ZombiU

Genre: First-Person Action-RPG / Stealth

Players: 1-4 Team Competitive (Local Split-Screen)

Game Company Bad Behavior Profile Page: UbiSoft

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Review:

ZombiU is a First-Person Action-Adventure with strong Stealth elements released on the Wii U when it launched in 2012, and then ported to PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2015 as Zombi. However, it bears mention that ZombiU is a game that was clearly designed with the Wii U gamepad in mind, and while other versions of the game may be able to present players with a watered-down version of the game, I think it’s fair to say that you’ll only ever get the full experience if you play the Wii U version.

Given that this was a Wii U launch title, you shouldn’t expect much in terms of presentation. ZombiU is a pretty ugly game by today’s standards, featuring bland, muddy visuals and unimpressive 3D models for its characters. It all still works and does a decent enough job conveying the horror of the situation, but even contemporary games of the time such as those in the Resident Evil series looked better than this, and the visuals have only aged since the game released.

The sound design in the game is generally pretty good at least, though it’s undercut by some cheesy voicework – your guide in the campaign, Prepper, seems a bit too glib for the situation. And the announcer in the multiplayer mode is absurdly cheesy. It doesn’t outright destroy the horror-infused tones of the game, but it isn’t doing it any favors either.

For the gameplay, the campaign mode is where much of the attention will likely go, as players proceed through a linear story that has them fending off zombie invasions into a safehouse while also exploring out into the world for supplies and to add new CCTV cameras to your network of hacked devices. The campaign often seems like you’re being led around by the nose, and it’s frustrating because having a safehouse you keep returning to makes me wish this were more of an open-world experience.

At the very least, this game does do something clever in its structure. See, deaths in this game don’t just have you starting over or losing a life – the person you were playing as actually died, leaving their stuff abandoned where you left it. Since this invariably includes the all-important tablet device your character uses as a radar and map, your next “life” (an entirely new person) will need to retrace your earlier steps back to that death to retrieve it, usually off of the now-zombified body of the previous character you played. This is a really nice touch, and it seems like the sort of thing more zombie games should incorporate.

The other element here that needs to be addressed is the use of the Wii U gamepad. I admit, I had mixed feelings about the gamepad’s use during the campaign. Being forced to rifle through inventory in real-time while zombies potentially close in on you is a great way to bring players further into the experience, and using the screen as a combination inventory, map, radar, scanner, and so on really does make the Wii U gamepad feel indispensable. However, sometimes the gamepad’s use is gimmicky in ways that makes it seem forced, such as when you need to tap it repeatedly to perform a menial task. And it gets old really fast when you have to look back and forth between the gamepad and the screen repeatedly when you’re just trying to look through a room full of containers to see if any have loot.

However, if there’s one place where the Wii U gamepad unambiguously shines, it is this game’s multiplayer mode, a game mode that is exclusive to the Wii U, and for good reason. Dubbed King of the Zombies, this is an asymmetrical team competitive mode where one player with the Wii U gamepad commands a horde of zombies like an RTS or a Tower Defense game, and the other players take the role of survivors in a more traditional First-Person Shooter. This game mode is a highlight of ZombiU, and one of the best examples of the sort of gameplay that’s ideal for the Wii U.

Look, I’m not going to sugarcoat it, ZombiU has issues. It looks ugly, its voice acting is cheesy, its use of the Wii U gamepad in campaign mode fluctuates from clever to annoying, and said campaign’s linear nature really feels limiting. However, some of the elements of its campaign are clever, and the multiplayer mode is delightfully unique in a way that’s a huge selling point in its own right. If you have a Wii U, you should absolutely get this game, despite its flaws – if only for its multiplayer, it is one of the few games to make truly good use of the Wii U in a manner not likely to be replicated anywhere else, not even in the ports this game had to other platforms.

tl;dr – ZombiU is a First-Person Action-Adventure with Stealth elements. As a Wii U launch title, ZombiU definitely shows its age, and the ways it uses the Wii U gamepad range from clever to annoying. However, there are enough inventive elements here to make this game worthwhile, and the local multiplayer mode is not only inspired, but it is unlikely to ever be replicated on any other platform. If you have a Wii U, you should absolutely get this game, despite its flaws.

Grade: B-

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