My First Games Console: The Sega Master System!

After spending October taking a trip down memory lane with the Wii U i figured i would take a look back at the very first games console i played and had as a child. Although considered an oddity in North America and Japan the mighty Sega Master System was a massive hit in Europe and South America! Its combined sales in these two regions is actually MORE than the Wii U, Dreamcast or PS Vita managed worldwide but for some reason it is often forgotten by the larger gaming world.

The Master System was Sega's 8-bit console that competed mainly with the Nintendo Entertainment System for most of its life. I wont get into a massive comparison between the two here but power wise i feel the Master System had a clear edge particularly with Colours but the NES has a far more lauded game library.... outside of Europe anyway.

So where do my memories of it begin? Well way back in 1993, My parents got a Master System Model 2 mainly for themselves i suspect but as a fresh faced 3 year old i got to play it too! The first video game i ever played was Paperboy and it blew my tiny little mind. In Paperboy you... well... you deliver papers! But you do this by throwing them into post boxes and at door mats whilst avoiding obstacles, angry house pets and your own bad aim. I remember as a kid the cathartic feeling of "Missing" and throwing papers through house windows and cars and it was great arcade fun.

The next genre of games i got to get to grips with was platformers! Now at the time platformers were the big game genre, characters such as Mario, Sonic and the amazing Disney titles were the staples of video games and i fell in love straight away. The first one i got to play was the often forgotten SEGA mascot platformer Alex Kidd: In Miracle World which was actually built into the Model 2 we had at the time. Alex Kidd is platformer in a similar vein to its big rival Mario games, you run, jump and punch your way through a variety of very bright and colourful worlds, collecting baums and playing Rock Paper Scissors with bosses,,,, ok so its slightly different but it was fun nonetheless! One of things i loved about Alex Kidd as a child was the levels where you got to control Alex in Vehicles such as a helicopter and motorbike. Although somewhat forgotten now it is still a great game and if you were to ever pick up a Master System it is a must buy!

Of course Alex Kidd was replaced by this point by Sonic The Hedgehog and here in the UK we got a few cool Master System game based off Mega Drive titles. The one i got to play at the time was the amazing Sonic The Hedgehog 2. Yes it actually came to Master System! Although there isn't a single level carried over from the Mega Drive title the game still feels like its much faster counterpart. Sonic 2 on Master System wasn't actually the first Sonic game i had played, my best friend at school had a Mega Drive so Sonic 1, 2 and Streets of Rage 2 were games i had played on that BEFORE i got the Master System versions for myself, it was the first one that i owned and as such i have fond memories of it and all its weirdness. The gliders, the special stages and the dark "Omg tails is dead" ending you got if you didn't get all the gems!

When it came to racing games the Master System provided me with an early memory too with the outstanding port of Outrun. Outrun was an arcade racer where you tried to get to the end of the level being the timer ran out by drifting around corners and just generally driving fast. There was also an F1 game i remember too but it was never as much fun Outrun and certainly not as fast!

Lastly for my quick look at my early gaming memories i have to talk about the outstanding Shoot em Up series Fantasy Zone. Fantasy Zone was a side scrolling shooter which puts you in control of the adorable Opa Opa who must complete certain objectives and blast bosses to move to different worlds. Fantasy Zone 2 was the version i had and its bright colours and wonderful soundtrack stuck with me throughout my journey into game development years later. The master system has great arcade ports of Hang On and Space Harrier as well but Fantasy Zone 2's unique looks and gameplay were always more appealing to me.

So i could go on for pages about all the Master System games i played growing up and the great series such as Phantasy Star and Wonder Boy i missed but perhaps i will keep that for a few retro reviews in the future! Overall the Master System was a fantastic little console that i loved to bits, sadly mine broke when i was in my Teens and we foolishly threw it out and sold the games, im sure now i would be able to fix whatever went wrong now but alas it was not meant to be. As gamers we always have fondness for our first console and games and for me the Master System and SEGA as a whole will always have a very special place in my heart.

A Look Back At My Wii U Adventure!: Part 6: 2017 And Beyond!

Here it is the end of the Wii U, In January 2017 Nintendo Confirmed that the Wii U was no longer in production and that The Legend Of Zelda: Breath of the Wild would be its last game for it. This was a bittersweet moment for me, The Nintendo Switch looked like everything we all wanted the Wii U to be, truly a handheld - Console hybrid but i dunno, i still loved my Wii U ya know?

So in the final part of my Wii U journey i talk 2017 and beyond!

The Best Swansong 
In March 2017 the Switch launched alongside The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild for both it and the Wii U. So we did get a Switch at launch but as my partner is by far the bigger Zelda fan she bought the special edition and played BOTW on that but i wanted to play it as well so i picked up the Wii U version!

BOTW was a mindblowing game last year. Never before had a Nintendo game felt so modern whilst keeping its core design intact. Beyond a short tutorial section the whole map is open for you to explore! Want to find all the shrines? DO IT. Want to find all the story cut scenes? DO IT. Want to walk straight up to Ganon and take him down with a stick? TRY IT. It was amazing!

It is fundamentally a return to the formula of the first game in the series and to some this was a massive negative. By this point the Ocarina of Time/Link to the past formula of dungeons, dungeon items and gear had become the established norm for the franchise. I personally found the return to open non linear design to be extremely refreshing and aside from Xenoblade X there really isn't anything like it on the Wii U!

The Wii U version is also a fantastic version of the game. There is a lot of presumption that the Wii U version is vastly inferior to the Switch version but to be perfectly honest they are almost the same. The Switch's newer hardware helps it keep a slightly better frame rate during intense moments but overall you would really struggle to notice the difference if they were played in front of you! The Wii U also got all the DLC for the game and that is again fantastic, if you have the Wii U and not a Switch i would highly suggest that you pick this up! It will also end up being a very expensive game in about a decades time, mark my words!

I really need to sit down and write a proper review for Breath of the Wild and i probably will at some point!

The only other title released to the mass market was Darksiders: Warmastered Edition in May. Now i did a full review of this a few weeks ago so please check out that if you want more info but its a pretty solid version of a pretty good game!

The Backlog!
After that the Wii U was basically done, there was a few indie physical releases such as Axiom Verge and Shantae but they were released in incredibly small quantities so i wont count them here and of course there will be Just Dance releases until at least 2019! So i used the rest of 2017 and 2018  to catch up on my backlog! Captain Toad Treasure Tracker, Paper Mario Colour Splash and the aforementioned Darksiders were all games i caught up on in 2018. I have reviews for all 3 on here so check them out!

Beyond this year i am planning to play through and catch up on alot of the titles i have missed throughout the years! Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, Sonic Lost World, Super Mario Maker, Xenoblade X and many more are sat on my shelf waiting for a quiet spell in my gaming calendar!

A Closing Thought
Overall after looking back on my time with the Wii U i cant help but feel a little sad at its failure. I loved this little thing, for the last 5 or so years it has been my preferred platform full of great games that you couldn't play anywhere else at the time, The third party support died a death after 2 years but for those 2 years i picked up a ton of stuff i didnt pick up on Xbox 360 before and it felt like the console i wanted it to be, Alas the Switch is out now and kicking ass and maybe one day i will feel as strongly about that as i do the Wii U but for now the Wii U sits in the top tier of my favourite consoles of all time and i look forward to playing and writing about it for years to come!

A Look Back At My Wii U Adventure!: Part 5: 2016

I'm back for part 5 of my Wii U Adventure and here it is.... the dark times! Without spoiling this blog too much i can safely say that this was the worst year i have had so far as a Wii U Owner. It was incredably clear by the middle of the year that the, now named, Nintendo Switch would be coming in 2017 and as such Zelda was delayed for the launch as well as a few other games being somewhat rushed out to move over to Switch development. There was a few awesome games though that have already begun gaining Cult Hit status amongst Wii U fans!

Without further a do....

Neglect

So this is going to be a short article... i actually only purchased TWO games this year on the Wii U! Although i did pick up stuff that came to Wii U as well, i was opting to play else where this year. What i did play was a lot more Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros., Splatoon and Call of Duty Black Ops 2! These games in particular were constants for me throughout the Wii U Era and with most of them having Switch counterparts by the end of 2018 i suspect they will hold up my Switch too!

The Games I Did Buy!
On a more positive note i did buy two games after all! The first was, of course, The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD in March. It has always been a frustration of mine that the Gamecube version of Twilight Princess has always been so expensive and hard to get hold of for an older game that i just wanted to give a go, so i was very excited when this remaster got announced and i was not disappointed!

Although i still need to get around to finishing it, i suck i know, what i played of this game puts it very high on my best Zelda list. It just perfects the formula laid down by Ocarina of Time with its overall structure and just feels so epic in a sort of Lord of the Rings kind of way. Sure the early hours are abit hand holdy but its really not as extreme as people go on about. We also picked up the Midna Wolf Link amiibo that came in the special edition of the game too which is really cool and very detailed!

The other game that i picked up was... Lego City: Undercover! By this point Nintendo had started putting out its "Nintendo Selects" line of £20 re-releases of its better games so i finally picked this up. Lego City is often compared to GTA but it is really more than that. This game is one of the best written to have come from the already well respected Lego games with lots of nods and jokes for both the young and the older. I LOVED all the nintendo and celebrity references and it was jam packed with content. Like everything else you can now pick this up on the Switch and i really to recommend it, there isn't alot like this on Nintendo platforms and that is a shame.

What Did I Miss?
There was a few cool things that came out in 2016 that i didn't get at the time....but also some less so.
Star Fox: Zero and Guard were hailed as the last big hopes for Wii U by 2016, a game that was delayed a few times to the point some of us really weren't sure that it was going to come out! And then it did... and MEH. I'm not a diehard Star Fox guy to be honest but it seemed like Zero was positioned as a return to the series roots following the side steps of Assault and Adventures and i think people had there hopes and expectations super high but sadly Zero just fell flat.

Most peoples issues with the game are its rehashing of the Lylat Wars on the N64 and the incredibly non-intuitive control system that required the player to concentrate on two separate screens at the same time. I have recently picked up the double pack that includes the downloadable Star Fox: Guard so i will play it  and let you know!

Paper Mario Colour Splash, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, Mario/Sonic at the Rio Olympics and Pokken Tournament also came out this year and i was super excited for all three but.... i don't know, i just couldn't drop the big bucks on these games at the time due to the Wii U's dying state. It seems silly now because, as i will talk about in the next few posts, i have played the Wii U sooooooooooo much since 2016 but at the time i just wasn't playing it! I have reviewed Paper Mario on my blog before so please check that out for a more detailed look at my thoughts!

So coming out of 2016 hope was at an all time low. at the start of 2017 Nintendo ceased Wii U production and the Switch was fully shown off and we were all ready to move on. We preordered ours as soon as possible and presumed we would be putting our Wii U away for the foreseeable future...turns out we were very very wrong.....

A Look Back At My Wii U Adventure!: Part 4: 2015

I'm back with part 4 of my Wii U retrospective and this time it is 2015! Now i was fully expecting to be talking purely about doom and gloom here, with the NX project being teased and the generally perceived "Console is DEAD!" chat that i recall from the year!

Will i be pleasantly surprised or will the nightmares come flowing back?

Catching up and a surprise spin off!

Although a 2014 game in America and Japan Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker was actually released in very early January in PAL territories so that is where our look back starts! Although i didn't complete the game till much later on (Not the first time i will say this btw - and i reviewed this on the blog already!) my partner played the crap out of this! It is essentially a full game version of the puzzle levels from Super Mario 3D World and overall it was a very pleasant surprise! Its now on 3DS and Switch too so if you missed out on Wii U it is something i would recommend now.

I personally spent the first 4 months of the year catching up on Hyrule Warriors and Super Smash Bros 4! I talked about both of these games in the last post so i won't talk too much about it here but they did both add a lot of DLC in 2015, most of which i played and enjoyed. Nintendo really pushed DLC during this era with the second half of the Mario Kart 8 pass being released around this time too!

Mario Party 10 also came out in March and it was one of the most disappointing games for me personally throughout the whole Wii U life span. Mario Party 1 to 8 were all enjoyable and joyfully frustrating romps for 4 players that we still crack out at parties or drunken meet ups but 9 and 10 focused on co operation which just didn't work. 10 had the bowser mode for 5 players which was fun in spurts but overall it was a bad start of the year.

Some great and underrated titles

May was a HUGE month for the Wii U in 2015.  Kirby and The Rainbow Paintbrush came out at the start of the month. Rainbow Paintbrush was a spiritual sequel to the DS classic canvas curse, where you control Kirby by drawing lines on the touch screen for kirby to follow down. You could also tap enemies and power ups to aid with progression!

The first thing you will notice about this game is the claymation style graphics that, frankly, is still beautiful. The music was also memorable and catchy as all Kirby soundtracks tend to be and to my surprise, the game is actually pretty tough to 100%.There was also a really cool multiplayer aspect where the rest of the players control a traditional character with your stand 2D platformer controls! Its a rarely talked about aspect of a game that in general is often forgotten but I was very impressed by Rainbow Paintbrush and i do hope it gets at least a 3DS port soon so more people can give it a fair shot.

But Kirby was quickly forgotten at the End of the month when Splatoon was released! Splatoon was an absolute phenomenon that quickly took over the Nintendoverse with its unique form of third person shooting and team based play. Splatoon's premise is simple, paint more than the other team and you win, but the depth was just so surprising. The single player was also very fun with the final boss in particular being a delight and it is needless to say that throughout the year Splatoon got a ton of new content and was kept in our machine for the next 2 years!

The last Q2 game for Europe was Yoshi's Woolly World in June. Now beyond a single play session i actually haven't played this yet but my partner loved her time spent with it. The art style was again beautiful and the woolly Amiibo were very cool. I will 100% get around to playing this soon, before its sequel comes out next year!

The next drought
The next 6 months were very barren in this house. Outside of Full Blast (Which i reviewed for Gintendo) i mostly just kept playing Splatoon, Mario Kart and Smash, and it felt so good. Much like the Gamecube the Wii U had really hit it's stride with the release of core multiplayer titles like this, no one does multiplayer like Nintendo for me and i fondly remember endless nights of Splatfests and Online Tournaments!

I know what some of you are thinking.... Um Super Mario Maker Dave? Yeah.... so despite being a lover of 2D Mario and buying almost all of the big Wii U titles to this point, i just couldn't get excited for Mario Maker. At the time i was working on video game development more and more and the idea of doing game design during my "Relaxing time" was a massive turn off for me. I have picked this up now and i am enjoying it alot, i mean it is ENDLESS MARIO!!!

I did pick up the much maligned Devil's Third but i still haven't got the playing that yet! Pete swears the online multiplayer was fantastic but that was sadly shut down fairly quickly! Mario Tennis Ultra Smash also came out around this time but  well that was just a glorified demo. It's crazy to think the only Mario sports game on Wii U is one of the worst and just plain lazy games Nintendo has ever released!

Xenoblade Chronicles X and the cursed corrupted Memory stick

In November Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival came out and.... yeah... it sucked... For Christmas this year i picked up the special edition of Xenoblade Chronicles X and that was really my main new Wii U game till the end of the year. I hadn't played the elusive Wii title that came before, i knew about all the fabulous accents and the damned MINADO, but i was still so hyped for X. Don't forget that the game had been shown way back in 2013 and was long touted as THE big open world game for the Wii U. As Wii U owners we had to watch the Xbox One and PS4 get a greater variety of a lot of genres and at the time the "big open world game" was beginning its rise to the premier  genre so we hung our hats on the prospect of X. Overall i was not disappointed, X is a massive and beautiful game, How Monolith Soft got this to run on the Wii U with next to no load screens or slow down is insane.

I did however encounter an issue after Christmas which did unfortunately sour my love of the game. The cheap memory stick i had been using for expanding the Wii U's paltry memory failed and ultimately meant i lost quite a few game saves including Hyrule Warriors and Xenoblade X. I plan to go back to X fairly soon and when i do you better believe i will review it on the blog!

Overall 2015 was a mixed year. There was the highest of highs with Splatoon and Xenoblade but then the lowest of lows with Amiibo Festival and Mario Party 10. It was clear Nintendo were holding back following the early announcement of the NX Project but there was still some good games to look forward to! So how was 2016, effectively the last year of Wii U production? Find out next time!

A Look Back At My Wii U Adventure!: Part 3: 2014

This time we look at one of the Wii U's best years, 2014. I will be going into much less detail with Nintendo Direct from this point onwards, its fun watching the old directs but a play by play isn't really giving you much of my own opinion, so i will talk about what came out over the year but from my view!

So without further a do....

Catching up

Aside from Donkey Country Kong Tropical Freeze there Wii U release schedule was pretty bleak until May so i used that first 4 months to catch up on games from 2013. Wind Waker HD and Super Mario 3D World were the main games i was a playing at the time. Wind Waker in particular was a great delight for partner and i. I've gone on record a few times about how little i enjoyed Wind Waker back on the Gamecube. Not because of the art style, which is what most people hated, but the damn stealth section at the start of the game! I don't like stealth too much now but back then, man, i had so little patience. In the end i beat Ocarina of Time which came with the version of Wind Waker i had instead, so being able to play it again in HD was fantastic!

The first new game i picked up was Lego Marvel Super Heroes and it was good time. Marvel-Mania was in real flow by this point so to play a well made platformer with tons and TONS of marvel characters was a joy. It was another game on Wii U that did co op the right way, dual screen co op was arguably the best feature the Wii U could do a lot of the time!

I also used this time to FINALLY beat Super Metroid and what a fine game that is. It has certainly aged but if you've ever wondered why people love Samus so much... play this game!

The Best 6 Months On Wii U

What a time to be alive this was! Mario Kart 8, Shovel Knight, Pullblox World, Bayonetta 1/2, Hyrule Warriors and Super Smash Bros. 4. Quality throughout!

Mario Kart 8 was the first to kick off great game in May and it was glorious. First of all its gorgeous, like beautiful! The PS4 and Xbox One were both out at this point but i argued at the time there was not a game on either of those consoles that looked this good! The gameplay was as perfect as it could be with the anti gravity mechanic being a subtle but amazing addition to the formula. Even the online was fantastic and even to this day getting into a lag free full lobby is a breeze, In November they also added the first half of DLC with Zelda and F Zero themed content being added for a crazy low price!

Next for me came the Bayonetta dual pack! In Europe we not only Bayonetta 1 on Disc for Wii U, It got its own case too! As someone who had never played Bayonetta i ate up this dual pack release and i am very glad i did. Now Bayonetta is certainly not for everyone... its very... SEGA. What i mean by that its over the top, crazy characters acting in a range from weird to overly sexual but it all works! The gameplay is a high action combat beat em up that Platinum Games is known for! The also added some Nintendo costumes for Bayo to wear and are typically sexualized. As the second game... well its the first but bigger and Better! I still haven't finished the second game yet but its something i will get a round too soon, needless to say, what i have played i have really enjoyed!

Hyrule Warriors was next out and it was another surprise hit for me. Dynasty Warriors has long been criticised for its perceived repetition which, to be fair, is somewhat warranted. So people weren't that excited for Hyrule Warriors. Sure Zelda is a cool series and the collectors edition came with a nice blue scarf but would it really be more than a quick thrill? well yes, it was! Hyrule Warriors is a fairly simple premise and set up, 3 universes collide to stop the baddie, etc but the amount of content the devs were able to but in the base game was just staggering. I myself played the game for a good 40 hours and i know people with 4 times that amount! Koei also kept adding more and more dlc to the game aswell and now that the definitive edition is on the Switch i cant recommend it enough!

And the last big title to come out in 2014 was, of course, SUPER SMASH BROTHERS! What can you say about smash 4? It was an incredible day when Smash came out. We book the day off work, pre ordered the mega edition that came with the Gamecube controller adapter and special controller. We got some of the newly released Amiibo too! And we just played and played for hours. Smash is a hard game to explain to people that haven't played it, its a Nintendo Fighting game but its simple to learn for newcomers. Fighting games often seem hard to get into from the outside but Smash is really for everyone!

So that was a quick look at the Wii U in 2014 for me. Overall i think i was a pretty great year for us Wii U owners but it was becoming very clear that third parties were gone for good. No COD, No Fifa and No Assassins Creed for us from this point onwards but the Wii U firmly cemented its place as my First party machine at the time.

Darksiders: Warmastered Edition (Wii U) Review!

The Darksiders series has always been a strange thing in my group of friends. It always stood as a joke to taunt our aptly named friend Daemon who bought the first game during university, the only game he bought full price no less, and he hated. We have always presumed from his hate that the game was rubbish but in May 2017 a remastered version came to the Wii U, standing as the last significant release for the console no less, so i picked it up never really planning to play it.

Fast forward to 2018 and i have been re-energised to try out more of the games that sit in my backlog and now i have finally given Darksiders Warmastered Edition a fair go, so, 16 hours later... what did i think?

Well first of all the game is certainly not of the poor quality Daemon had so constantly insisted. You play the role of WAR, a member of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, tasked with upholding the balance between heaven and hell. WAR is wrongly called into action and must figure out who is behind the ultimate extinction of Mankind. It is a simple premise but it fits.

Most of the characters are very likeable, or not if thats the point, and are all well voiced. Mark Hamill as the watcher is a particular highlight for me personally as he effortlessly steals every scene with a character that sticks very close to his version of Batman's Joker. The rest of the sound design is solid. Swords hitting steel and flesh sound and feel great and the ambient sounds throughout the hub worlds add to the atmosphere. When the action calls for it the soundtrack really cranks up the epic and it feels like you are playing high budget dark fantasy movie, it is fantastic.

Darksiders has an interesting artistic design for its Dark Fantasy world. Characters a detailed but also colourful with large arms and legs. This works for the setting and helps the game stand out compared to the games it is often compared too. The Dark Fantasy also extends to the setting with a post apocalyptic Earth being a wonderful mix of contemporary buildings and vehicles with the large towers and churches of a classic hellscape, it is literally hell on earth!

Gameplay is a 50/50 split between Zelda dungeons and exploration and Devil May Cry fast paced combat. The dungeons are fairly well designed but they are a tad long. They follow the standard get item, use item to solve puzzle, beat boss, get story doo hicky that the Zelda series has lived off for a number of years but ironically, playing this after Breath of the Wild was somewhat refreshing. Whilst they aren't as well constructed as the excellent Twilight Princess or as visually interesting as Wind Waker, they are for sure the next best on the Wii U.

Combat is fun on the whole. War has a number of different weapons and items to call on from his giant assed sword to a boomerang style throwing star. Each weapon can be upgraded and tweaked for specific passive abilities which adds to the depth. War also has a number of Wrath powers that work in a similar way to Kratos spartan powers in the God of War series. I particular like War's Chaos mode where he basically turns into a Warhammer Daemon Prince and wrecks shop. Although by the end of the game mashing standard enemies into the ground gets kind of boring the wonderful boss fights keep the combat fresh throughout.

Performance wise the game certainly isn't running at the 60 Fps wrongly printed on the cases blurb but on the whole he sticks pretty close to 30 Fps. Aside from a few instances of falling through the floor the game is surprisingly glitch free, it is clear that this port was not a massive priority but you have to praise Vigil Games and THQ Nordic for following through and putting this on the Wii U in the first place!

Overall i was surprised by how much i have enjoyed playing through Darksiders. It doesn't break new ground and shows its age in a few places but to be honest there really isn't a massive amount of similar games nowadays. Its dungeons can drag a bit and combat gets a little stale once you are fully powered but tight controls, excellent boss fights and an interesting story kept me from putting this down.

If you have a Wii U lying around and you're looking for something fun and simple to play without the worry of online connections, micro transactions and ultimately at a reasonable price, you could do a lot worse than Darksiders: Warmastered Edition and hey, the Sequel was actually a launch title on Wii U so you could play that when you're done too! I just might....

A Look Back At My Wii U Adventure: Part 2: 2013

In the last post i talked about my pre launch and initial month of owning a Wii U way back in 2012. This time im talking about what i would  consider the pivotal year in the Wii U's ultimate demise - 2013. I had actually talked about the Wii U a fair bit on this blog during 2013 so i will draw on those thoughts throughout! So without further a do...

The Great Drought

Yeah... this is gonna be bumpy. The year began with a Nintendo Direct in January where Nintendo admitted themselves that there would be no new releases in Jan and Feb and even APOLOGISED for the lack of content. 2 months after launch, that is a crazy situation. The direct overall was actually pretty good for a budding Wii U owner. They announced Virtual Console, A new Yoshi game (Woolly World), A New Zelda (BOTW), The Wind Waker remake, Xenoblade Chronicles X and the Shin Megami Tensai x Fire Emblem project that eventually became Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE. They also launched the Famicon 30th Anniversary campaign for the next 6 months, which basically offered Virtual Console games for 30p for a month. This was pretty cool and allowed me to pick up great games like Super Metroid and F Zero that i had never played before!

There was also a massive focus on Nintendo's support from Platinum Games, with The Wonderful 101 and Bayonetta 2 receiving significant air time. This was great, i remember being super excited for W101 and i covered it alot on this blog!

As for what i bought in Jan/Feb, i ended up picking up Assassins Creed 3, Call of Duty Black Ops 2 and Batman Arkham City as well as a Pro Controller. The main reason i did this was that as part of HMV's financial issues at the time they basically liquidated all support for the Wii U so i was able to pick up all that stuff at around half price. I really should of seen this as a warning of the lack of support the Wii U was about to get but i was blinded by the £300 i had spent on the console and, to be fair, i was really enjoying it. I was playing the console for 40+ hours every month (thanks to the Wii U's daily log app i've been able to see all my numbers for the last 6 years!) and didn't really feel the drought... not yet anyway.

Nintendo kept up its Direct communication with another show in feb. In this one they proclaimed the "Year of Luigi" which highlighted the more timid brother in a number of games. On Wii U this amounted to Dr Luigi on the eShop and the New Super Luigi U expansion for the launch Mario game. Both of these were fun experiences with the Luigi U dlc being some of the best 2D Mario i have experienced in a long time.

Lego City: Undercover was shown again and it looked really fun. It was one of those games that never seemed to drop in price until it got to the Nintendo Selects line so i actually didn't play it till much later but it got a spring window of release during this direct. They also announced some free DLC for Ninja Gaiden 3: Razors Edge which i forgot was even a thing! A couple more third parties titles were shown such as the excellent Need For Speed Most Wanted and the Forth coming Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate!

During March i picked up Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate and that was basically it till June! I've talked about it in the past but Monster Hunter is one of those series where you can really lose yourself once the game loop takes hold of you and 3 Ultimate was the game that did that to me. I played for well over 200 hours in solo, online co op with friends and for the first time on Wii U online with a community of strangers. This is where MiiVerse really showed its strength, allowing the MH3U community to share there loadouts, look for players and just generally show off all there stuff.

We also got some devastating news in March. Rayman Legends, which has previously been a timed exclusive, was being delayed till September in order to release on other platforms. This was a big blow, Rayman Legends was built to utilise the Wii U and at the time was arguably the most anticipated game of Q3. To tide us over Ubisoft put out the Rayman Challenge app that had daily and weekly challenges and leaderboards for players to compete. This app was great fun but just showed us what we were missing. Funnily enough i ended up not picking Rayman up till much much later because of this delay, if i remember correctly it came out just before GTA5 on other platforms and so got seriously lost.

There was another short Direct in April and this one was really a kick to Wii U owners. Other than Earthbound getting announced for Virtual Console and a Pikmin 3 still not getting a hard date, there was really nothing for us!

Another Direct in May showcased a few more updates on Wii U games. Sonic and Mario at the Winter Games was announced along with a tease for Sonic: Lost World. I'm a fairly big Sonic fan but i have somehow failed to pick either of these games up just yet so i can't really comment on them!

Game and Wario was finally dated for June and although not a smash hit, it is actually a pretty fun little game. The Criminally underrated Resident Evil: Revelations was announced as a port for Wii U from 3DS with added content for the end of May, They date New Super Luigi U and showed the Physical Version for the first time. I always wanted this but just never got around to it, sadly it is now super expensive! The biggest news for me personally was that The Wonderful 101 got dated for September but there was also some Pikmin 3 coverage and finally a release date of August!

E3 2013

With the Xbox One and PS4 being the focus of this event Nintendo had to really come out swinging through this show. Going into the show i was cautiously optimistic, Although content was very light for the first 6 months, Nintendo had done a fairly good job at giving us consistent updates in the mean time. I still held faith that my Wii U wasn't a big mistake but i kinda knew at this time i would be buying another console at some point in 2014.

The first big game shown was Super Mario 3D World a sequel to the 3DS hit Super Mario 3D Land. I think overall a lot of people were disappointed by the look of this game but personally i really liked the look of it. I hadn't played a 3D Mario game with Sunshine so perhaps didn't have the expectations built up by playing the excellent Mario Galaxy series. It also got a 2013 date - a good start.

Next Mario Kart 8 got announced and shown for the first time. This was HUGE. I couldn't believe how detailed it looked, the anti gravity mechanic looked crazy and it was already looking like a must buy. The game ultimately became the best selling game on the console and my favourite one, and even from this early showcase you can see why! It got a Spring 2014 date but excitement stayed high!

Wii Party U and Wii Fit U then both got delays to the end of the year and Wii Sports Club was announced. Party U is supposed to be fairly good but i didn't really care too much, having to use Wii Motes was still a big turn off for me. We had a, short, thrid party reel next. Batman Arkham Origins, Deus Ex Human revolution, Disney Infinity, Just Dance, Rayman Legends, Planes, Skylanders Swap Force, Splinter Cell Blacklist, Sonic Lost World,Assassins Creed IV, Watch Dogs and Call Of Duty: Ghosts were all shown for 2013 releases and overall its a solid list of titles.

Indies were next. Nintendo started to cultivate its Nindies program at this time which has really paid off now during the Switch's first few years. A few highlights for me with Shovel Knight, Scram Kitty, Cloudberry kingdom and Ducktales Remastered. Not an amazing list but Indies were only just getting into there stride on Nintendo Platforms.

Wind Waker got a very nostalgic trailer, my GF lost her mind for this, being her favourite game of all time she was very excited at the prospect of playing it again in shiny HD and i must admit even i was looking forward to it. Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze was Announced next for a November release. Its another one where people wanted something else but, again, i didn't play the Wii game and so i was fairly excited for this. DK games are usually hard as nails and Tropical Freeze did not disappoint me at least!

The eagerly anticipated Bayonetta 2 got another hype inducing trailer that finally showed off some crazy gameplay. It's risque and adult style was something incredibly unique on the console at this point and it looked fantastic. Xenoblade Chronicles X then got another showing, again blowing me away with its graphical scale and ambition. I was found it funny how much the default character they used looked alot like Zack from FF7, especially when running with a large sword on his back! This game looked great too, the skell gameplay alone sold me on this and i couldn't wait for its 2014 release.

And of course, they ended the show on a gameplay trailer for Super Smash Bros 4. Announcing the Animal Crossing Villager and the long requested Mega Man would be joining the fight! It was only a brief tease but looked just as great as Melee but with the HD advantages of the Wii U.

Overall it was a very positive showing for the Wii U. There was a decent amount of 2013 games to end the year on and frankly, 2014 looked to be absolutely stacked. Sadly PS4's Xbox One bashing ultimately overshadowed everything Nintendo showed.

The Rest of 2013
Despite the fantastic E3 showing and Nintendo Directs the last 6 months were very quiet for me. I picked up Mass Effect 3 and played the Wonderful 101 Demo but due to a lack of funds that was really all i bought until Christmas time. I really enjoyed Mass Effect 3, there was tons of content in this version of the game and even the multiplayer was fun!

There were a few more Directs between June and December and ill briefly touch on the announcements from these!

The first mini Direct in July was focused mainly on Pikmin 3, Wonderful 101 and Earthbound. With Earthbound getting a shadow drop on that very day. Earthbound was never released in the UK so i was pretty excited to finally play it. I picked it up that day and beat it in about a week, its a great and very different game so if you have a Wii U or SNES Classic it is something i would recommend to RPG fans.

August saw another shorter direct. The games that received a focus here were Sonic Lost World, Art Academy, Pikmin 3, Pokemon Rumble U, Wind Waker and the Animal Crossing Plaza app. A Wonderful 101 direct was announced and that's all she wrote. A really poor showing here for me, just nothing new or exciting with the new Sony and Microsoft system right around the corner.

Novembers Direct was headed up by NOA and as such had little bit more flavour and personality. I always find Reggie and Bill bring so much more fun to these directs and around this time they really kicked it into overtime. Onto the games! Pikmin 3 got DLC announced for December which looked fun, Animal Crossing Plaza got an update, a host of more indies got shown (Including QUBE: Directors Cut from my friends at Toxic Games!) and Super Mario 3D World got a firm date and a bit of a trailer.

And Finally, Decembers Direct rounded a year of directs out! This one started fast with an announcement trailer for Hyrule Warriors, a Zelda and dynasty warriors crossover game. I must admit i was a little sceptical at this, Dynasty Warriors games can get repetitive fast but the Zelda theming and fan service was very intriguing.

Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze got another showing, this time announcing Cranky Kong as a playable character. I was still pretty excited for this but this showing didn't seem to sway most people! Sonic Lost World got strange Zelda and Yoshi DLC announced which im sure was cool but it was bizarre to see!

The next big announcement was NES Remix. The premise of this is a challenge based game based around classic NES games. It was a pretty cool concept and was available right away! Dr. Luigi was also shown and this is another underrated eShop title that i don't hear many people talk about too much. It was simple but still very enjoyable, especially online!

Lastly another Smash Bros trailer was shown, this time announcing Rosalina as a playable character. Smash has always had a way of hyping up the Nintendo community with its smart way of gradually revealing information about the games. People were so excited for Smash 4 and Mario Kart 8!

And PHEW, thats all the directs covered. Its very clear that at this point Nintendo were really pushing the Directs as a way of keeping there hardcore fans informed as to what is going on and i really admire there style.

End of 2013 Round Up
So my 2013 ended with me Getting Super Mario 3D World for Christmas which i enjoyed a lot! I've talked about on the blog before but i have always preferred the more linear Mario games. I like playing well designed and unique levels a lot more than different objectives within a more open world and 3D world is the perfect example of that. It also features the amazing Captain Toad levels that Nintendo will later use to form the basis of a whole new game!

Overall 2013 was a tough year for the Wii U. The first 6 months were so barren of releases that if you bought most of the launch day ports you would of really struggled for something to play. Luckily for me i held off buying Assassins Creed, Batman, Call of Duty and Mass Effect for my 360 and as such got to enjoy them on my new console. Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate and Super Mario 3D World were definitely the best games i played this year but Pikmin 3, Wonderful 101 and Wind Waker would of made the year a whole lot better had i been able to afford them!

So that was my 2013 how was it for you guys?