ZombiU - Nintendo Wii U

I remember watching the very first trailer for this game during the E3 2012 Ubisoft conference with my jaw hung-low and fingers already itching to play it. Even though the trailer only consisted of emotional 3D stills and "God Save the Queen" playing in the background, it looked like a new zombie experience and I was already beyond excited! But then the name appeared, followed by the mention that this game was to be a Wii U exclusive. Before seeing that trailer, I wasn't at all interested in the Wii U for anything besides Rayman Legends and the next Smash Bros. game, but now it's mine! Was the purchase worth it? Find out by reading on in my Good vs Bad review! As for the good things about ZombiU: From the very moment you start playing, you're thrown into a scenario that makes (or at least should make) you realize what you're getting into. You don't play as some power house with weapons that can take you through hordes of zombies with nothing more than a scratch; you're a regular human being. ZombiU is definitely a survival game, and it's not going to let you get through it without a fight. Zombies are just about everywhere, and the tools that you have to defend yourself are scarce. I mean sure, there will be plenty of items hidden in closets, drawers, lockers, the pockets of corpses, etcetera... But if you want the good stuff (and trust me, you do), then you're going to have to do a bit of exploring and think smart while doing so. While on the topic of exploring, this game is a lot more than just survival at its finest, but horror in a zombie game that I haven't been able to experience for a long time. From the very beginning, I was hesitant when it came down to turning corners or even entering new rooms due to how eerie and quiet the game was. The locations that you'll be exploring are actually all relatively dark, but detailed and varied so there isn't a sense of déjà vu when you enter new areas. Just be careful when you're exploring for materials because one wrong turn can lead to your death, especially if you don't have your GPS sync'd with the area. Players can leave small messages around the game for others to see which can either help, or fool them (much like Dark Souls). The ability to leave these messages just about anywhere is a wonderful idea, though the execution can be slightly confusing once you start. First of all, the only way you can even leave a message in the first place is by finding a can of spray-paint, which is actually pretty cool and realistic given the situation. However, instead of spraying words, you get to choose from a vast amount (36) of symbols instead. When looking at these symbols in a dark world where the undead can attack at any moment, these can be pretty difficult to translate... But if you manage to find spray-paint and take some time to study the selection, things will be much clearer as you play through. Dying in ZombiU is by far the most unique (and awesome) of all death experiences that I've witnessed so far in gaming. Once you go down, the character that you were just playing as becomes infected and you're forced to start from the Safe House as another character. From there, what happens varies. There were some times when I had to fight a horde of zombies to clear out the safe house, and others when I simply had to continue the mission that my last character was doing. In addition to that, if you want your stuff back you're going to have to find your previous character, kill them, and hope that they're still carrying what you left them with. In the event that you don't find your previous character near the spot they died, there's a good chance that it invaded someone else's game. You'll also be able to see other people's infected characters invade your world, which can be noticed by the names about their heads and the score that player had before they died. If you wish to check on your own previous characters and what their infected selves are up to, you can press the logo that looks like a signal tower on your game-pad, and swipe your finger to the left. There you will be able to see how many players they have encountered, how many they have infected, if they have been killed, and by whom. Though dying is pretty cool in ZombiU, it's best to stay alive with one character for as long as you can. The longer you play as a character, the better their skills will be with the weapons that you use. Every time you use a weapon, experience is gained to help each type level up. As they level, weapon stats such as firepower, accuracy, ammo capacity, and speed will increase. Unfortunately, if you die your stats will be reset. Staying alive longer and racking up more kills on individual characters also puts you higher on the leaderboards, giving you some bragging rights in terms of who's the better zombie apocalypse survivor among your friends. ZombiU's multiplayer is actually more fun than expected and quite addicting as well, even though it can only be played locally. Two people can play, giving one the ability to spawn zombies with the gamepad while the other plays as a survivor with the Wii-mote+Nunchuck or pro controller. There are also two game modes unlocked right from the beginning: Assault, which plays much like a game of domination (keep control of more flags the longest) and Kill Box, which places the King of Zombies (GamePad user) against the survivor to see how many points they can get before dying. My personal favorite mode though, is Survival, which is unlocked via Uplay. As for the bad things about ZombiU: The fact that there's a somewhat decent variety in guns but no variety at all in melee weapons slightly bothers me. From start to finish, the only melee weapon that you'll be able to use is a Cricket Bat. Though it's quite humorous and stereotypical (mostly thanks to Shaun of the Dead), I just can't seem to understand how a game like this doesn't give you more options in that area of combat. Waking up as another survivor when you die is fantastic, but some of the characters that you can end up being are pretty annoying. In a sense, this is actually a good thing for the fact that the characters are more diverse than just name and appearance. Unfortunately when you're playing as a character who decides to scream every time they swing their cricket bat or breathe ridiculously heavy after sprinting, it makes you wish that this game didn't give you such a harsh set of consequences for dying. Overall, ZombiU is a fantastic Wii U experience and an even better survival horror experience that I've been anticipating for a very long time. If you don't own a Wii U, I certainly wouldn't recommend picking one up just for this game. However, if you do own a Wii U and have an interest in real survival horror, this is definitely a must own. ZombiU gets an 4 out of 5.

ZombiU was probably the most talked about at E3 last year, also I remember it was discussed on a Late Show, I forget which Late Show however but the point is this game was brought up a lot before the release of the Wii U. The idea of the game is you're in London and the world is under a Zombie Plague, you play as random survivors trying not to die or be bit by Zombies because if you are bit your done with that character and he/she is now a Zombie. What makes it interesting about being turned into a Zombie is when you start playing as a new character you have to go find your Zombie self in order to get your stuff back. Once you get your stuff back, you get back doing missions in the game and trying not to die. The story isn't worth the buy of this game, only the game play. But here's the idea of what's going on other than world being overrun by Zombies. You're founded roaming on the streets by a man locked in a safe room who goes by "The Prepper" mainly because he's always prepared, so he claims. He finds you and he asks for your help, in return he offers to help you survive. There's two other important characters, a scientist in the Queen's Palace who searches for a cure for the Zombie plague, and a woman who seeks evacuation. Prepper doesn't like either of them due to the fact he strictly believes that there is no cure or evacuation, only survival. That is the ideal plot in the story. While playing the game with the online feature on, you will notice that some Zombies in game will have backpacks and a name on top. These Zombies are actual players that died in their game that you've received by via SpotPass, a function included on the Wii U and is included in this game. So you won't just be on the lookout for yourself, you should also keep an eye for other backpack carrying Zombies, sometimes they'll have stuff you haven't reached yet. Sadly you won't find guns from other player zombies, but you can find explosives. ZombiU is a nice game, but I wouldn't say it's a complete buy. I highly recommend if you're interested to try the game first then see what you think. Other than that, ZombiU is a decent game.

A truly epic inclusion in my survival horror collection. this game combines the zombie action of Dead Island with the intensity of Resident Evil and the difficulty of Demon's Souls. The Wii U's Gamepad offers a brand new horror element that never existed prior, (except Resident Evil: Revelations) which is to scan areas, mark and analyze items/enemies using only the Gamepad's Screen. The game is incredibly fun and each fight with a zombie is more terrifying than the last. Leveling up weapons and surviving as long as possible will get you higher and higher on the leaderboards. Items are rare and precious, but when you die your items are left on your now zombified survivor that you have to hunt down, defeat and re-obtain. This mechanic makes dying a pain, but not a game ending defeat (unless you play on the hardest difficulty which only gives you one available life to lose). Every so often you will encounter a player's survivor [now zombie] who has died and via the internet has appeared on your game, this shows that the area may have been difficult or he/she may be carrying useful items. While online multiplayer is not supported, this makes a more "community" feel come of the game. Local multiplayer is insanely fun. One person orchestrates the zombie attack via the Gamepad in a sort of "RTS" type of feel while the other survives against wave after wave as long as possible. The other type is a "cap and hold" sort of game style that allows the player to die and respawn and fight horde after horde to reclaim their flags. A great, original take on zombie survival gaming and one that will go down in Survival Horror history.

I picked this game up on sale having heard lots of mixed things about it. Being a launch title for the Wii U I assumed it was going to be all flash and very little substance. I was surprised at how much I genuinely enjoyed myself with it. I don't even usually like Zombie games! This game is one of the few non-Nintendo-developed games on Wii U that I have played where I felt as though the GamePad controller was given the proper amount of attention by the developers. It's got many uses and I was never annoyed by it or felt like I was being forced to do something unnatural. The game itself is a Zombie-Survival-Horror First Person shooter, so I expected something fairly average and thankfully I was wrong. There is a lot of unique charm to this game, and one of the things I loved best was discovering that it takes several queues from the Souls series by From Software. (Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, etc.) You start the game as a survivor that makes it to a safe house in the subway system underneath London and you begin receiving help and direction from someone who communicates with you through a tablet device (GamePad!)... but the best part is after you die. Suddenly you are back at the original safe house controlling a completely different survivor. This new character has to try and pick up where their predecessor left off. This means that if you've got a couple awesome items or weapons, you'll often choose to leave one behind in case you die... that way the next guy/gal has something better than just a pistol and a cricket bat to start with. Oh and the guy that died before you? He's a zombie now of course. If you can find him and make him un-undead, then you get to retrieve whatever items or weapons he had on him when he died! See? That's sweet right? Just makes me more frustrated that publishers are so afraid of getting into serious developing for the Wii U. There is a lot of untapped potential in this system. Anyways. It's not the greatest game ever, or even on the Wii U right now, but it's definitely better than I think any one would have assumed given the name or packaging... I'd recommend giving it a shot.

Very few games on the WiiU actually take true advantage of the much celebrated gamepad. While games like Assassins Creed or Call of Duty use the gamepad for an in-game map, ZombiU uses the gamepad to change the way you normally play a survivor horror game. In ZombiU, you play a character thrown into a zombie infestation in London. Not much is explained about who you are, but you are directed by a friend to run around town to advance security around your safe house. You only have 1 life in this game, and dying means your character will turn into a zombie. Upon death, you will reincarnate into the body of another entirely new survivor and have to continue (possibly find your prior character, dispose of him/her, and take back your backpack full of supplies). ZombiU was a release title for the WiiU, and is clearly a product of cross generation development. The graphics in ZombiU, look like something more familiar on the original Wii than WiiU. Everything is low detail, and the textures are mostly blurry. There is hardly a soundtrack, but the sound effects are mostly good. The reason you want to get this game, is to experience survival horror with the WiiU gamepad! Much of the game's puzzles and item management require you look on your gamepad. Action on your TV switches to an overhead view of your character, making zombies virtually invisible (but still audible), making for very tense situations where death can come at any second. This is the reason why people who have played ZombiU, recommend the game! The game doesn't look very pretty, its story is virtually non existent, and has very weak adversarial local multiplayer (which requires at least one Wii mote, while gamepad user spawns zombies to kill other players)...but experiencing survival horror with the gamepad is worth the price of admission....especially since the price has skyrocketed to the bottom with the game being out for so long.

ZombiU is ambitious in its approach and in some areas, it succeeds, where in others it fails. You play as a survivor in England, a zombie breakout gripping the London at the moment. You are lead into a safehouse by a man calling himself the prepper, and he is your guide. The safehouse is for the most part, devoid of any Zombies, it has a storage container to keep supplies in, and it is one of the only places you can save your progress. Later on, you find smaller safehouses amonst the levels to save your progress in. If you die in this game, you start from your last save at the safehouse as a new survivor. It keeps track of how many survivors you've played as, half the fun is seeing how far you can get without losing a survivor and comparing them to other player's bests. Basically, this game is about horror through difficulty. To melee you have to first ready your cricket bat by holding the left bumper and then tapping the right bumper as you taking a long swing at a zombies head. A couple of of well timed strikes will eventually put them down. Guns and ammo are scarce. This game actually encourages you to play stealthily and avoid conflict. A refreshing change in a way, from the other games in the genre where you go in guns blazing.

Zombie U is a fresh and unique approach to the survival horror genre. It is nice that when you die, your character is dead and you pick up as a new character - who has to hunt down your past (now zombie) character to recover items. The gamepad features rock!! Not only does it serve as your inventory, but serves as many tools (from radar to scanners), to aid you in your quest to survive the the plague. There are plenty of different story trails to make the game engaging, and the multiplayer is a great training tool. i suggest you play multiplayer before diving into the story, so you have a better feel for the control mechanics. Sure my brother made me angry with too many zombies cornering me (as the player with the gamepad gets to choose the zombie type and location to challenge the survivor), but that level of difficultly, made the story play more familiar, and easier to sneak and strategize. Must have game!

This really is a fun game with a lot of good story written in to it. It's a little hard to understand the player life thing at first... but it makes sense now. When you start, you are being assisted by a guy talking over an intercom and when you die, you lose your items and turn into a zombie who is out in the map at your last location. You start over and wake up as a new player with nothing valuable in your inventory until you go out in the map and find your previous "self" and attack it to raid your old backpack and get your items/weapons back. The game is fun but gets a little confusing in some places. It doesn't explain too well on where an item is, or where you are supposed to go next to find the next phase of the play. I ended up buying the guide book and it was very helpful. The absolute best part of this game is the sound!! When you are walking through a dark sewer tunnel and hear this low wheezy growl... it FREAKS YOU OUT!! You can't be sure where it's coming from but you know someone is about to rip your arm off and beat you with it...LOL