ZombiU – Nintendo Wii U
- Two Screens, Twice The Fear – Feel the tension mount as you try to keep an eye on your TV and controller screen.
- Survival-Horror Action At Its Best – Resources are in short supply while your enemies are legion, and you never know when you will find more weapons, ammunition, first aid and food.
- Don’t Leave Home Without Your BOB: The new WiiU controller becomes your Bug-Out Bag, the ultimate all-in-one survival kit for your tools, inventory, med kits, maps and more.
- Unique Death Mechanic – If you die, you wake up to play an entirely new character who is another survivor in the same terrifying position.
- Horde At Your Door – Stock up on guns, ammo and supplies, and lock down your Safe House!
London is falling! A great plague has enveloped the city in a fog of death. Humanity has been ravaged by infection, the diseased prowl through the streets, waiting to prey on your living flesh at every turn! ZombiU is built from the ground up to take full advantage of the WiiU and its revolutionary New Controller and will test your will to survive in a fear-fueled zombie Survival Horror First Person Shooter. Make every second count; you only get one chance. Stay Human.
List Price: $ 4.99
Price:
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215 of 223 people found the following review helpful
 This one is special. (And wholly misunderstood by critics!), By
This review is from: ZombiU – Nintendo Wii U (Video Game)
Zombi U is special. It is the only true survival horror experience I have come across in the last six years of console gaming. While other franchises like Resident Evil have gone the way of action shooters, Zombi U is truly SURVIVAL horror. The goal is not to “run and gun,” popping zombie’s heads with one well placed shot, and feeling invincible behind the barrel of a powerful automatic gun with an infinite supply of ammo. The goal is to survive, and surviving needs to feel very difficult–perhaps even punishing–or both “survival” and “horror” lose any real meaning in the game. There are only two possible explanations for the host of very negative critical reviews of Zombi U: (1) failure to understand the genre of survival horror and how it is supposed to differ from an action shooter; and (2) desire to be negative toward Nintendo because they choose to rethink the game experience rather than merely feed the ridiculous obsession with better hardware specs (which obviously underlies all the concerns that the Wii U is “not next-gen enough”). Pushing those negative critics aside, here is why YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY PLAY ZOMBI U: 1. It is TRUE survival horror. Weapons, ammo, medicine, and other supplies are in sufficiently limited supply that you are forced to be strategic. You cannot run wild on a shooting spree. If you do, the penalties are severe… Death comes easily and it means starting over as an entirely new survivor, with only the cricket bat, a pistol, 6 rounds of ammo, and any supplies you were wise enough to stow away in the safehouse before an untimely demise. The high stakes of losing the supplies and skills you’ve built up with a particular survivor result in a palpable feeling of tension during the entire play experience–exactly as a good survival horror game should make you feel. 2. The graphics are excellent. Reading reviews, I had come to expect the graphics to be shoddy, but they are very nicely done. You feel like you’re in realistic spaces. Textures, lighting, and environmental objects are sufficiently varied that each location feels distinctive and fresh, not recycled and repetitive. Everything also has a nice “gritty” style that compliments the horror mood well. Play in a dark room on a large HD screen and you really start to feel “in” the game world. 3. The gamepad mechanics are very smartly implemented, NOT gimmicky. I can’t believe so many critics disparaged this game for the ways the gamepad screen is utilized. Ubisoft did a brilliant job finding ways to incorporate it in ways that enhance the experience. For one, it is wonderful that the game does not pause when you’re managing your inventory. That keeps the mood tense even when you’re doing mundane tasks. While some have complained about the need to watch two screens, I think it makes perfect sense. Your gamepad is your inventory, and onscreen you can see if a zombie is sneaking up to attack you. Your attention is divided deliberately because Ubisoft rightly realized that this enhances the creepy and vulnerable vibe a good survival horror game is supposed to create. The scanning feature is also awesome because you can use your pad to look for hidden items or notes, but while scanning the light can also attract nearby zombies. Again, it offers a nice blend of game-enhancing convenience (managing items and scanning are both very simple) and intimidating risk in a threatening environment (both features leave you vulnerable without pausing the gameplay). A third feature–the icing on the cake, so to speak–is the “ping” feature of your radar which allows you to detect moving zombies, but which does not reveal non-moving zombies and also returns false positives when crows or rats are nearby. So the radar helps you detect threats with advance notice, but it’s brilliantly designed with some unreliability so that it keeps you guessing and prevents you from feeling confident in your safety. 4. The risks are high, and so the rewards of success are high as well. Like the game Dark Souls, death can have severe consequences. You lose everything in your inventory and you need to fight your way back to kill your previous character (now zombified) to retrieve whatever gear you had when you last died. If you die before retrieving your gear, it’s all lost and you start from scratch. This makes death in the game feel like a very undesirable outcome. Unlike 99% of all other FPS-style games, you can’t just reassure yourself by saying “who cares if I die; I’ll just respawn.” Besides contributing tension, this can also lead to massive frustration. I kept my first survivor alive for 58 minutes. Then I hit a rough patch and killed off nine more survivors in about 20 minutes as I tried to recover my gear in a zombie infested zone. Everything was lost, and then it was even harder to battle through the wave of zombies milling around. For some people, that would be a game killer, but if you…
129 of 139 people found the following review helpful
True survival horror, By
Amazon Customer (St. Petersburg, FL USA) – See all my reviews
This review is from: ZombiU – Nintendo Wii U (Video Game)
I have played about 3-4 hours of this game so far and I love it. It is a zombie game for those of us that miss the old-style Resident Evil games. Limited inventory, limited save spots (so far only one I know of), and shamblers as opposed to rabid fast zombies.
You play as one random survivor that is being helped by faceless voice on the radio. In the vein of Demon’s Souls you die and you start again at the beginning, but unlike Demon Souls, all your progress is not lost. You wake up as another random survivor waking up in the safe house. Whatever mission you were on before you died is still active, and the world remains more or less as you left it when your previous survivor died. There is inventory management, but unlike most games, the world doesn’t stop while you riffle through your backpack, so looting gear becomes a lesson in speed-sorting. Controls for shooting/hitting are fairly easy to pick up. One of my favorite parts is that the gamepad turns into your scanner. You hold up the gamepad and move it around, physically scanning your environment and marking items that you tag with your scanner. Now to the atmosphere. It’s really nothing you haven’t seen in other zombie games, but that doesn’t mean it’s not thoroughly enjoyable. It’s more about building the paranoia and fear level. The ambiguous noise coming from another room, the movement off to your right but then when you look it’s gone. All of those little things that serve to heighten the fear factor. You have doors and fallen articles to navigate while you move about the area as well, serving to make your getaway path that much harder if you have to run. It is similar to Silent Hill and other survival horror as far as atmosphere goes. Overall, the reason I think I like it so much is my longing for an old-style Resident Evil game. This game delivers it, but adds some new elements which freshen up the gameplay. If you are looking for a zombie action shooter this game isn’t for you. If you want a good survival horror this is definitely the game for you.
114 of 123 people found the following review helpful
 Don’t believe the negative reviews all over the net, By
This review is from: ZombiU – Nintendo Wii U (Video Game)
When I picked up my Wii U on launch day, I was 99% positive I was going to cancel my ZombiU pre-order and just wait and see how reviews handled the game. I decided not to. I just had a feeling that I wasn’t going to regret it. I was right. This game deserves a lot of respect. The developers definitely took some risks here. Survival horror just isn’t popular anymore (unfortunately) and survival horror is exactly what this game is. Preparation is very important in ZombiU. Naturally, you can’t always be prepared for every possible situation, but conserving ammo and trying to make the most of every medkit are two things that will definitely help your chances. You die relatively easy in this game, so running and gunning isn’t a smart thing to do. You’ll want to scan your surroundings (using the game pad) and tag any items you might be able to pick up (you can also tag undead, so they show up on your map). You’ll want to use your radar (also used via the game pad) to be aware of any possible dangers that might lurk in the darkness. And, most importantly, you’ll want to keep your eyes open. The attention to detail in this game is what truly shines (in my opinion). Menus fit the mood. Environments look demolished. The lighting is amazing. Weather adds an incredible atmosphere to the gameplay. I was thrilled to hear the deafening sound of heavy rain as it pounded the roof of the storage container I’d sought for shelter. Its little things like this that the developers did not have to spend time on, but did anyway. I even like how the voice guiding you through the game comes out of the game pad speakers and not the TV’s. This makes it feel as though he’s talking directly to you and not your survivor in-game. Combat is varied, depending on how you look at it. Even I wish that melee combat had a little more variety to it. You basically just bash zombies repeatedly with your cricket bat until the option to — finish it off — pops up on screen. Guns are as they should be, however. 1-2 bullets (even from a handgun) to the head will drop most undead. There are also barrels and tanks here and there that will explode or catch fire when shot. These containers aren’t flashing or glossed over with an obvious hey-you-can-shoot-me-and-I-will-do-something texture, so you really have to keep an eye out for them. The game also has plenty of sub weapons (limited in quantity, of course) to find, such as grenades, mines, and molotovs. You can upgrade your weapons at any workbench you come across (there is a workbench in your safehouse, but you will also find others here and there). You can upgrade the power, capacity, firing speed, and spread of most of the weapons in the game. Upgrades are accomplished by bringing the required attachments (found throughout the game) back to a workbench where you simply attach them to whatever gun you wish. It’s really that easy. Inventory is limited, so get ready to manage items. You can store excess stuff at your safe-house, which you can return to at set intervals using the sewer system (i.e. the game’s fast-travel system). You can assign items to the game pad for quick-swapping, but in order to actually rummage through your pack, you have to keep one eye on the TV screen as the game does not actually pause while you are messing with your items on the game pad. The same with removing barricades from doors, picking locks, and opening new manhole covers. You need to keep an eye out for any undead on the TV that might decide to attack you while you’re busy interacting with the prompts on your game pad. Survival means something in this game. When you die, you lose all the skills that your survivor had developed. You start fresh with a new survivor who has no skills. If you want the guy you’ve been playing as for the last 5 hours to keep his really sweet handgun skills, you’d better keep him alive. Skills are developed the more you use certain weapons. All weapons except the cricket bat have skills, I believe. If you ask me, I think those who hate this game do so simply because you aren’t drowning in ammunition and healing items at all times. Games like Resident Evil have changed (for the worse) over the years and have basically turned survival horror into action. Don’t get me wrong, I still like Resident Evil, but it’s great to finally get to play an actual survival horror game again! I’m a huge fan of The Walking Dead TV series and I always enjoyed how they placed such a huge emphasis on not drawing needless attention to yourself, conserving ammo and supplies, and never leaping before you’ve looked. This game will treat you to a lot of the same. Why only the four star rating? -Unfortunately, the aiming is very float-y and takes some getting used to. -You cannot adjust horizontal and vertical analog sensitivities separately. I HATE this as just about every… |
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This one is special. (And wholly misunderstood by critics!),
Zombi U is special. It is the only true survival horror experience I have come across in the last six years of console gaming. While other franchises like Resident Evil have gone the way of action shooters, Zombi U is truly SURVIVAL horror. The goal is not to “run and gun,” popping zombie’s heads with one well placed shot, and feeling invincible behind the barrel of a powerful automatic gun with an infinite supply of ammo. The goal is to survive, and surviving needs to feel very difficult–perhaps even punishing–or both “survival” and “horror” lose any real meaning in the game.
There are only two possible explanations for the host of very negative critical reviews of Zombi U: (1) failure to understand the genre of survival horror and how it is supposed to differ from an action shooter; and (2) desire to be negative toward Nintendo because they choose to rethink the game experience rather than merely feed the ridiculous obsession with better hardware specs (which obviously underlies all the concerns that the Wii U is “not next-gen enough”).
Pushing those negative critics aside, here is why YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY PLAY ZOMBI U:
1. It is TRUE survival horror. Weapons, ammo, medicine, and other supplies are in sufficiently limited supply that you are forced to be strategic. You cannot run wild on a shooting spree. If you do, the penalties are severe… Death comes easily and it means starting over as an entirely new survivor, with only the cricket bat, a pistol, 6 rounds of ammo, and any supplies you were wise enough to stow away in the safehouse before an untimely demise. The high stakes of losing the supplies and skills you’ve built up with a particular survivor result in a palpable feeling of tension during the entire play experience–exactly as a good survival horror game should make you feel.
2. The graphics are excellent. Reading reviews, I had come to expect the graphics to be shoddy, but they are very nicely done. You feel like you’re in realistic spaces. Textures, lighting, and environmental objects are sufficiently varied that each location feels distinctive and fresh, not recycled and repetitive. Everything also has a nice “gritty” style that compliments the horror mood well. Play in a dark room on a large HD screen and you really start to feel “in” the game world.
3. The gamepad mechanics are very smartly implemented, NOT gimmicky. I can’t believe so many critics disparaged this game for the ways the gamepad screen is utilized. Ubisoft did a brilliant job finding ways to incorporate it in ways that enhance the experience. For one, it is wonderful that the game does not pause when you’re managing your inventory. That keeps the mood tense even when you’re doing mundane tasks. While some have complained about the need to watch two screens, I think it makes perfect sense. Your gamepad is your inventory, and onscreen you can see if a zombie is sneaking up to attack you. Your attention is divided deliberately because Ubisoft rightly realized that this enhances the creepy and vulnerable vibe a good survival horror game is supposed to create. The scanning feature is also awesome because you can use your pad to look for hidden items or notes, but while scanning the light can also attract nearby zombies. Again, it offers a nice blend of game-enhancing convenience (managing items and scanning are both very simple) and intimidating risk in a threatening environment (both features leave you vulnerable without pausing the gameplay). A third feature–the icing on the cake, so to speak–is the “ping” feature of your radar which allows you to detect moving zombies, but which does not reveal non-moving zombies and also returns false positives when crows or rats are nearby. So the radar helps you detect threats with advance notice, but it’s brilliantly designed with some unreliability so that it keeps you guessing and prevents you from feeling confident in your safety.
4. The risks are high, and so the rewards of success are high as well. Like the game Dark Souls, death can have severe consequences. You lose everything in your inventory and you need to fight your way back to kill your previous character (now zombified) to retrieve whatever gear you had when you last died. If you die before retrieving your gear, it’s all lost and you start from scratch. This makes death in the game feel like a very undesirable outcome. Unlike 99% of all other FPS-style games, you can’t just reassure yourself by saying “who cares if I die; I’ll just respawn.” Besides contributing tension, this can also lead to massive frustration. I kept my first survivor alive for 58 minutes. Then I hit a rough patch and killed off nine more survivors in about 20 minutes as I tried to recover my gear in a zombie infested zone. Everything was lost, and then it was even harder to battle through the wave of zombies milling around. For some people, that would be a game killer, but if you…
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|True survival horror,
You play as one random survivor that is being helped by faceless voice on the radio. In the vein of Demon’s Souls you die and you start again at the beginning, but unlike Demon Souls, all your progress is not lost. You wake up as another random survivor waking up in the safe house. Whatever mission you were on before you died is still active, and the world remains more or less as you left it when your previous survivor died.
There is inventory management, but unlike most games, the world doesn’t stop while you riffle through your backpack, so looting gear becomes a lesson in speed-sorting. Controls for shooting/hitting are fairly easy to pick up. One of my favorite parts is that the gamepad turns into your scanner. You hold up the gamepad and move it around, physically scanning your environment and marking items that you tag with your scanner.
Now to the atmosphere. It’s really nothing you haven’t seen in other zombie games, but that doesn’t mean it’s not thoroughly enjoyable. It’s more about building the paranoia and fear level. The ambiguous noise coming from another room, the movement off to your right but then when you look it’s gone. All of those little things that serve to heighten the fear factor. You have doors and fallen articles to navigate while you move about the area as well, serving to make your getaway path that much harder if you have to run. It is similar to Silent Hill and other survival horror as far as atmosphere goes.
Overall, the reason I think I like it so much is my longing for an old-style Resident Evil game. This game delivers it, but adds some new elements which freshen up the gameplay. If you are looking for a zombie action shooter this game isn’t for you. If you want a good survival horror this is definitely the game for you.
Was this review helpful to you?
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