PixlBit

The Miis invaded yet another Wii U tech demo that looked identical to the Wii version.

The 5 playable levels ranged from your typical desert to cave, to the tricky moving on-rail platforms seen in previous games, but their design and layout were at least unique. I didn't see any new powerups and the remote controls were virtually unchanged, with d-pad control used even on Wii U. I did seem to remember trying to make a last-second bubble save and being unable to, so that feature may be removed in future sequels. One change that didn't feel as good was the shake; trying to drift closer to someone while in a bubble by shaking the tablet didn't seem to work well for me. So assigning the extra jump flutter move to the R button instead of an upward flick wasn't too surprising when considering the controller's extra weight. Getting a feel for which controller configurations work best for Wii U will no doubt take some extra experimentation from developers.

Showing off only a narrow interface feature, the Wii U screen simply displayed exactly what was on the television. Maybe in the final version the Wii U tablet could be used to aim spiny Lakitu beetles down at Mario from a top-down first-person view, but the demo didn't attempt to display the Wii U's broad potential.