Andrew Webster, The Verge:

Whatever fate awaits the Wii U, Nintendo is doing just about everything it can to make sure the console has some amazing games. It may not have third-party support, but Nintendo’s own releases feel exciting in a way they haven’t for years. At a glance, Captain Toad seems like a throwaway game, a weird little spinoff starring a character no one really cares about. Yet it’s one of the best puzzle games of the year, and another one of a growing number of reasons to pick up a Wii U.

The Verge calls Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker “a hidden gem”; I called it “genius”. Needless to say, I cannot wait for December 5th.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8a3yEWMYlA

Polygon video producer Griffin McElroy showcasing the new features of Super Smash Bros. Wii U to Polygon managing editor Justin McElroy on Polygon’s Overview, time stamp 14:06:

JM: Griffin… do you ever look at Smash Bros., when you’re me, and think, “I bet this is how all video games look to my nani?”

GM: Ya, I think so. Ya, probably. Are you saying that because it’s just like really crazy and hectic and inscrutable? Or because it’s like, “Ahh! You gotta use the Pac-Man to eat the Marios!”

JM: Like both, I guess. I think Smash Bros. is how all video games look to grandparents.

GM: Probably. Maybe.

It’s not just grandparents:

Watching the Super Smash Bros. Wii U 50-Fact Extravaganza. My brain stopped comprehending at no 9. What the hell happened to video games?

— Kyle Starr (@_kylestarr) November 16, 2014

I’ve put in a few hours and I’m still not sure I know what I’m doing.

The New York Times:

Anton Levy, head of General Atlantic’s Internet and technology team, said his firm — like other investors — had typically avoided content creators like Vox in favor of platforms with many capabilities like Facebook and Alibaba. Lately, he said, the firm has had a change of heart.

“We think we are at an inflection point,” he said. “For the next five years, you are going to have the next generation of media platforms emerge. There are parallels to cable in the ’80s. There is going to be a huge amount of value creation.”

The chief executive of Vox Media, Jim Bankoff, has made no secret of his ambition to build his company into a kind of Time Inc. of the 21st century; that is, a multipublication giant with reach into young, affluent homes across the country on topics as diverse as sports and real estate.

The moment I laid eyes on Polygon, I was taken aback by its noisy design, overblown articles, nondescript headlines…

And then it scrolled forever. And ads were limited or nicely designed. And its design reacted to my device in real-time. And the features featured unique layouts. And the video production was on another level. And the “nondescript” headlines were enticing. And the “overblown” articles were full of fantastic journalism and entertaining personality. And the “noisy” design was unlike anything I had ever seen.

I latched on to Polygon’s community and began posting lengthy, passion fueled comments. I realized that these were not comments, they were blog posts. I used those “comments” as the foundation for a new WordPress blog titled The State of Gaming, which I later renamed Zero Counts.

From Polygon to The Verge to Vox.com, Vox Media has changed the way I consume content. Every article includes something of interest. Every layout choice is surprising and exciting. Their dedication to personality, engineering, and design is second-to-none. Congratulations, Vox Media. I saw this coming from a coast away.

UPDATE: Polygon editor-in-chief Chris Grant has sent out the following tweet:

Nov was @Polygon’s best month yet, w/ 10.5m uniques. That’s 140% over last Nov, which had 2 new consoles! Thx so much for reading, everyone!

— chris grant (@chrisgrant) December 1, 2014

It’s so great to read about this success. Great job, Polygon Team.

Michael Thomsen, writing for Forbes:

Playing games that have extended the design patterns of the last generation on Wii U—Batman: Arkham Origins, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Mass Effect 3, FIFA, Splinter Cell: Blacklist—there is a palpable sense of an era having designed itself into a corner. The addition of a second screen integrated into the controller does indeed feel like gimmickry, but its gimmickry that reveals the thoughtlessly repeated design ideas of the games themselves more than the controller and its touchscreen. Gimmickry is the heart of play, the redirection of something toward a purpose that’s not immediately obvious to produce a sense of discovery and surprise. What’s often described as depth in play is only just a proliferation of branching gimmicks, each leading to a variety of roughly equivalent automations, the choice between which conveys a kind of intimate fragment of personhood to some other player familiar with the sleight-of-hand bylaws and what passes for alternatives to them.

Even when used as just a map screen, the Wii U’s controller points to a dimensional complexity in play that’s absent in the more computationally powerful PS4 and Xbox One. Playing half-hearted ports with minimal investment in the new play apparatus, there is a greater sense of possibility and strangeness than anything I’ve felt from higher screen resolution, more non-playable characters, or more elaborate physics simulations. But since most third-party developers have abandoned Nintendo’s small gesture toward a new kind of thinking about play, whatever advancement their machinery could have led to will remain a theoretical abstraction.

Everyone seems to have a solution for Nintendo. They need to develop for iOS. They need to stop making consoles. They need to be purchased by Disney. My two cents? They need to reinvent their properties.

The Nintendo 64 is my favorite video game console. It’s not due to the use of polygons, 3D environments, and the fact that it looked much better than Playstation. It’s that beloved franchises were reimagined, reinvented, and redesigned.

Super Smash Bros. Wii U was released yesterday. I’ve played all of the versions prior, and they are all fine games, but they are all iterative. For this reason, I hesitated to drop another $59.99 on an experience I’d already had. Needless to say I made the purchase after soaring reviews, but a morsel of remorse lingers. I more or less know what I’ll be getting.

Super Mario 64 could have just as easily been another side-scroller, albeit with better visuals. The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time could have been another top-down adventure. Donkey Kong 64 could have gone a number of pre-existing directions. Sure the Metroid series skipped the Nintendo 64 generation but Metroid Prime could have been another 2D platformer. The fact of the matter is that these titles reinvented their respective franchises. The worlds and characters we loved were shown in a new light and perspective. Sure, they are great games but they reinvented the way we thought about the franchises. This is what makes them so special.

Nintendo stepped out of the box to deliver entirely new experiences. Super Mario 64 was a new way to think about Mario; a new standard in-addition-to, not in-lieu-of: Mac vs. iPhone; not iPad vs. iPhone.

Super Mario Bros. 2, 3, World, and 3D Land/World are iterative of Super Mario Bros. while Super Marios Sunshine and Galaxy are iterative of Super Mario 64. This is not the same problem as sequels and spin-offs.

If the doomsayers are correct and Nintendo’s failure is eminent, redesigns are going to be required to prevent it. So far, the majority of first-party titles on Wii U are iterative: Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros. Wii U, Super Mario 3D World, Pikmin 3, Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze. While not every redesign has worked in Nintendo’s favor (I’m looking at you, _Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is genius; while it’s not a new take on a old classic (because there is no old classic!), it’s a new perspective from the Mushroom Kingdom. Until then, it’s back to smashing and karting.