Gamer Squee, Engage!
I'm a teensy bit excited today, so I just have to share. Following is a bit of video-gaming geekery, so please feel free to skip if that's not your bag, baby. :)
Presently, the newest console in our house is a Nintendo Wii. For the most part that's fine--the girls and I play games on our PCs far more often than we play console games, but we do fire up the Wii (or an old-school console emulator on the HTPC) for multiplayer fun probably a couple times a week. I've considered moving to a newer console, either a Wii U, Playstation 3 or XBox 360 (the latest-gen consoles are just too pricey for me to justify, given how rarely we play consoles in the first place). But with PS or XBox, I'd be starting from scratch--I'd have to get the console, additional controllers, and games, and it would all add up really quickly, so that's a big barrier to entry. With the Wii U, I at least already have controllers since it's compatible with Wii Remotes and whatnot.
Problem is, while I have scads of Wii games, the vast majority reside on an external hard drive, and I wasn't sure if the Wii U can be modified to play them that way. We've been happy enough with the Wii anyway, so if it ain't broke, etc.
But then new games stopped coming out for the Wii, with the Nintendo versions released only for the Wii U. We're big fans of the various LEGO games, so when the LEGO City game came out and it was only Wii U, I was a little miffed. Then the new Marvel Superheroes game, which I didn't mind too much because that's not as much our style. But now the new LEGO Jurassic World game is coming soon, which I do want. And all along, I've played Mario Kart 8 a few times on in-store demo machines, and it just looks incredibly cool, so that's been tempting too.
But now! This morning I discovered LEGO Dimensions, which is the LEGO iteration of the Skylanders/Disney Infinity-type toy-to-game setups. But LEGO! And the themes they're including are pretty sweet. LEGO Movie stuff, of course, but also Back to the Future, Lord of the Rings, Scooby-Doo, Portal, Wizard of Oz(!), Doctor Who, maybe Ghostbusters, perhaps Harry Potter eventually.. Really good stuff! Unfortunately, some of the properties that have been made into LEGO games like Star Wars, Marvel, Pirates of the Caribbean, and perhaps Indiana Jones are off-limits since they're associated with Disney and this system will compete with Infinity. But still, it's very intriguing and makes me want to check it out when it hits the street later this year.
So that inspired me to look into it again today, and it seems there is indeed a way to modify the Wii U to play Wii games from an external HDD, and it doesn't even look that difficult. Not that that's a dealbreaker, we can always keep the Wii for those games. But if I can get a Wii U and have it do everything, why not?
Now to talk the wife into letting me get one...
Presently, the newest console in our house is a Nintendo Wii. For the most part that's fine--the girls and I play games on our PCs far more often than we play console games, but we do fire up the Wii (or an old-school console emulator on the HTPC) for multiplayer fun probably a couple times a week. I've considered moving to a newer console, either a Wii U, Playstation 3 or XBox 360 (the latest-gen consoles are just too pricey for me to justify, given how rarely we play consoles in the first place). But with PS or XBox, I'd be starting from scratch--I'd have to get the console, additional controllers, and games, and it would all add up really quickly, so that's a big barrier to entry. With the Wii U, I at least already have controllers since it's compatible with Wii Remotes and whatnot.
Problem is, while I have scads of Wii games, the vast majority reside on an external hard drive, and I wasn't sure if the Wii U can be modified to play them that way. We've been happy enough with the Wii anyway, so if it ain't broke, etc.
But then new games stopped coming out for the Wii, with the Nintendo versions released only for the Wii U. We're big fans of the various LEGO games, so when the LEGO City game came out and it was only Wii U, I was a little miffed. Then the new Marvel Superheroes game, which I didn't mind too much because that's not as much our style. But now the new LEGO Jurassic World game is coming soon, which I do want. And all along, I've played Mario Kart 8 a few times on in-store demo machines, and it just looks incredibly cool, so that's been tempting too.
But now! This morning I discovered LEGO Dimensions, which is the LEGO iteration of the Skylanders/Disney Infinity-type toy-to-game setups. But LEGO! And the themes they're including are pretty sweet. LEGO Movie stuff, of course, but also Back to the Future, Lord of the Rings, Scooby-Doo, Portal, Wizard of Oz(!), Doctor Who, maybe Ghostbusters, perhaps Harry Potter eventually.. Really good stuff! Unfortunately, some of the properties that have been made into LEGO games like Star Wars, Marvel, Pirates of the Caribbean, and perhaps Indiana Jones are off-limits since they're associated with Disney and this system will compete with Infinity. But still, it's very intriguing and makes me want to check it out when it hits the street later this year.
So that inspired me to look into it again today, and it seems there is indeed a way to modify the Wii U to play Wii games from an external HDD, and it doesn't even look that difficult. Not that that's a dealbreaker, we can always keep the Wii for those games. But if I can get a Wii U and have it do everything, why not?
Now to talk the wife into letting me get one...