The Perfect Game for the Wii U?

Ever since the Wii U was announced I have been thinking about MMO gaming on a console. It has been attempted in the past with hybrid games designed to play to the strengths of both the PC and the console, but it has ended up amplifying the flaws of both, resulting in mediocrity.

One of the main problems a console is said to have with an MMO is that the lack of a keyboard removes the ability for large numbers of players to communicate with each other. I have never really understood this problem. A friend of mine at one point had 4 guitars, 2 drum kits and a microphone in his lounge for the assorted AirBanding games he loved. If a drum kit can be made for a game then certainly a keyboard peripheral could be made specifically for a console MMO.

The major advantage a console has for MMO gaming is the standardised hardware. PC gamers can spend vast amounts more on their rig to ensure genuine advantages over other gamers, even if that is not reflected in their skill level in game. The standardised hardware offered by consoles would allow the better players to rise to the top and receive the online glory we all so crave, rather than those with the deepest wallets.

Surprisingly, the Wii U seems from the outside to be almost perfect for this, though I have yet to try one. The GamePad could change on a second-by-second basis to the function you require at the touch of a button. From a map of the surrounding area, to a touchscreen keyboard to chat to people you need to help you. From showing you the contents of your bags, to on-the-fly gear changes to ensure you are wearing the perfect loot for the quest in hand.

So, the perfect game. It seems to almost build itself into these parameters. An MMO designed from the ground up to be played on the Wii U and to take full advantage of the GamePad. The standard MMO formula is still very effective. You start as a new and painfully unpowerful character and quickly rise in level, completing quests in a beautiful world in desperate need of your help. Obviously the grind for XP must be disguised, and there are a number of ways to do this. By implementing a layer system you can subtly alter the differences in the game world to show you progress without affecting its appearance for players who are a slightly lower level than you. We call these players n00bs. They deserve to be pwnd. We are better than them. Look out for people who pwn you. They have no life.

The player led improvement is vital to the perfect game. XP has been implemented games such as Call of Duty because a huge number of targets, each only slightly ahead of the previous, make it possible to feel you have advanced even if you only had 1 hour to play. Or many levels can be gained if you plan to power through a 48 hour gaming marathon fuelled by energy drinks, sweets, crisps and dangerous levels of coffee. We call these “weekends”.

Plot is vital. The game should be vast and the story needs to reflect this. As this is the perfect game I feel I can bring in whomever I’d like to write it, so, here we go. The main plot to be written by Brent Weeks. If you haven’t read his “Night Angel Trilogy” or started his “Lightbringer Series” then you need to finish this blog, buy those books, shut yourself in your room, and power-read. You may then go shower. And eat.

By allowing players to increase their abilities but retain their vulnerabilities you allow characters to rise in power yet still be threatened by the world they so valiantly stride through. You allow yourself to destroy all the foes around you, or ever so bravely hide behind a rock so that your friends can come and rescue you.

Again, as this is the perfect game I am bringing in the best. The guys who made the landscape in Red Dead Redemption will mysteriously disappear from Rockstar. So will anyone who helped with the combat system in the Arkham series. If the word “Bungie” or "Turbine" is on your CV then you are welcome too.

Music by Clint Mansell, or maybe John Murphey (listen to the score for “Sunshine”, Kanada’s Death, Pt. 2. It will haunt your dreams).

It’s about time I told you what this game is about. Some people say that the zombie genre has been overused, and that it is dying. A fair point, well this will be the game that reanimates it and lets it scratch at your front door, moaning softly. A Wii U based zombie MMORPG survival game, but here is the twist. All survivors use a Wii U, with game mechanics crafted for the Wii U’s GamePad, and the zombies will be controlled by PC users for free. A completely free game for PC users where you can control zombies attacking the Wii U controlled survivors. To keep numbers high, NPC (A.I. controlled) zombies will be used too, with the NPC zombies being the slow, bumbling, vast numbering, classic Romero zombies, and the PC controlled zombies will be customizable and upgradable. If you want to be a scout you could use kill points to upgrade your speed, or perhaps you want to command others, so you eat brains to increase intelligence, allowing you to open doors or command NPC zombies to attack a target.

The Wii U players will start with nothing, possibly in a kitchen with a zombie at your door. You find a knife, or a broom, or something really heavy, like an Xbox 360 power brick, to defend yourself with. You kill your zombie and escape. Find food. Craft a better gun, or find a sword stuck through the abdomen of the zombie shambling towards you. Find people to help you, to take you into their settlement, if you find supplies for them. You find a map as some of the surrounding area that now pops up on your gamepad.

You see a backpack caught on a fence and put things in it, organizing them with the touch screen. You tape some metal to the sleeves you your jacket to make yourself harder to bite using, you guessed it, the touch screen pad on your GamePad. Maybe your friend gets a Wii U and wants to play. He starts the game, escapes from his house and starts wandering around. After a while he finds some graffiti on a wall that you have sprayed there saying “James, Mark, We’re at the lake, come find us. Chris”. He looks at his map, sets a waypoint, and makes his way there.

Or perhaps you play for free on your computer. You wake up in a hospital on a gurney in a crowded corridor. You attack some doctors and make your way outside. You kill some NPC humans. Clearly not destined to be survivors… they tried to attack you with a spoon, the fools. You spend some kill points and now you can climb. You make your way to a rooftop, see someone by a wall and make your way towards him. By the time you get there he has left, but there is some graffiti on the wall. You cannot read it. Do you spend some kill points on increasing your speed to chase him? On your senses to track him? Or on intelligence so that the blurry graffiti suddenly becomes clear and you remember how to read for a few minutes? Perhaps you think he is a lost cause and you instead decide to move slowly around, trying to act like you are controlled by a computer. You have increased your intelligence so you remember how to communicate for a little while. You convince some other player-controlled zombies to act like NPC’s too. After a while a raiding party of Wii U survivors comes to town. They walk past some of you and you press ‘E’ to moan, signaling the attack. You all burst forward and attack them, destroying them. One of them cut your arm off. You don’t have an arm now. Awkward. So, you feast, and they wake up in a kitchen… hmm which knife should they use?

This is an entry to the Perfect GAME competition for the chance to win a Wii U from GAME