To begin with a brief introduction to the game, ZombiU is a first-person zombie apocalypse survival based game released as part of the starting lineup on the Wii U. Developed by Ubisoft, this game is set in modern day London, England, and sees the player having to contend with hordes of shuffling undead.
With this premise, the player begins the game as a survivor of a zombie infection pandemic, seemingly scavenging for supplies whilst avoiding the undead. Mysteriously, a voice calls out to the player to run for dear life into a Tube station, the underground rail network of London. Thus, the game starts with you having to sprint away from agitated zombies in order to escape to a safe house established by the owner of the mysterious voice, who then introduces himself as 'The Prepper'.
From this point onwards, the survivor begins completing tasks as instructed by Prepper over the intercom system, in order to aid survival, although the Prepper is nowhere to be seen.
The narrative brought about by this style of story-telling isn't particularly strong, so if a highly engrossing plot is what you desire, then perhaps this is not the game for you. It regularly sees you going to locations to fulfill often seemingly disjointed tasks, and while there is a stream of events that masquerade as a story, this game is essentially for the game play.
Playing through the game, it is obvious on a routinely basis that the development team made full use of the new features brought in by the Wii U GamePad. During the majority of the experience, the GamePad screen is used as a map and quick select inventory for switching between items and weapons. It is, however, cleverly used for a wide range of other tasks.
Looting is the most frequent, with the inventory lists of both the player and the lootable item shown on the small screen, whilst the character hunches over on the big screen, giving a sense of urgency to deciding what items to take with you, knowing that a zombie could mangle you from behind at any moment.
The GamePad screen is also used for barricading doors, scanning items and hacking doors and keypads, again all with the player feeling the same sense of vulnerability to attack as they do with looting. This adds, in my opinion, a very clever and original aspect to the game that just isn't possible on any other current mainstream consoles.
Then comes the combat aspect. Sneaking and distracting the malevolent infected is highly encouraged where possible, as in true survival-horror style, taking on a crowd and trying to 'run and gun' simply will not work.
Inevitably, however, you are going to have to fight, which worked relatively well, but could definitely be improved upon. The stalwart weapon the player has in their arsenal is the cricket bat, three and a half feet of chunky, wooden goodness. Granted, it feels good to maul a few zombies with such an unconventional weapon, but it is flawed against anything but the most basic of enemies, taking up to 10 hits on a single zombie to kill them. Normally, this would result in the player drawing a trusty firearm. While that is certainly an option in ZombiU, it is not that easy, due to the sheer scarceness of ammo, and the fact the noise will attract many more opponents more often than not. This, I feel, was what let the game down perhaps more than anything else. While I am not wishing to see a god-killing weapon of epic proportions, it would be nice to be able to actually achieve something with it, rather than feel compelled to waste all three of the pistol rounds I have left.
This brings us onto the shooting aspect of combat. There are a multitude of different weapons in the game, ranging from trusty little pistols, through shotguns, to assault rifles and crossbows, but the ammo scarcity often renders them dead weight with little use. The aiming mechanic is also, in my opinion, odd. You would think that in a first-person game, the character would look down the sights of the weapon before turning the zombie skull into pink mist. Strangely, however, it is viewed from an angle, almost like in a third-person game, but from a first-person perspective. Perhaps this is to make the shooting feel more futile and incur a sense of further dread in the player as they try in vain to brass a target. But then again perhaps not.
That is not to say, however, that if you manage to find a stash of ammo, blasting a few zombies with an AK47 isn't fun. It's a blast, in fact, pardon the pun.
In general, then, combat is sometimes a little frustrating, but it is also satisfying, if you have the patience to hit the same enemy ten times before moving onto the rest of the group.
Surviving has certainly been covered. Now for the next part of the genre, horror.
This game is widely referred to as a cross between first-person shooter and survival-horror.
Personally, however, I did not find the game, on the most part, all that scary. Yes, it certainly has it's moments, what with occasional jump scares, and, for anybody who has played the game, the nursery, which is without doubt the most terrifying part of the game, the vast majority is not filled with all that much trepidation. Perhaps this is the fact that much of the game is played out in locations where you can see the zombies before they see you, and can plan your actions, or that you can just run away from the shufflers back the route you just came, and therefore just cleared. That is not to say that the game is completely fear-free, however. Seemingly dead zombies occasionally rise again with brain-envy, whilst things flying at you from dark corners take you by surprise. Even the ambience, when it is there, is against you. The slightest sound would have me stood still, like a rabbit in a car's headlights, trying desperately to figure out if the sound was me walking into something, or some horror lurking out of sight.
Death. As in the real-world, death is a certainty, unless you possess some kind of god-like powers. There will be a point in the game where the odds will be stacked against you, and you just cannot win, whether this is brought about by unwittingly attracting the zombies attention, or just plain bad luck. Now here is where the developers added another nice little twist. Upon death, you do not simply respawn from the last save point. No, instead you respawn at your safe house as a completely new character, with a new name, a new occupation and a new look. This is the first game I have played that has done this to me, and it is definitely intriguing. What is even cooler (dependent on your perspective), is that you start with only a cricket bat and a few pistol rounds. All your hard-earned loot is still with you. The old you, that is, and it is up to you to go and fight your old self to get it back. Nothing gives a greater sense of mortality than staving your own head in with a cricket bat in order to get a shotgun and a can of soda back, before carrying on with the game. This, I feel, adds a unique (as far as I am aware, anyway) twist to the game that just gives it a few more brownie points. This is also taken to the next level on the hardcore difficulty setting, in that you play as one character, with one life, and once you die, the game is over. Needless to say, this is pretty damn hard, and I have yet to survive on this setting for over an hour, so this is obviously a challenge aimed at more experienced gamers or ZombiU lovers who just cant get enough of the game.
Lastly, ZombiU has a multiplayer mode. Unfortunately, however, this feels, as with many games nowadays, almost bolted-on. That is not to say it is not fun. It essentially features one player using the Wii U GamePad to spawn zombies using the touchscreen, and the second player using a Wiimote in an attempt to prolong death as much as possible. However, as much as I enjoyed playing this mode a few times with both the GamePad and the Wiimote, I feel that scope for this is very limited, as it is a small part of the game, and has no online compatibility, so it quickly becomes stale. However, I understand that ZombiU is primarily a single player game, and a launch game at that, and so multiplayer is not the main focus. However, I feel that online modes, especially a co-op story mode, would be fantastic additions and improve re-playability.
To round of my opinions on the game, I had an immense amount of fun playing through it, and feel that it really nicely showcases a lot of what the Wii U has to offer. The story wasn't exactly ground breaking, and the resilience of tougher zombies to the standard weapon, the cricket bat, let it down for me a little, but I still feel that I had a new and exciting experience, and can only hope for more games of this caliber or higher to come to the Wii U, as this game sets a very solid benchmark for those that follow.
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