After all the hype from ZombiU that it has gotten in the last year it has easily become the most hyped third party game to come to the WiiU at launch. The question is does it live up to it's hype? When you go and look at the reviews you see a lot of mixed reaction so really who should you believe? The answer would be everyone. This game is just not for everyone and now I see why. This game is a one of a kind game and is unlike any other zombi game I've played and I'll explain why.
This game is set in London where it has been plagued with a disease that you guessed it, turns you into zombies. Right away you start off as some random person without any weapons and zombies everywhere. You will need to escape without fighting any of them. I found this to be the perfect introduction as this game is not about killing zombies, but rather it is about surviving at all costs. Eventually you get the famous cricket bat that you probably have heard about or have seen by now in the game. The cricket bat can kill a zombie in about 2-10 whacks. Seems like a lot and it is but once again this is emphasizing the danger you are constantly in. You will not want to engage a zombie unless you absolutely have to. There is weapons, flares, and ammo that you can find but if you die then it is all gone. This is very important because this stuff is rare to find. Scavanging in every room and corner to find these valuable items which often times means life or death is important so when you die it sucks because you will lose everything you find. You then become a new random survivor and if you get back to the point where you previously died and kill your self, or your past self in other words. You can then get all of your items back. Much like Demon's Souls for the PS3. Something that I also found interesting was how sometimes you can find a random survivor zombie and kill them to get there items too. This is why it is important to have friends on your friends list because if they die they will pop up in your campaign as well. Although this seems to be on rare occasions it is still a nice luxury to find one of these zombies.
As I said previosly it can take up to 10 hits to kill a zombie! That is a lot right!? Well it is but it is because there is different zombies. Sometimes you will find zombies in full body armor which are the ones that take a long time to kill. Rather annoying but you do what you have to. At first the game seems kind of brutal because you don't know what you are doing exactly, but once you figure out tricks on how to kill zombies or get around them it becomes intense and real. When I see a group of zombies i feel that fear because I do not want to die. Often times I'll sneak up behind one and flash my light on it just to get its attention to single it out. I then take it to a back room where I beat the crap out of it. Other times I'll take my crossbow shoot one in the head and then beat the crap out of the other. The shotgun seems to be highly powerful so I use it in cqc where there is a lot of zombies. Flares are also valuable as they catch the attention of all zombies around. Once they get near the flare just throw a grenade and well that ends that. There is so many ways to go about going against these zombie hordes but one thing is for sure, when you see these hordes you can feel the thrill because you don't want to die.
Lastly the gamepad. The gamepad is your virtual backpack, your hammer, your map, your radar, your keypad, and your scanner. This actually adds a fear all in its own way. When you go into your backpack you have to take your eyes off of the screen so you need to make sure zombies are not near. This happens with pretty much every gamepad feature so it is really important that you don't do this unless you are sure you are alone. The map is kind of important as well because when zombies are near and they are attacking you I can tell you that you don't want to look at your map but because you don't want to, zombies could be attacking you from your blind side. I remember in the first hour I was running away from a herd of zombies and because I was too scared to look at my map I took a wrong turn and ran into a dead end. I must say that didn't end well for me.
Now even though I say a lot of good things about this game this game is just not for everybody and it is obvious when you play it. There is annoying things and a lot of that comes from the cricket bat or the bad animations. It wouldn't have been so bad finding an axe on the ground somewhere instead of using the cricket bat so much. I find it kind of weird that I couldn't find any kind of melee weapon better than this thing, but whatever. Even the pistols are weak. Why is it not one shot to the head and they are dead? This would have went so much smoother if I could just pop these things in the heads. Over-all at the end of the day if you want a zombie Simulator then this game is for you, but if you want an arcade shooter stay away from zombiU. This is why you are seeing many mixed reactions across the industry, and maybe you just need to witness it first hand because this game truly is a one of a kind.
Final Score:
Gameplay: 8/10
Story: 7/10
Graphics 7/10
Survival Horror Genre: 9/10
Final Score: 7.8
