Okay Geek Farm
Useful ideas for Nintendo Wii U and how we'd use it
Brandon Davenport
The new Nintendo Wii U was announced at E3 2011 and it’s been the buzz of the conference. Not much of the actual console was shown, but the new controller was front and center — but here is the dilemma. Nintendo rolled tons of trailers, developer interviews and gameplay footage for the Wii U at their press conference, but there was no sign of a demo. Since we’re missing that part, here are some examples I’ve designed of how the Wii U could prove useful in a verity of games.
RTS Action with the power of touchyness
The game seen is From Dust — Imagine being able to see a close up, contextual and cinematic view of what’s happening on the ground while you control the action using touch on the Wii U controller. I think this would be fantastic and allow the game to convey much more information like facial expressions on characters, visible damage, easy identification and sense of scale. This could be a killer application for the Wii U.
A Permanent rear-view mirror
I have been playing a lot of Dirt 3 lately, and when I am ripping through a Rally or blazing through a Trailblazer, the last thing on my mind is looking behind me (I’m too busy trying not to eat crap on the corners). I often forget how important the rear view is in a racing game, helping you keep your line and not cause an 8 car pile-up on a hairpin. On the flipside you can efficiently block someone from passing and check up on your hind-side for new headlights.
Splitscreen solved, and even more!
So many multiplayer games have strayed away from splitscreen gaming because splitting up a screen doesn’t make much sense with today’s games with so much information on-screen. Sony took an approach where 2 players could play “split-screen”, each on the entire screen. You’d wear 3D glasses, but instead of seeing 3D you would only be able to filter out your frames from the TV and thus have the whole screen to yourself.
Here’s where Sony’s concept stops being cool (and splitscreen stopped being cool years ago). Peeking on each others screens sucks but what sucks even more is when you have friends over, and some of them want to sit back and cheer you on. Why can’t we use the screens on the Wii U controllers for each player, and use the TV as a game overview with sports-game-style camerawork, and a HUD to display all game info.
5 steps to open your game map
When playing open-world games, maps are your best friend and the added ability to pin “waypoints” have been wonderful, but having to pause the game (sometimes more than that) to view your map is lame and takes you out of the experience. Just tap in your location, pinch to zoom in and out and set a waypoint.
No more getting knifed when flying a UAV
We all love games like Bad Company 2 where you can fly a little UAV and completely annihilate enemy structures and mow down opposing infantry, but the one downfall of this is you’re character is still standing, helpless, at a computer terminal. You’re prone to stabbing, sniping and in general, you’re completely defenseless. Well, with the new Wii U controller, you could be worry free in the near future!
Tools where they should be
When you need to bring up menus or things like the Pip Boy that are attached, or are part of the physical game world, why can’t it be part of the physical Wii U controller in your hands instead? That way, it’s always there when you need it and the touchscreen will eliminate the painful scrolling and selecting induced by game controllers.
What are your ideas? Send them to me!
I had a few cool ideas, but not being an avid gamer myself I’m sure I’ve barely graced the tip of the iceberg. I want to see your ideas for Wii U and how you want it to work for games you play. I will include a template for you to use (the one I used above) and if anyone has an idea, create it and email it to me — brandon[at]okaygeek.com and I’ll add it to this post!
Download — The Wii U and TV template (Singleplayer)
Download — The Wii U and TV template (Multiplayer)
