It’s been almost two weeks since the Wii U was launched in North America.  I’ve been completely blown away by how amazing this new system is – and I don’t even have an HD TV yet!  (I hope to rectify that issue this Christmas lol!)  There are so many little features that make the Wii U so freaking cool, from programming the Game Pad to work as your TV Remote, to the Wii system transfer that gives you access to all your old WiiWare games and save data.  But the biggest feature by far would have to be the Miiverse.

What makes the Miiverse really special is how the entire social network is seamlessly integrated into the Wii U menu, Wara Wara Plaza and every Wii U game.  When you first turn on the Wii U, you are immediately immersed into the Miiverse and which games your friends have been playing.

In Wara Wara Plaza, you see different comments that people have been writing or drawing in response to the games they are playing.  It’s really interesting to see the consensus of how people feel about certain things (I’ve seen a ton of comments like “Why isn’t Kirby in Nintendo Land?”) and I wonder if Nintendo listens?  Someone out there is reading all of our posts, because mine were blocked when I was trying to use them as free ad space for StreetPass Long Island.  LOL the Nintendo admins shut that down right away.  But it’s really cool to see what your friends are playing (and saying!) as soon as you turn on the Wii U.

That’s not all for Miiverse.  Wara Wara Plaza is just the ‘lobby’ shall we say?  At any time, whether you are in a game or not, you can access the app called Miiverse.  What is this Miiverse?  Well, it’s kind of like a social network that is ONLY for Nintendo players.  As JDubz said, “I think the Miiverse is MUCH better than Facebook, because everyone is posting status updates about stuff that I’m actually interested in!”  In the Miiverse there are game communities, so if you’re stuck in one part of a certain game, you can visit the community and ask a question.  Usually people respond pretty quickly too!  In addition to the communities, you also have access to an Activity Feed which shows only the updates of the people you have on your friends list.  And if that wasn’t enough, there is also a section to send private messages to your friends.

What’s really cool about the Miiverse is that you can access it while playing a Wii U game as well.  Let’s say you’re playing New Super Mario Bros. U and you keep dying on the same spot.  You can actually press the Home button during regular game play, and the Miiverse will give you an option to grab a screenshot of whatever you were doing right before you pressed Home.  Then you can post that screenshot to the Miiverse (with an accompanying message like, ‘AHH I CAN’T BEAT THIS STUPID PART!!”) and people can leave comments with advice or at least some empathy.

In addition to screenshots, some Wii U games have the Miiverse fully integrated into the actual gameplay.  For example, in NSMBU, comments from the Miiverse can also show up in the World Map.  I think this is so cool!

OK I admit I don’t have NSMBU.  I’m too scared to buy it.  I’m terrible at Mario games, with NSMB2 being the ONLY game in the franchise that I’d ever beaten, and that was only b/c they let me cheat and use the white Tanooki suit almost the entire time lol!  But this Miiverse feature in the new Wii U installment is really cool, so I am secretly hoping that someone will give me this game for the holidays.  Although, I’d be happier to receive Wii Fit U but there’s no release date out for that game yet.

I only have two games for the Wii U, Nintendo Land and Scribblenauts.  Nintendo Land has far exceeded my expectations – I originally thought that this game would be more along the lines of Mario Party and Wii Play.  Luckily, this game is much more in-depth.  Every mini-game has multiple levels and/or gets increasingly difficult as you play so the replay value is through the roof.  There are ‘stamps’ which act as badges for when you accomplish certain feats within each mini-game too.  Miiverse is totally integrated into your Nintendo Land Plaza; random players and the Mii’s in your friends list will all start showing up as patrons of your park, which I think is a nice touch.

Scribblenauts is a totally different game, and it is a RIOT!  You can create almost any object or person that you can think of, and use them in whatever way you’d like as you play through the storyline.  Since this version of Scribblenauts is basically a Wii U port from the 3DS version, it doesn’t have the Miiverse within the game, but you can still post screenshots to the Miiverse and there is a Scribblenauts community too.  If you like to play open world style games, I definitely recommend checking out Scribblenauts.

So if you haven’t already, please add my Nintendo Network ID “gluxbox” to your Wii U friends list.  Please indicate that you are a reader of the Glux Blog, otherwise I might not add you, since I’m trying to not just add random people to my friends list at this time.  Which Wii U games did you get for your system?  Please share your thoughts!