It’s easy to single out ZombiU in the Wii U launch lineup and shout, ‘There, look! The hardcore game! The one for adults! The one with violence that doesn’t involve squashing koopas and smiling back at clouds!’ Ubisoft has had such a lead-out game before, of course: Wii launch title Red Steel. And the comparisons run deeper than those reactionary exclamations.
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For a start, both titles attempt a more realistic look than traditional thirdparty Nintendo console fare. But where Red Steel went with a colourful eastern-inspired palette, riffing on trigger-happy asian action-cinema, ZombiU draws on the zombie survival horror genre. Here, desolation and bumps in the night are the currency of enjoyment and titillation. It’s a bold move: the undead are as far from the poster-children of a Nintendo icon as you can imagine. And then there’s the question of whether or not those queueing for Nintendo’s next home console on launch day will have the thirst for a singleplayer bloodbath at all, regardless of the game’s quality and niche, trial-and-error gameplay.
The first playthrough of a portion of ZombiU doesn’t so much flow as stutter. First, there’s the GamePad to get used to. In a firstperson title – a genre traditionally played either with keyboard and mouse or standard controller – it initially feels unnatural navigating the hallways and sewers of a post-apocalyptic London with a gun in virtual hand and what feels a little like an iPad in actual hand. The game doesn’t try to distract you from your new toy, however: ZombiU constantly employs the GamePad in unique and innovative ways, whether asking you to select messages to spray-paint on walls for other users’ playthroughs – a clear, and welcome nod to Dark Souls – or choosing which items to remove from your backpack and assign to your available item slots.
Looting bodies requires the same menu screen and keen concentration on the GamePad display, but in a devious twist, the onscreen activity continues in realtime. The shambling dead might be inches from your neck as you pillage pockets for ammo and supplies. Ammo is in very short supply, as we discover after licking off all six shots of our pistol at a shadow on a wall and then walking straight into the clutches of that shadow’s owner. The melee attack is essential and with enough hits, and particularly with the butt of a double-barrelled shotgun, it’s possible to finish off an enemy without depleting anything but your concentration.
Death is almost immediate when a zombie gets its fingers around your limbs, but a syringe of rare, deadly serum in your inventory provides an quick get-out clause, saving you automatically from the dark nothingness of the game over screen. It’s the death of your current character only, however, not of your adventure.
You respawn back at the start of the stage with a new character (from what we’re assured is an infinite, presumably randomly generated, roster). You’re starting fresh in terms of inventory and experience points, but if you can make it back to your body – assuming it’s not yet been reborn as a flesh-eater – you can take back all that lovely loot and plough on. It’s a neat mechanic that makes you treasure your first life and then panic on your second, as you race back to the scene of your death hoping to salvage hard-earned bounty.
Our second voyage into the world plays out very differently. Aware of the game’s rules, it’s much easier to work within them. We make it out into the open, onto a pier with a view of the city of London across the water and some shady, shuffling figures wandering around it. The glint of metal in the dark catches our eye and we discover a sniper rifle. A hundred yards away are three zombies who haven’t had a proper meal for a few minutes. One has an explosive tank on his back, naturally, and we light them up with the sniper scope on the GamePad screen. One survives, sprinting over to our own platform. We could waste precious bullets, but instead wait at the top of the ladder, butting the fiend on the top of the head each time he emerges until he no longer has a head to butt. It’s a messy, bloody affair and feels even more gruelling for the length of time it takes to finish him off. The controls feel clunky, which could arguably be a result of poor calibration, but this is more likely an intentional trick by the designers to make you feel like a normal civilian trying, however clumsily, to survive. Guns fire and react erratically, adding to your sense of inadequacy: in this zombie apocalypse, you’re far from a lantern-jawed STARS hero.
As proof of Wii U’s technical power, ZombiU won’t turn many heads. It’s drab, dark, and rough around the edges (intentionally so). While the sound design is eerily effective with its balance of quietude and shocks, it’s through the pace and flow of ZombiU, as much as the atmosphere, that the game achieves its dramatic effect.
We last about another five minutes in the game, foolishly riding the wave of our minor victory into a dungeon-like enclosure where a royal-guard-turned-brain-lover takes us out as we scramble through a dusty jacket for supplies.
ZombiU is tough, then, and unforgiving. Like From Software’s Souls series, its not a pleasant place to visit. The stakes are high and the rewards slim, but perseverance is key and dedication brings breakthrough. It’s the inverse of a traditional Nintendo experience, and stands out all the more for it. If the locales can deliver variety and menace enough to keep you guessing and challenged in inventive ways, then the game has every chance of being a Wii U launch highlight.
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