The Avengers: Battle for Earth

Emma and I totally kicked ass on The Avengers: Battle for Earth today.

I have no idea where this picture came from, but
that girl playing Ms. Marvel is hot!
(But don't tell Sally I said so because she gets a
little crazy about that kind of thing.)

We're not much on video games at the old Head Household, but Sally wanted to get the girls a Wii U for Christmas this year, and I somewhat reluctantly but also somewhat enthusiastically agreed.  Even when we were buying the console, I kind of knew that Avengers was going to be one of the first games that we bought, but between the console itself and Just Dance 4 and the Furby that Emma wanted and all the rest of it, I kind of felt like we exhausted our Christmas budget before we actually got Avengers: Battle for Earth into the house.  But I did get her the game--and the extra nunchuck controller that it requires--for her birthday, and we finally got to play it last night.

Nintendo has caught some flak for the Wii U, and especially for the way the console has performed in the marketplace, and I can sort of understand that.  The console isn't cheaper than the other consoles on the market, and it doesn't outperform them either.  Moreover, it's kind of a gateway drug.  People get into games on the Wii (or the Wii U), but then they spend their real money on more complicated systems.  And in a world full of complicated systems, a simpler system--albeit one with excellent HD graphics--it kind of a tough sell.  Gamers want the best games, and the Wii system concept is for novices; the games are all straightforward and easily playable.

But.

Some of us don't feel like committing to this computer game thing.  Some of us work, have families, real lives...  Hell, some of us even coach a little triathlon club on the side, and for us, a simpler game isn't just a selling point, it's an actual necessity.  I myself have absolutely no desire to cram complicated combo moves into my brain and muscle-memory, so that I can waste hours and hours per week playing anything.  But I still like to have fun ways to kill time with my kids, and that's kind of where the Wii, and now the Wii U, come in.

Anyway, like I said, we kicked ass today on the game, and it was a total blast.  The thing I like best about the Wii U is just that the controls are intuitive, that to punch somebody, all you have to do is just punch, and voila!  There you go, punching.

So then Emma and I were looking at what we might buy next, and the game that struck us was called The Cave.  I have no idea what it's about, but it looks like a hilarious little RPG-type dungeon crawler, and it's a $14.99 download.  So that's probably on our shopping list.

I'd like to get Batman: Arkham City (Armed Edition), too, but unfortunately, the Emboo thinks it looks a little scary.  

*sigh*