Gadgetory

well this is David with the verge and this is the Wii U it's Nintendo's brand-new gaming console the Wii U is partly Nintendo trying to move forward into 2012 with better graphics and a better machine but it's partly Nintendo trying to keep doing what was so successful on the Wii all those years ago but let's sort with the hardware the console itself is kind of huge it's almost a foot long and it weighs about three and a half pounds it's glossy and it picks up fingerprints like crazy it's just kind of ugly but fortunately you can hide it in the stack by your TV and never really pay attention to it then there's the gamepad which is by far the most interesting thing about the Wii U it's also big and it actually feels like a portable console by itself and it has a 6.2 inch 854 by 480 touchscreen in the middle along with two analog sticks a directional pad for buttons and even a microphone and front facing camera it really is its own self-contained thing now the screen is pretty good sharp enough and colors look fine but it's not nearly on the level of most tablets we've seen the gamepad really dictates how you use the console and there seems to be a lot of debate over how best to use the gamepad with the Wii U in some cases it acts like a second screen adding supplementary content and options to what you already see on the TV other times it's just a mirror showing exactly what you see on the TV and that's when it becomes most like a portable console and I actually found myself going long periods of time without looking at the TV at all and just playing on the gamepad then there are times when you use the gamepad exclusively like when you make a Mii character it's kind of odd and it can all get kind of confusing you're constantly seeing pop up saying things like look at the TV or look at the gamepad and it's not always clear what you're actually supposed to be doing or looking at I got to test six of the Wii U launch titles and each of the games works a little bit differently Super Mario Brothers U is one of the most fun games but it's really nothing special for the Wii U it's just a really good Mario game with the gameplay mirrored on the gamepad and your TV there's no lag at all and as long as you're within 25 feet or so at the console there's no interruption in the connection either other games like Nintendo land didn't do as much for me the game is like a big amusement park filled with rides and games you can play but you spend a ton of time learning how to play each game each game makes you use a different combination of the gamepad and the TV and it's just awkward and confusing at times the games are a lot of fun but it's just kind of a odd world to navigate FIFA 13 has some of the coolest features with the gamepad you can actually set your lineup on the fly or even aim your shots and passes just using the touchscreen but the resistive touch screen on the gamepad is really awful and everything takes so long to actually get to register that you've probably already been scored on anyway Ninja Gaiden probably does the best job of the games that I tested you don't specifically need to use the gamepad and you can actually always stay focused on the TV but the gamepad lets you use special moves or change weapons it's just supplementary and it never takes your focus away from the game while you look up or down the gamepad is central to almost everything you do but there are other types of controllers as well the Wii Remote from the last generation system is required for almost all multiplayer games and you don't get one with the system which is a bummer there's also a controller that's basically the gamepad without the screen which feels like a normal console controller and it works ok too except there's one weird big problem the buttons are laid out differently from any other console the most used button is a which on every other console is located on the bottom of the diamond of buttons and here it's on the side it's incredibly hard to get used to I never did even after hours and hours of playing games one thing we didn't really get to test was the media features on the Wii U which actually makes me kind of nervous a Nintendo really missed out with Internet features on the Wii and though there are apparently apps for Hulu Netflix Amazon and YouTube on the Wii U they're not here yet and might not make launched at all at the moment the Wii U just isn't a great console the gamepad might be a really useful accessory at some point but for now it's being used poorly more often than it's being used well when it works the system's a lot of fun to play to know the graphics aren't great but the Wii U could eventually have the same kind of appeal as the Wii now you can buy the Wii U for $299.99 or get the deluxe version for three $49.99 the deluxe version gets you 32 gigs of storage instead of eight plus a bunch of stands and chargers and a copy of Nintendo land you should definitely get the deluxe package if only for the storage but unless you really want to buy it right now I'd say wait before you buy the Wii U I think eventually more developers will figure out the best way is to use the gamepad but for now it's a mix of really cool and complicated and confusing and frustrating and most of all wait and see what Microsoft and Sony have coming next year you