted a Mii that fit that theme. It was pretty neat to see what people came up with.
For those who are thinking about picking up a Wii U, Nintendo is selling refurbished consoles for $200. For all the reports I have read, they are basically brand new systems (in appearance).
I just got mine from UPS earlier today. I can confirm that it's indistinguishable from a new console. It may even be brand new. They are likely getting returned inventory from retailers since it hasn't been selling as well as hoped.
It also comes with a 3 year warranty and a free copy of Nintendo Land. If you get Mario Kart 8 before the end of July, you can get a free game with it. In total, it's about $250 for a console still early in its cycle and 3 good games. It's a great deal.
This is a hardly a new idea but nice to see it applied to a famous franchise like Mario.
Little Big Planet is 2D platformer released in 2008 whose maps were designed built in house through their own level editor. They provided a (Stephen Fry narrated, dear lord) interactive tutorial and a complete system to share levels and play with your friends.
There _were_ some performance issues with some of the more complicated levels and the PS3's limited RAM maintaining a big ole physics engine.
But since this is just Mario, level complexity shouldn't be a problem. Still, I don't know if Mario provides enough variety to remain interesting for years.
THEN AGAIN - there is a kid born every day who's never played a Mario game before, maybe things should stay simple.
My guess is that when you pause the action and enter the edit screen, you are able to view a trail of your previous positions. I think that button in the bottom left toggles it.
Darn, it's only available for WiiU. I feel like most hardcore level makers would work from PC. Obviously, that's not really their target but would have been cool to have it on PC.
I wonder if you can put a spring thing that allows you to jump over the pole. This is kinda amazing, you can even update the graphics. I'm guessing 30 dollars and a download
On which one? As a kid I was able to jump over the flag in World 3-3 with just the right timing (http://ian-albert.com/games/super_mario_bros_maps/mario-3-3....). The castle wall simply continued on forever, and I ran until time ended, hoping there would be a secret of some kind at the end.
The bounding box for the flag top is pretty tall, so I had to get a lot of air in order to clear it.
I jumped over the flagpole once in 1-1 in the original Super Mario Bros thanks to a Game Genie code. Once you walk past the pipe that's the entrance to 1-2, you see about two more screens that then repeat forever.
There are some places in The Lost Levels where you're meant to be able to jump over it. I believe that one had a warp pipe that took you BACK in the game.
There's actually a level with a springboard before the flagpole, and if you time it right sends you "over" the pole. It's like you said, once your X value is greater than the pole, you grab the top and slide down like normal.
I'd love for them to toss in a music maker like Gameboy Camera's Trippy H or Mario Paint Composer. To create original compositions using Nintendo's sound palette would really complete the experience.
Lovers of the series and fans of the genre can agree that a side scroller's music makes the whole game's flow fit together. An avant garde remix of Mario's theme would be the perfect accompaniment to some of the experimental levels people will create.
Hopefully they add additional options (yoshi, invisible blocks, fire flowers, etc.) otherwise I will probably pass. It does seem like an early build though, so that's a good sign that they will.
I read about this awhile ago and I didn't think it sounded all that fun. But looking at the pictures, it actually looks like it could be really cool. I'm definitely going to get this.
My fondest memories of my childhood aren't playing Contra or Street Fighter, but games like Chip N' Dale and Duck Tales.
The Wii U's game category has been much slower than others, but I feel like every single game Nintendo proper releases is pure gold, and there's plenty of 3rd-party games that have seen hundreds of hours of family gameplay (Rayman Legends).
Anyways, I hope this release brings about a new generation of Really Hard Mario levels!