1081: Reasons to Get a Wii U (or a Friend Who Owns a Wii U): Nintendo Land

I had some friends over tonight for some computer and board game action. I lost our game of Agricola as usual (though not by as much as normal — I'll take that) but what I really wanted to talk about was the game we played earlier in the evening — Nintendo Land.

I had a feeling that Nintendo Land would go down well, but I'm super-impressed by quite how much fun it really is. We were concentrating on the competitive games, based on the Mario, Animal Crossing and Luigi's Mansion franchises, and all of them provide chaotic fun for up to five players along with an apt demonstration of exactly what the Gamepad controller device brings to the table.

The Luigi's Mansion game sees the player with the Gamepad taking on the role of a ghost and up to four players with Wii Remotes playing the part of ghost hunters armed only with torches. The ghost's job is to knock out all the ghost hunters by sneaking up on them and touching them; the ghost hunters' job is to reduce the ghost's hit points to zero by shining light on it. The twist is that the ghost is invisible on the TV screen, which the hunter players are referring to, and only the ghost player gets a full overview of where they are in relation to the others on the Gamepad screen. The ghost also occasionally reveals itself when lightning flashes and when it performs a "dash" action, and the hunters' controllers vibrate when the ghost is nearby. The ghost player has an on-screen marker showing the boundary of where the vibrations will occur, meaning they can play some amusing mind games with the other players if they desire.

The Animal Crossing game, meanwhile, casts the Gamepad player in the role of two guards and the Wii Remote players in the role of animals trying to collect sweets. The animal players have to collect a particular number of sweets before the guards catch them three times, though the more sweets they are carrying, the slower they move. The twist with this one is that the single Gamepad player controls both guards using the dual analogue sticks on the Gamepad, and their viewpoint pans and zooms to keep both guards in view at once, while the players on the TV may only see what is in their immediate vicinity.

Finally, the Mario-themed game casts the Gamepad player in the role of Mario and the Wii Remote players in the role of various-coloured Toads. It's Mario's job to stay un-caught until a timer expires, and it's up to the Toads to capture him as quickly as possible. Like in the Animal Crossing game, the Toads may only see what is in their immediate vicinity, and their controls are deliberately clunky and awkward to make it more challenging for them to catch the more agile Mario. The Mario player, meanwhile, has a screen that shows both an overview of the entire level (including where the two Toads are) and a close-up of their immediate surroundings. For the most part, the Mario player will be using the overview map to try and stay out of trouble, but when the Toads get near the close-up view comes into it own as Mario tries to avoid their tackles.

These three games offer a tiny subset of what Nintendo Land has to offer — there are a selection of more cooperative games on offer as well as a bunch of single-player games for the Gamepad that would still be fun for friends to take it in turns on.

The interesting thing about Nintendo Land is that it's a slight shift in attitude from Wii Sports, the pack-in game with the previous-generation Wii. Wii Sports was designed to be accessible and intuitive, making use primarily of motion controls that anyone could perform. Nintendo Land, meanwhile, assumes a basic level of "game literacy" — familiarity with a controller being used "traditionally" — but still remains accessible to a wide audience. Consequently, it strikes a good balance between being casual-friendly as well as challenging and fun to veteran gamers.

Next week I'll hopefully have the opportunity to play both Nintendo Land and the excellent Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed with a full complement of five players, so I'm looking forward to that. The games described above are great fun with three; I can only imagine the chaos with five. I can't wait.

Think about that. When was the last time you played a game that you couldn't wait to get your friends over to your house for?