When it comes to turning short tech demos and unfinished concepts into compelling experiences, no series has had more success than WarioWare. The trick has been to throw so much at you that none of it had to be good. The gameplay wasn’t what mattered. Speed did.
Upcoming Wii U title Game & Wario isn’t fast. READ MORE
Studio Ghibli, with its huge following in Japan, is only in recent years developing a reputation in the West for quality animation. Level-5’s experience is similar, as a major player in the Japanese gaming scene and only recently establishing itself in North America after finding success working with Nintendo on the Professor Layton series. Ni no Kuni has the hallmarks of both companies, and the level of quality that could only come from a collaboration between the two.
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If there’s a Wii U game that’s been exciting to core fans and basically no one else, it’s The Wonderful 101, the Platinum Games project that looks a bit like if Viewtiful Joe got a Pikmin-like spinoff. It’s not quite like that (which is good, because we’ve seen enough of a resurgence in that genre lately), as it’s basically an arena action game that just happens to use people as projectiles and a measure of strength. READ MORE
A few games have tried over the years, but none have really captured the spirit of explosive, sometimes-manic arena combat quite like Bomberman. Candygun seems to have its sights on the genre king with Dollar Dash, opting for an even-less-controlled dynamic and an interesting scoring system.
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Of the Wii U’s intriguing launch titles, New Super Mario Bros. U could be the easiest to understand. Building off the success of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, the game’s relying on its level design to carry it, and that vocabulary is one in which players are fluent at this point. The GamePad functionality and additional modes seem to be adding a layer specifically for the “core” player, as while they’re fun if you want fun, the true magic comes with some serious skill and cooperation to chase high scores.
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