Review of Nintendoland for Nintendo Wii U

Nintendo Land for the Nintendo Wii U can be purchased alone by itself for a staggering price tag that nearly touches $60.00, or if you were one of the luckier gamers, and you were able to purchase a Deluxe 32GB Nintendo Wii U, Nintendo Land is included for free. This was basically how I managed to get my copy, because otherwise I likely would not have added this title to my list of must have new games.

However, after playing it for a few hours, I have to say that I will likely keep an eye out on Nintendo Wii U party games as they become available.

What Is Nintendo Land?

Nintendo Land is being compared to Nintendo Wii's, Wii Sport, a free game that basically included a small array of mini games for you to test drive the new Wii Motes with. An intro to a new concept in gaming.

Nintendo Land can be compared to that, in a sense, as it is an excellent introduction to the many ways the Nintendo Wii U's game pad can be used. However it is much more than flicking your hand to strike some pins like in Wii Sports. Nintendo Land is actually addicting, and likely will not collect dust on a shelf anytime soon.

The game is a party game, which is designed to allow you to play with friends or family. However there is also a healthy bundle of games for solo players to have at as well.

In total what you have is a theme park, you make your way through sets of mini games for high scores, you in turn earn coins. These coins can than be used to purchase attractions for your park. The more you play, the more coins you earn, and the more jam packed with fun items your park will have. The concept is simple, maybe even too simple, but it is a lot of fun going from a dead park to one featuring new items.

The Mini Games:

The selection is not small and lack luster as we saw with the original Wii's, Wii Sport. In Nintendo Land we have 12 mini games total. However even being called mini games, the games are not necessarily all that small. There are many levels and areas in each set of mini games that grows more and more challenging as you make your way through them.

An addicting title in particular is Mario Chase, which incorporates 2 players or more in an arena where one character who plays Mario runs and hides, while the others who play on a Wii Mote, hunt around the arena until they catch Mario, or the time runs out and Mario wins.

Luigi's Mansion is another included hunt and find type game, which is somewhat similar to Mario Chase, only in this game one player using the game pad will play the role of a ghost, while the other players hunt around for the ghost in darkness, yielding nothing more than a cruddy flashlight that quickly drains of power.

The twist is that those players cannot see the ghost on the TV screen, so locating him is difficult. The player on the game pad in this game has the advantage by a long shot because they can see the flashlight yielding players, an easily sneak up on them. However if they shine their light on him first, he will quickly drain of life.

It sounds fun in concept but the game is too flawed, and gives the game pad user a huge upper hand.

What is interesting though, is that the use of your Mii characters are used.

In Donkey Kong, players steer using the game pad by tilting it, and it is flawlessly responsive as you tilt the game pad around to guide your little kart through the large maze like world.

Old classical games are basically incorporated into Nintendo Land, but re-vamped into mini games that are actually done with thought, and not just a rushed pile of rubble, slapped together and added to a console box to make it feel as if you are getting a deal.

Zelda is found in Nintendo Land, where you aim and shoot arrows at enemies, hoping to rack up a higher score than your friends before it becomes too overbearing, and you end up being killed by your enemies. This game in particular was a little less addicting then the rest of them, but it was just nice to see classical characters being incorporated into Nintendo Land like this.

Another fun mini game that incorporated the use of both the TV and the game pad had me beyond addicted. In this game, on the TV screen you would see a collection of fruit scattered about. It would be Yoshi's job to collect the fruit by drawing a line to them, so he could scoop them up and eat them. However the catch was, on the game pad, the fruit could not be seen. You had to basically use your eyes, to know where the fruit was on the TV screen, and then you had to blindly trace a mark on the game pad in hopes that your line matched up to where the fruits would be. It sounds simple and really basic, but it gets more and more challenging as you go on.

Animal Crossing is also another mini game title you will find, called Sweet Day. It is also very similar to Luigi's Mansion mini game, and Mario Chase. However it adds the twist of having to collect candy and drop them off into dished before the other players catch you.

In Balloon Trip Breeze, you must use the game pad and stylus to blow your Mii around while he hangs onto a collection of balloons. The object of the game is to pop as many balloons as you can without hitting into an enemy. It offers some fun, but grows old rather quickly.

Metroid Blast is another mini game found in Nintendo Land, which will excite a lot of fans. It incorporates the use of the game pad nicely, and flawlessly. Fans of the game will likely enjoy this one immensely.

Pikmin Adventure can also be found in the line up of mini games, and this one had me the most excited about Nintendo Land in general. However after playing it, I was rather disappointed in how lack luster this mini really was. Octopus Dance is a basic mini game, which grows boring quickly. You, as your Mii, must simply follow the same dance moves as the octopus by copying his moves after he does them. It can get tricky when he speeds up, but it is nothing we have not seen before when it comes to dance games.

Ninja Castle was probably by far my favorite mini game in the set of games. It's almost a game in itself. In this game you use the stylus and game pad to fling ninja stars at enemy ninjas you see on screen. What I liked about it was the real feel of ninja stars flying out of my hand, even though I was doing nothing more than pointing, aiming and flicking with my stylus.

Captain Falcons Twister Race is another fun mini game which has you holding the game pad vertically. It feels rather odd in your hands this way, but the tilting and shifting of the game pad is responsive on screen, and does not hiccup at all. I did not have high hopes for this game at first, but as I powered on through each level, I was surprised at how quickly this one became a top favorite of mine as well.

All in all we have a nice line up of really addicting mini games, some more fun than others, but overall a pretty healthy set of good mini games to play alone or with friends.

With that said, there is one huge drawback that many people who have already reviewed this game failed to mention.

You can use old Wii Mote's with this game, but some titles will not play multiple player if you do not have the Wii Mote Plus. Seeing that I never even played my old Wii that much, I did not even know of the Wii Mote Plus' existence. It was pretty disappointing knowing that if I wanted to make use of a few of these games, I would have to buy this plus mote.

Overall:

I thought that Nintendo Land was going to be another title like Wii Sport. A game that a played a few times and never thought about it again. However I have already enjoyed this one on more than one occasion, with other players, and alone as well.

Granted you will need a Wii Mote Plus in order for some titles to allow you to play them with more than 1 person, the game is worth a buy, even if you did not get a copy with your console.