Doing a Wii U series because it's my favorite Nintendo console that "failed"

[awbacon]

 

 

Decided to do a series on the Wii U as even though it failed in the marketplace it has the exact same thing GameCube had going for it...which is an awesome library that has some of the best games Nintendo has ever made. I especially love the hardware lineage from GameCube to Wii U and its iterative PowerPC architecture that really makes all three systems (GameCube, Wii, Wii U) feel like a trio of evolutionary hardware.

 

So far I have eight game episodes uploaded but need to make 2 more. Struggling to pick the last two games so if you want to post your top ten I'd love to hear them. Helps inspire me

[MegaManFan]

3 hours ago, awbacon said:

 

 

Decided to do a series on the Wii U as even though it failed in the marketplace it has the exact same thing GameCube had going for it...which is an awesome library that has some of the best games Nintendo has ever made. I especially love the hardware lineage from GameCube to Wii U and its iterative PowerPC architecture that really makes all three systems (GameCube, Wii, Wii U) feel like a trio of evolutionary hardware.

 

So far I have eight game episodes uploaded but need to make 2 more. Struggling to pick the last two games so if you want to post your top ten I'd love to hear them. Helps inspire me

Don't worry, I hit "like" and "subscribe." It's my favorite failed system too, which is why I decided to complete the set. Unfortunately two of my games seem to be lost in the mail right now. Damn USPS...

[awbacon]

3 hours ago, MegaManFan said:

Don't worry, I hit "like" and "subscribe." It's my favorite failed system too, which is why I decided to complete the set. Unfortunately two of my games seem to be lost in the mail right now. Damn USPS...

Ugh mail is a disaster lately in Chicago 

[MegaManFan]

24 minutes ago, awbacon said:

Ugh mail is a disaster lately in Chicago 

Funny you should say that because that's where one of my packages (en route to Omaha) is stuck.

[Asaki]

9 hours ago, awbacon said:

Struggling to pick the last two games so if you want to post your top ten I'd love to hear them. Helps inspire me

Breath of the Wild, obviously. Best game of the decade, no contest.

 

Let me look through my collection. In no particular order:

Super Mario 3D World

New Super Mario Bros. U (+ New Super Luigi U)

Axiom Verge - wish the physical copy would've been released

Wind Waker - Really great port. Plenty of nice updates without losing the flavor of the original game. And I have the Zelda theme WiiU to go with it
Hyrule Warriors - Never played the other "Warriors" games before, but I like it so far.

ZombiU - I'm really bad at it, but I love the concept.

Tank! Tank! Tank! - Kind of a stupid arcade game, but I really like it for some reason. Gets a bit frustrating further in, though.

Mario Kart 8 - They had a deal where you got a free digital game if you bought this, so I got Wind Waker. The DLC is excellent, as well.

Bayonetta - I didn't like the demo, but I ended up really enjoying this game.

Captain Toad Treasure Tracker - Simple but fun. No two-player mode, though. I think they added that for 3DS or Switch?

Lego City Undercover - I always wanted a GTA style game where you played a cop, this really fits the bill (if you don't hate Lego games). The load times are pretty bad though, and sometimes it has trouble reading the disc.

Lego Batman 2 (and 3) - I'm a sucker for Batman. I liked the Lego games better before there was speech, but using the dual screen setup for co-op is so brilliant, I didn't feel too bad about double dipping on #2 when I already had it on the original Wii.

Nintendo Land - Great party game, and it came with a Motion Plus Wiimote (which I promptly modded).

 

Hmm, that's more than ten. Oops. Not sure if I can pick four more to remove.

 

NES Remix - I don't know if I can recommend this one. The game itself is great, but the WiiU version has really bad input lag. If I hadn't gotten them for free, and if I had known about the lag, I definitely would've gotten it for the 3DS instead.

SteamWorld Dig - I loved this game on the 3DS, but haven't played it on the big screen yet. Got it in a Humble Bundle, I believe.

Star Fox Zero/Guard - People hated this game, so I got it dirt cheap. I've never been a huge Star Fox fan, but I enjoyed what I played of it...just takes some time to get used to the controls.

Twilight Princess - Still not my favorite Zelda, but others might enjoy it. Different dev from the Wind Waker port, and it shows. Not a lot of improvements over the GC original, and I had some issues with the controls.

Wii Fit U - I need to play more of this, if you know what I mean. Just another revision of the previous games, but they added a pedometer to it, and being able to play on the Gamepad really comes in handy.

Wii Sports Club - I really enjoyed the demo, they made some good improvements to Boxing. I think most people passed on this one because it was so expensive, for an upgrade to a game most people already played to death. I found it used for $10 and couldn't say no. Don't think I've actually cracked it open yet

 

Games I haven't played, or haven't played long enough to form a solid opinion, but are probably great:

The Wonderful 101

Bayonetta 2

Epic Mickey 2 (haven't even played the first one yet!)

DKC Tropical Freeze

Shantae: Half-Genie Hero

Pikmin 3 - The demo was my first Pikmin experience, need to buy the full version some time.

[schnuth]

Wii U Sports Club, or whatever it’s called, is worth it for 100 pin bowling alone.

[phoenixdownita]

Haven't looked at the video, I hope you mention the early batch of Wii U with the "bad" flash memory.

I happen to have one of those, it worked fine for years on end then finally my 4Y old wanted to play with it and kaboom "corrupted" and no possibility of repair now (wish they released a utility to at least "revive" it given Samsung did release a fixed firmware for the flash chips controller).

At any rate I had to buy a "used" one on ebay some four month ago or so, console only, and it was clean, the seller didn't even mention it came with Mario Kart 8 digital (the neat thing is that if you restore it to factory, MK8 is once again ready for download for the next owner, until the servers are up that is) .... my son loves the game so much, I only paid 70US$ shipped for the console (I reused my "flashmem-challenged" edition gamepad/power/sensor-bar... and off I went) and now [literally 2 days ago] I also bought the DLC for MK8 (12US$ on Amzn) and he's having blast, he talks about it when he wakes up, he "sings" the countdown-race sequence ... awesomesauce, we have him playing using a wiimote [no-plus] + driving wheel plastic holder and it's the best thing so far to motivate him, I hekped him on 50cc (bad idea has he didn't learn to play really)  but then let him handle 100cc and it's been brutal but he's making progress, and winning a gold cup here and there [he won the crown cold cup on his own with a tie for 1st first try ... I was so impressed].

 

Me personally I get bored with MK8 and never liked "kart" style racing games, so told it's a decent consoles just to gimmicky in a way, but I did enjoy Zen Pinball 2 on it and bought a few of the table-sets (not that i can transfer them being locked to the "flashmem-challenged" console at this point ... I even had to recreate a new nintendo NetworkID ... so dumb the online handling, in all honesty Microsoft got this right, one account, no matter the console)

[awbacon]

13 hours ago, MegaManFan said:

Funny you should say that because that's where one of my packages (en route to Omaha) is stuck.

Yeah good luck with that. It's a mail black hole here

[awbacon]

8 hours ago, Asaki said:

Breath of the Wild, obviously. Best game of the decade, no contest.

 

Let me look through my collection. In no particular order:

Super Mario 3D World

New Super Mario Bros. U (+ New Super Luigi U)

Axiom Verge - wish the physical copy would've been released

Wind Waker - Really great port. Plenty of nice updates without losing the flavor of the original game. And I have the Zelda theme WiiU to go with it
Hyrule Warriors - Never played the other "Warriors" games before, but I like it so far.

ZombiU - I'm really bad at it, but I love the concept.

Tank! Tank! Tank! - Kind of a stupid arcade game, but I really like it for some reason. Gets a bit frustrating further in, though.

Mario Kart 8 - They had a deal where you got a free digital game if you bought this, so I got Wind Waker. The DLC is excellent, as well.

Bayonetta - I didn't like the demo, but I ended up really enjoying this game.

Captain Toad Treasure Tracker - Simple but fun. No two-player mode, though. I think they added that for 3DS or Switch?

Lego City Undercover - I always wanted a GTA style game where you played a cop, this really fits the bill (if you don't hate Lego games). The load times are pretty bad though, and sometimes it has trouble reading the disc.

Lego Batman 2 (and 3) - I'm a sucker for Batman. I liked the Lego games better before there was speech, but using the dual screen setup for co-op is so brilliant, I didn't feel too bad about double dipping on #2 when I already had it on the original Wii.

Nintendo Land - Great party game, and it came with a Motion Plus Wiimote (which I promptly modded).

 

Hmm, that's more than ten. Oops. Not sure if I can pick four more to remove.

 

NES Remix - I don't know if I can recommend this one. The game itself is great, but the WiiU version has really bad input lag. If I hadn't gotten them for free, and if I had known about the lag, I definitely would've gotten it for the 3DS instead.

SteamWorld Dig - I loved this game on the 3DS, but haven't played it on the big screen yet. Got it in a Humble Bundle, I believe.

Star Fox Zero/Guard - People hated this game, so I got it dirt cheap. I've never been a huge Star Fox fan, but I enjoyed what I played of it...just takes some time to get used to the controls.

Twilight Princess - Still not my favorite Zelda, but others might enjoy it. Different dev from the Wind Waker port, and it shows. Not a lot of improvements over the GC original, and I had some issues with the controls.

Wii Fit U - I need to play more of this, if you know what I mean. Just another revision of the previous games, but they added a pedometer to it, and being able to play on the Gamepad really comes in handy.

Wii Sports Club - I really enjoyed the demo, they made some good improvements to Boxing. I think most people passed on this one because it was so expensive, for an upgrade to a game most people already played to death. I found it used for $10 and couldn't say no. Don't think I've actually cracked it open yet

 

Games I haven't played, or haven't played long enough to form a solid opinion, but are probably great:

The Wonderful 101

Bayonetta 2

Epic Mickey 2 (haven't even played the first one yet!)

DKC Tropical Freeze

Shantae: Half-Genie Hero

Pikmin 3 - The demo was my first Pikmin experience, need to buy the full version some time.

Solid picls. Especially Captain Toad. Absolutely loved that game

[Asaki]

12 hours ago, phoenixdownita said:

 ... I even had to recreate a new nintendo NetworkID ...

What. Why?

[phoenixdownita]

On 1/6/2021 at 12:26 PM, Asaki said:

What. Why?

Because when I tried to associate my the network ID in use by my moribund Wii U with the "new" Wii U it told me "network ID in use" and to use the other console (the broken one) to disassociate it first (I heard you can go though their support channel to sort out some of the mess ... why is that not the default error message then? You know "contact customer support for assistance with migrating .....").

 

It gets better, when I bought the MK8 DLC the Amazon link told me to redeem it on the Nintendo website which in turn required a Nintendo account (not a network ID) to do so, so I had to associate my new network ID to a newly created Nintendo account to finally have a chance at redeeming the DLC ... but I never did the last step, I just tried on my "new Wii U and new network ID" to redeem the code and it just worked ... unsure why that was not the recommended way in the first place.

 

So yeah .... Nintendo really made it a mess wrt the online side ... been told with the Switch and the Nintendo account thing they are somewhat getting out of the mess, I don't have a Switch so  ... never had such issues with my XB360 (I rotated among 4 of them over time) and can use the acct on my XB One with all compatible content from my 360 available on it ... aka "that is how you do it".

[Asaki]

Oh geeze, that sucks.

Yeah, their error messages are usually pretty unhelpful, I usually have to search to find other people who've figured it out.

[MegaManFan]

On 1/6/2021 at 8:52 AM, awbacon said:

Yeah good luck with that. It's a mail black hole here

It actually came! That's where Olympics 2016 had been for like a week, "processing" for some reason, but it finally showed up.

[Tempest]

On 1/6/2021 at 1:41 AM, Asaki said:

Axiom Verge - wish the physical copy would've been released

It was through Limited Run Games.  I have a copy.

[Asaki]

10 hours ago, Tempest said:

It was through Limited Run Games.  I have a copy.

Ah, I forgot about that.

I suppose I should say that I wish it had been released when they had planned (2017). After it was obvious that it was vaporware, I picked up the digital version on an eShop sale.

[MegaManFan]

It was never intentionally vaporware. Happ got into a legal fight over one of the publishers not keeping their promise to give some of the proceeds for his son’s medical bills. After that the Wii U stock was frozen in limbo until that publisher lost the rights for their failure to meet the terms of their contract. That’s why when LRG put it on sale their note said “This is not a pre order. This item is in stock right now.”

[Atariboy]

There was even more to the sad mess than that.

 

Badland Games, the company that had licensed it for a physical Wii U release and announced it (And then sat on it for a long time, while occasionally announcing it was still happening), finally quietly licensed out their rights to Limited Run Games. Limited Run Games then paid Badland Games $78,000 for 6,000 fully assembled copies of the game, but nothing happened. Badland Games went silent, LRG never received the product they paid for, nor were they refunded the money they had paid Badland Games.

 

Last I heard, LRG won in court when Badland didn't even show up, and was attempting in Badland's native Spain to get the judgement honored. Nor did Badland Games pay Thomas Happ and Dan Adelman for the European distribution of Axiom Verge that Badland had actually followed through with. Last I heard, they had filed suit to recoup what they're owed. And like you said, Badland didn't even follow through with the promised healthcare fund for Happ's ill son. 

 

LRG then approached Thomas Happ and Dan Adelman and ironed out an arrangement that eventually made the physical copy possible. LRG sadly had to pay a second time for the discs (And presumably lost a lot of money on the project, barring finally getting their money and legal expenses paid by Badland), but the project finally became a reality. Not sure of the amount, but LRG even established the healthcare fund that Badland was supposed to do per their agreement, and donated some of the proceeds of Axiom Verge on the Wii U to the fund.

Edited January 16, 2021 by Atariboy

[Asaki]

Yeah, I remember that mess now

 

6 hours ago, MegaManFan said:

It was never intentionally vaporware.

I don't think anything is ever intentionally vaporware

[awbacon]

4 hours ago, Asaki said:

Yeah, I remember that mess now

 

I don't think anything is ever intentionally vaporware

lol that's a good way to put it

[MegaManFan]

On 1/16/2021 at 9:16 AM, Atariboy said:

LRG then approached Thomas Happ and Dan Adelman and ironed out an arrangement that eventually made the physical copy possible. LRG sadly had to pay a second time for the discs (And presumably lost a lot of money on the project, barring finally getting their money and legal expenses paid by Badland), but the project finally became a reality. Not sure of the amount, but LRG even established the healthcare fund that Badland was supposed to do per their agreement, and donated some of the proceeds of Axiom Verge on the Wii U to the fund.

I'm so glad it turned out that way in the end. Happ and Adelman are both genuine "good guys" in a video game industry that has far too many crumb bums, and making sure Happ's son finally got the health care proceeds he needed is I'm sure the whole reason an Axiom Verge 2 is even a possibility. If Happ had to work a full time job just to cover that expensive care we wouldn't get a sequel for another five years (or ever). For my own part I plan to buy a physical copy of AV2 on every system it's released for to help keep that ball rolling. There aren't too many games you play you can tell someone put their heart and soul into, but Axiom Verge is like a pure love letter to the Metroidvania genre (whether you like the term or not) and it shows.

[jhd]

On 1/16/2021 at 8:16 AM, Atariboy said:

Last I heard, LRG won in court when Badland didn't even show up, and was attempting in Badland's native Spain to get the judgement honored. 

 

Limited Run Games v. Badland Games Sl Et Ano Case Number: 19-2-07068-4 Superior Court, King COUNTY, Washington State

 

The last activity on the file was May 24, 2021. LRG is applying for a Writ of Garnishment, which suggests that Badland has some assets in the jurisdiction that are worth pursuing.

 

With interest and fees, the outstanding judgement is now $95,302.33.

 

[jhd]

On 1/16/2021 at 2:06 PM, Asaki said:

I don't think anything is ever intentionally vaporware

 

I believe that situation is more properly called fraud.