The Wii U’s level of brilliance has been inversely proportional to its success in the shops, which might make it the finest console of this generation. A lot of that’s down to the hardware: the unparalleled pad that can conceal your Mario Chase hiding spot from everyone else in the room, or simply stream Deus Ex to the bathroom.
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As with every Nintendo console, though, there’s also a lot to be envied in its game library. We’ve got Zombi now, but no Super Mario 3D World. No Affordable Space Adventures or Nintendo Land. No Mario Kart 8 or Bayonetta 2. So we’re grateful for the existence of Cemu, even in its nascent state.
There’s no controller support yet: you’ll have to make do with the keyboard. Audio isn’t an option, and there’s not much here in the way of optimisation – so expect bad framerates and long load times. But the new emulator runs and renders commercial Wii U games on PC, which is a first.
Cemu requires Windows x64 and OpenGL 3.3, and apparently runs well on Nvidia’s most recent drivers, though it’s as-yet-untested with AMD cards. Resolution peaks at 1920×1080 if the game can support it.
You can download version 1.0 of Cemu now – or wait for the planned two-weekly updates. What from the Wii U catalogue would you like displaying on your monitor?