About a week has passed since I finally got to try out the machine that marks the dawn of the eighth video game console generation: the Wii U. Along with the N64, the Wii and the 3DS, this is the fourth time that I got my hands on a console on day one, and while nothing blew my little mind quite like venturing into the third dimension for the very first time with Super Mario 64, I have to say that I've never been this satisfied with a console launch before. The 3DS didn't have any games worth drooling over, and though the Wii did deliver the extremely awesome Twilight Princess, in all fairness it was just a Gamecube port. With the Wii U, I've got Nintendo Land, New Super Mario Bros. U and ZombiU. Two weeks ago, I claimed that none of these were system sellers, and while that can be argued over, after playing them all for several hours each, I'd at least go as far as to say that if you do happen to own a Wii U, they're all absolute must-have titles.

Two years ago, there was a game that drove me insane in a way that no game has ever done before. There were those that annoyed the hell out of me with long stretches of boring gameplay, forcing me to waste my time on these aggravatingly dull sequences over and over until I was finally allowed to do the awesome stuff again (I'm looking at you, Spirit Tracks). There have been specimen that made me feel not quite unlike the unfortunate fellow depicted in this strikingly accurate comic here. And then there was this. A game so utterly shit I am completely unable to put my finger on why the hell I made myself play through its 20-hour entirety in the first place. Other than because it's totally awesome. And nope, last time I checked I was not bipolar!

I would like to point out a little gem of video game history today. At its core, it is a top-down shooter in the vein of Alien Breed or maybe Shadowgrounds, to name a more modern title. It was released by Human Entertainment on the Super Nintendo back in 1994 and completely sticks out among its genre brethren by having an unusual premise: You're a firefighter and your weapon is a hose. This may sound somewhat unspectacular—sure, it's kinda cool; along with astronauts and vets, firemen are right on top of our children's future occupation wishlist after all—but what do you do in this game, run around and extinguish fire? Yeah, you do. Except it's not just fire, but what appears to be an army of tortured souls set ablaze by Satan himself and sent straight from hell to mercilessly chase you down until there's nothing left of you but a sad little pile of ashes and whiffs of wasted opportunities.

Earlier this year, I was enthralled by the rebirth of iconic video game legend Rayman as a near perfectly executed 2D platformer: Rayman Origins. It's arguably the first real Rayman game since its 3D predecessor Hoodlum Havoc, which was first released back in 2003—and it rocks. So much, in fact, that I'm going to be grabbing its sequel Rayman Legends on day one without a moment's hesitation. What I was oblivious of for quite a while is that DotEmu had released a spinoff of the game on Android and iOS, using the same aesthetics and pretty much the same kind of gameplay, only toned down a notch to adjust to the inferior input method of a buttonless touch device. The amazing thing is that while it's a very different game and obviously lacking many of the features that made its big brother awesome, it's still great fun, challenging and absolutely rewarding.

When compared to the past couple of generations, the Wii U launch line-up is quite impressive. While there don't seem to be any jaw-dropping must-have system sellers like Super Mario 64 back in the day, there is a rather diverse array of high quality games to pick from. Many of them are re-releases of games already available on other consoles, with a couple of additional features tacked on that utilize the Wii U's innovative tablet GamePad more or less successfully. That's nice enough, but I don't much care for those, either because I already own them on another system or simply because they can be had on another system. If I happen to grab myself a console on day one, I'm usually in for the exclusives. In this case: New Super Mario Bros. U and ZombiU. Consider my mouth watering.