Reader Review: ZombiU (Wii U)

ZOMBIU_BOXZombie TV shows, movies, and games are all the rage nowadays, and one of the most sought after games of the undead is only on Wii U! Since my brother Jeff is better at dealing with zombies than I am, here is his review of ZombiU!

ZombiU is a survival horror game based in the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse in London. This first-person game has the player using a variety of weapons and the signature cricket bat to maintain a safe house and venture out to explore a zombified London. The game uses the WiiU controller as a sort of main menu to change weapons and check on mission objectives, but the main use of it is as a map which can be used as a radar to track other living creatures, whether they be crows, rats, or zombies. The controller is also used as the player’s scanner, which can mark the location of items and zombies it is directed at, or even hidden messages left by a mysterious group of survivors. ZombiU uses the controller in a very fluid way, it’s very simple to use your thumbs to change weapons on the fly and change around the items in your backpack with limited hassle.

The gameplay can be a little lacking. The main weapon of choice is the cricket bat due to its lack of ammo but almost every zombie takes the same amount of hits anywhere on its body in order to be subdued. The player can perform an execution style attack if the zombie falls on the ground, but normally it’s about five hits and the zombie is out. The guns are pretty easy to use, and per zombie stereotypes one shot to the head is an instant kill. One unique characteristic of ZombiU is the fact that if your character does end up dying that character is gone forever. When you restart from a checkpoint you play an entirely new person picking up where the last one left off, finding the zombie of that last person, killing it, and getting back all your items. Also if any of your friends or just random people online dies in their games you can find their zombies to get extra items.

There is no online multiplayer, but there is a two-player local multiplayer mode where one person uses a Wii remote and Nunchuk as a survivor and one person uses the WiiU controller to unleash zombies into the area. The survivor races to capture control points because if the zombie controller captures enough points he can unleash more powerful zombies upon the survivor. It’s a fun little game and can be pretty hilarious trying to trap the survivor in waves of flanking zombies but eventually it can get sort of monotonous.

Overall ZombiU is a great launch title for the WiiU. It may not be a revolutionary game in the first-person survival-horror genre but it uses the controller very well and sets a pretty good bar for later games for the WiiU. –Jeff Orth

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Kid Factor:

ZombiU is rated M for Mature with ESRB descriptors of Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, and Strong Language. The game is pretty bloody and chunky…and scary! Best for adult gamers after the kids have gone to bed. (Kid Factor by Cary Woodham)

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