Nintendo Land

Sure, there's similarities in the game concepts, but Nintendo's successfully compiled them into one cohesive experience.

Nintendo Land's divided in two: one side for solo gamers, the other for team players. With the latter, everybody wants to hold the Wii U's tablet controller, the GamePad. That's not going to happen, but Nintendo have been thinking. As such the party games introduce a rotation setup, so that Wiimotes and GamePad will switch hands eventually - everybody gets a chance to play with the new tech.

It is always possible to play solo, but it's not desirable. Amazing but true: Nintendo is doing what they have always been doing, but in new ways. They bring real people together to play. And they succeed in making these people happy while playing with or against each other. Even over long play sessions. The difficulty of the individual games is skewed beautifully, making it easy for beginners to start yet challenging for professionals in the long run.

The new online world Miiverse is integrated fully into Nintendo Land by way of a huge and lively theme park, which operates as a menu from which you can directly search for opponents or teammates.

Once you touch one of the figures in the park, all the relevant statistics of that Mii are displayed, helping you decide if the player is good enough for you. You can even customize this area with the use of special coins you win in the games. And there are performance stamps for special achievements and trophies we've come to know from Wii Fit.

Visually you can tell immediately what the Wii has always been missing. With the resolution firmly in HD, you'll fall in love again with the Nintendo world and its beautifully designed characters. Listen to the familiar sounds, and set out to discover what party games Shigeru Miyamoto and his team have come up with.

There are three extensive multiplayer attractions for up to five players. Legend of Zelda: Battle Quest is a semi-adventure on rails, in which you plunge through worlds as Link while taking out opponents with swords and shields, bows and arrows. It's nicely done, if a bit confusing.

In Metroid Blast you play as Samus Aran, run around on the ground or fly in a spaceship. Not so much fun. Pikmin Adventure, however, allows you to have a lot of fun with the little Pikmin, and is potentially the best of the bunch.

One noticeable thing is the time required to adjust to the GamePad, as you wrap your head around it being a controller with some tablet functions, rather than a straight up tablet device. It's a learning process getting used to the new technology - something every player needs to get to grips with.

The best games are those for two to five players. Luigi's Ghost Mansion, a ghost-hunting hide and seek game with flashlights and ghouls, is great.

The GamePad player controls a ghost who can see the entire maze and the other torch-clutching characters in it - who need to co-ordinate using their flashlights to spot and hurt the (otherwise) invisible spirit before it grabs them. It's a simple concept that guarantees many hours of fun, though the mini-game could have done with more variety than the three different maze types to choose from.

Mario Chase is a variant of this idea (Toads Vs Mario in a game of Tag). Also very enjoyable, if a little unfair for the GamePad player.

In Animal Crossing: Sweet Day you play in teams, with one group collecting and offloading fruits, while the other team has to prevent them from doing so.

Nintendo Land also offers solo attractions, where the other players take a more passive role and support (or hinder) you via their Wiimotes. Octopus Dance Dance, a rhythm action game requiring you to re-enact dance moves, challenges you to think outside the box, while the GamePad and its gyro-sensors encourage you to make use of our entire body.

Yoshi's Fruit Care is adorable. You don't have to do anything more than to draw lines on the GamePad's screen. The little dragon rides on them and collects everything in his way. It sounds boring but it is very entertaining, given you have to use both GamePad and TV screen to succeed. The GamePad only shows us an empty lawn, while the TV displays the goodies you have to collect. Reference points are only hinted at.

Eventually the collectables begin to move around, so timing becomes more important. It's a game that perfectly examples how Nintendo cleverly increases the difficulty.

In Takamaru's Ninja Castle we throw shurikens onto the screen by holding the GamePad vertically, offering a funny twist of the old Duck Hunt NES title. Donkey Kong's Crash Course, as you steer a cart through a maze with the GamePad's gyro-sensors, quickly becomes quite complex.

Captain Falcon's Twister Race is a rather useless pseudo-racing game, while Balloon Trip Breeze is a somewhat lengthy side scrolling hover game. But even these last two games offer plenty of substance, so likely some players will find them more engaging as us.

Sure, there will be those who say: Nintendo Land is just a collection of mini games. Yet we'd respond: it's a collection of well made mini-games that everyone will enjoy, and especially those that play with friends.

Nintendo Land allows a different, new perspective on video games and leaves us with an extremely pleasant feeling in our thumbs.