Wii U

Christmas has come and gone, and hopefully we all got some new gaming toys.

This year's big surprise is my wife getting me a Wii U. I'm an old school Nintendo fan, and most of what I can get on PS4 and Xbox 1 are available on PC, so the Wii U seemed logical.

She got me the Smash Bros./Splatoon bundle. I have only played Splatoon once so far, and I can say the controls will take some getting used to. Smash, on the other hand, is the Smash we all know and love.

I already knew I had to have Smash for Wii U once it was announced Mega Man would be a playable character. Ironically, while I have not played a lot of Mega Man games, I am a big fan (mysterysquick is the big Mega Man guy, though). We already have the unlockable characters, well, unlocked, so now it's a matter of getting the DLC characters we want (Ryu from Street Fighter and Cloud from Final Fantasy VII) as well as costumes for Mii Fighters (Mega Man X for my gunner).

Yep, you can create fighters in Smash using your Mii. There are 3 styles available: Brawler, Swordsman, and Gunner. You can choose what equipment they use (affecting whether they are Speedy, Defensive, Strong, or some combination of the 3) and what their Special moves are (B button) and costume. More equipment and costumes are unlocked through the various single player modes. Equipment can also be used to customize existing fighters.

My youngest son also got Lego Jurassic World from his brother, who got a pile of GameStop cards for Christmas (he got a PS4 so I wanted to make sure he had money to start a library). I don't think he's really played it yet though. And this week we got Disney Infinity 3.0. I was very "meh" on the game when it was first released and featured Disney and Disney/Pixar characters, then 2.0 came out with Marvel Comics characters, which got my attention. Finally, 3.0 came out, adding Star Wars, and the part of my brain that wants all things Star Wars lit up like Times Square. So, using gift cards we got for Target, we purchased the Wii U Starter Set, which includes Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano, and the Twilight of the Republic playset. Prequel characters are unacceptable, so I also snagged Darth Vader. Later, I picked up the Frozen boxed set (comes with Anna and Elsa) for my daughter (who is 19 months and obviously isn't playing yet, but she loves Frozen and so will probably still find it entertaining), then my sons picked out Kylo Ren and Hulkbuster Iron Man. JollyChaos is slightly addicted to the game now. He wants to get it for PS4 but doesn't really have anyone to play with, so he's apparently OK just playing at my place.

So looks like I'll be spending a lot of time on Smash and Disney Infinity. Since I can play in the living room it's a bit easier than gaming on my PC right now I'm afraid.