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Not long after setting up my Miiverse information for the first time, I decided it was time to spruce up the decor a little bit by jazzin' out my profile message. While I was fond of the original "Do, Re, Egon" greeting, it was time to push the envelope a little bit. With the assistance of my favorite linguistic website, I pieced together a polite and affable greeting I'd be happy to show you, your girlfriend, or your grandmother's girlfriend: "

Fire up your copy of New Super Mario Bros. U and you'll see it right there on the title screen, next to the prompt imploring you to PUSH 2 TO START even if you are using the normal actual controller that game with the Wii U, on which there is no "2" anywhere. Version 1.1.0, it says! Did you know that other games also include these version numbers prominently? In Nintendo Land, all you have to do is go to the main menu, then click options.

Sorta!!! While I can't reasonably see myself ever using the Wii U GamePad's TV remote functionality to actually switch inputs or change channels as Nintendo's promotional materials are fond of romanticizing—my Harmony remote manages my devices in a fashion the GamePad is just literally incapable of emulating—I would be lying if I said the idea of changing the volume of my speakers from my controller didn't tickle me in my down-there area.

As I went to output a couple mugshots from the Wii U Mii Maker for.... various uses... I was STUNNED!!!! to find that not only was my dumb old face notably higher res, but it featured some astonishing new elements. Check out that fuckin' beard! The power of polygons, bros and broettes. Got some sophisticated armpit rendering in there too, and a decidedly upgraded and proprietary hair-lighting engine to go with my freshly inked black frames.

You probably know there's a near-field communication chip in the Wii U GamePad, or that it has all kinds of SUPER SPECIAL gyrometers and gravitational field sensors in it. But did you know there are some other awesome neat craps about it? One cool thing that it does when compared to the original Wii is that it has a sanctioned Wii Remote pairing option. You don't even need to press the sync button on the console anymore, just the button on the remote.

It's pretty well-known that the original Wii mode of the Wii U is heavily locked up behind tight doors from anything the Wii U does. Unlike the 3DS' implementation for original DS games, the Wii U doesn't track anything that you do when you're in the Wii mode of the system. Or does it?! In fact, it kind of does, in an altogether useless sort of way. When you put an original Wii game into the Wii U disc drive, the menu actually displays an image of a disc with the "

Nintendo pulls as much paper as they can out of their manuals these days, but all those pretty pictures and fat infos have got to end up somewhere. And somewhere they have landed indeed! Hit the Home button on your GamePad while playing a game, tap the "Manual" button, and voilà. The Wii U manuals are actually extremely similar to the 3DS ones, which themselves were incubated on DSiWare titles.

Sorta!!! I've talked before about how if you really wanted to share an accomplishment on the Wii U, it was as simple as screen-shotting whatever you did and posting it to Miiverse. Which you can indeed do! But now that the Wii U is actually in our filthy little hands, a new feature has shown itself: tags. Look at that right there. Only New Super Mario Bros U and Nintendo Land use it so far, being the only titles that actually feature full Miiverse integration.

I teach high school in Japan, well I entertain students under the auspices of helping them use English. I do this professionally, which means that at the moment, it is my profession, I get paid to do it. Because nobody really cares that much about what I exactly I do, I design my own lessons and projects! The most recent project we're doing is writing reviews of something, because even though I hate the concept of reviews with essentially every fiber of my being, it's important to be able to express your opinion in some way.

If you are, I am sorry. But I just got mine last night, a good week and a half before it actually comes out here in Japan! (And the same amount of time after it already came out in the states.) Cory previously shared his own impressions of the thing right out of the box, and now that anyone who really really wants a Wii U back home probably has one, there's really not anything brand new for me to add.