I felt as my previous blog was quite successful despite it being my first blog, so I decided to drum up a new topic for discussion. As you may know already that I'm a big Playstation gamer, but I also love Nintendo especially their handhelds. Since I had 2 PS3's(One for me, one for my 8 year old brother) I decided that I needed to get rid of atleast 1 before PS4 hit. I called Gamestop and they told me I'd get $130~ for my PS3. But I started looking at other options, namely the Wii U. Now I've never owned a Nintendo console before and I never felt like I needed to since most of their titles have a handheld counterpart. But the only reason the Wii U came to mind was as a value increase. I looked on craigslist to see that Wii U owners were desperate to get the Wii U off their hands selling a Wii U Deluxe for as low as $225. Since I decided I wanted a New one I chose a higher price tag. After speaking with about 5 different sellers, I finally settled with one and gave him my PS3 and $100. Since I wasn't giving him any games(All the games in my collection are worth keeping) He told me I wasn't going to get Nintendoland. But that's besides the point. Needles to say, on the way back I picked up some used titles from Gamestop to try out for a week just to break the Wii U in.
Now since I never owned a Wii, I wasn't familiar with having a speaker on my controller which is something the Wii controller, the Wii U gamepad, and the PS4 controller all share. The games I bought was Super Mario Bros. U and Zombi U. Now Zombi U was primarily the game that impacted me the most. Once I started playing, I was slightly surprised by the effect of radio talk coming out the speaker from the controller. It was pleasant, it immersed me into the experience and made it that much more believable regardless of the title's mediocrity. I read an article before which stated that the PS4's speaker was designed for a similar purpose but also would provide ambient noises or the sound of bullet casings hitting the ground. The experience that Zombi U made me feel just by having the radio chatter coming closer to me, made me feel more engaged into the story my mission and so on. I started thinking how incredibly beneficial this one feature alone could have been for the Last of Us. Hearing a clicker right next to you as you creep down hallways, just amazing. But since that won't happen I began getting excited for the feature being added to PS4 titles, perhaps in Last of Us 2.
Now I know I focused on one specific part of the Wii U gamepad, but to be honest as a controller as a whole, I'm severely dissapointed. When I had to change gear, I had to look down at the gamepad, and although you get used to it after a while, i don't find it practical at all. See if you compare Zombi U's system to say the Last of Us, everyone should agree that the equipment change is much more readily apparent in the Last of Us. I know it's an unfair comparison but I just don't feel like it makes much sense to have to look at the Gamepad. Granted, if that was the case then what's the use of the Gamepad at all? Well that's the thing, as I did other activities, such as picking a lock. In this mode the lock is displayed on the gamepad screen and you are tasked to pick the lock on the touchpad. Now in this mode, there's nothing on the tv screen. And that's when I realized that the the entire Gamepad experience actually hinders the gaming experience more than help it.
Instead of displaying the lock on the gamepad screen, it should've been displayed on the tv and allowed me to move my finger across the pad and see the pick move across the tv screen. And that's exactly what the PS4 equivalent should feel like when picking a lock using the dualshock 4's touchpad. I also played the demo of Wonderful 101, which the drawing on the gamepad takes your eyes off the tv and opens up your characters to attacks from enemies. In Wonderful 101, you are supposed to draw shapes and lines on the Gamepad to change form on the tv screen. If this was available on the PS4 then we would be drawing these shapes and lines on the touchpad with our thumb without ever taking our eyes off the tv. But due to its nature you always feel like you have to look at the gamepad screen when changing to fist mode or sword mode.
For the longest time I didn't know what the dualshock 4's touchpad was going to be used for. I only read in articles and videos that it would let you control your O.W.L in Killzone: Shadowfall and let you get pass fingerprint scanners in Infamous: Second Son. But that sounds like the most gimmicky thing in the universe, until I saw this video by Sucker Punch.
http://www.youtube.com/watc...
In the video you can see that the touchpad is used as an alternative means of control. In another article I read that the Dualshock 4 touchpad was designed to give new players a control scheme they're used to (their smart phone's touch screen). This way most controls that us hardcore players enjoy can be emulated by new players using the touchpad. Now the most valuable feature of the touchpad to me is the fact that it can simulate most* of the Gamepad's features without taking your eyes off the tv. And that is huge. Just recall the lock picking activity, what's more comfortable looking down at the gamepad to pick the lock while the tv remains useless? Or look at the tv while you naturally move your fingers across the touchpad? This way you don't need to see what you're doing since you can directly see on the tv screen how your touches affect the movement of the pick. This latter way seems to be the more practical, comfortable, and the most immersive control method of the two. Obviously leaving regular controls being the primary control method and kinect controls being the worst form of control. (I won't speak about keyboard and mouse here)
So at this point, I'm going to say it's been harder and harder to enjoy my Wii U. besides the incredibly useful off-tv play I find the Gamepad to burden my gaming experience. Making me yearn even more for the PS4's touchpad since it will offer the more natural controls; at least to me. Nintendo can fix this though, all they would have to do is allow certain actions to be conducted in an alternate fashion. Such as the lock pick scenario, I'm sure they're completely capable of simulating how the dualshock 4 would handle lockpicking.
http://www.youtube.com/watc...
Even in the video above, all of the touch screen controls are done without looking at the controller, which seems much more immersive and comfortable to me. I can see where nintendo was going with this. But unlike the 3ds, we can't look at the tv and the Gamepad at the same time. Remember when everyone said that the Vita and PS4 together was supposed to kill the Wii U. Since the Vita could potentially be used as a PS4 controller and emulate the same features as the Wii U gamepad. But as more time went on, no emphasis was made on this specific feature from Sony, but tablet and mobile support was. Until Shuhei Yoshida stated that it is possible( http://www.ign.com/articles... but then until recently ( http://www.vg247.com/2013/0... that using the ps vita as a gamepad akin to the Wii U would not be supported since "People don’t have four eyes, so I think that’s why we are focusing on Remote Play"
Now I know the Gamepad has other useful functions such as inventory management and map display. But the more I use it, the more I ask myself do we really need a separate screen for inventory management and maps? Yes I know that the inventory on the gamepad is always readily available meaning the moment you want to switch items or etc. their's no need to load another screen to start managing inventory. Yet, since the next generation consoles are going to be faster, I would think that pressing the inventory button should be instantaneous at this point. I've heard my friends say that if you let the map be on the Gamepad it allows the game to potentially have a HUDless UI, which leads to a more immersive experience. But then when you really think about it, the moment you look at your gamepad for the map you're not looking at the tv at all! so it kind off wears out the point of a HUDless UI. Since Dead Space did it best in that respect. Allowing you to have health, ammo, map, inventory management all within the game and not a separate UI only made apparent to the player. Or in the Division which allows players to display a holographic map in game.
At the end of the day, the Wii U seems like a cool device, it certainly is fun to use. I just don't think the methods used are practical. Hopefully as time goes on we'll see more innovative features from the gamepad. But for now, the Wii U made the wait for the PS4 slightly harder and also easier. Anyways, that's my thoughts, what do you think N4G? Comment below. And if you you want to see more blogs from me let me know. Thanks for reading.
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The touchpad is going to bring interesting ways to interact with the game. When the rumors first started coming out I was kind of hoping for an LCD touchscreen that would display hot keys.