Is the Wii U for you?

By Angela Espinoza, Arts Editor

The Wii U has officially been out for just over a week now, and with 23 launch titles, it appears the Wii U opened strong. It’s too soon to comment on Canadian sales, especially since I’m writing this on Black Friday of all days, but what I can comment on is, as a bystander, how it appears the Wii U is dong in the public eye.

I don’t want to instantly go after the Wii U like some people have—I don’t know if it kept all its high-quality promises or if the controller really is difficult to handle—so I’m not going to attack it based on ideas. I’m writing this because, like I’m sure a lot of you reading this, I want to know if this thing is actually worth getting now that it’s out and Christmas and a whole new year of birthdays are on their way.

While 23 launch titles sounded great initially, once the reviews started pouring in, things began looking very 50/50 in terms of good and bad games. But really, it’s the positive reviews that matter most, because a lot of the higher reviewed games are really the ones we were excited about to begin with. The better-reviewed games include Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition, New Super Mario Bros. U, and surprisingly two Wii U specific titles, Nintendo Land and ZombiU. While the amount of bad games is outweighing the amount of good, I’m not going to pretend every other console isn’t exactly the same; after all, it’s always the good games they get remembered for.

I’m glad that the idea to add a dual screen to what I need to stress is just one of the controllers didn’t end up disappointing. The Wii U is basically a much, much larger DS system, but that said, it also offers way more opportunities for what can be accomplished with games and graphics. It may not always work out for a game designed to be multi-platform, but for those designed specifically for the Wii U, we are looking at a one-of-a-kind gaming experience that no other console can yet compete with.

I’m also going to take this opportunity to rub the Kinect’s face in it for having such a lousy collection of games.

I’m ending this piece on a positive note, because from what I’ve seen so far, the Wii U looks like it may not be such a silly console after all. Then again, it has been just a week; let’s see what other games are coming our way… although I would still very likely want one.