BizzyBum
Member
I bought the Wii U at launch with ZombiU and never really played it despite its reputation for being a pretty underrated game. With Season 4 of The Walking Dead approaching I decided I should give it a shot.
I'm still not too far
but I've played a total of about 5 hours. For starters, the graphics are acceptable to me. It's certainly nothing great but for a Wii U launch title it gets the job done and the lighting is excellent which I find important in games like these. GamePad implementation is also well done and shows how cool it could be if used right. Inventory management is key and I like how you can't carry 50 things and quick swap everything on the fly.
I do prefer slower-paced survival horror games like this as opposed to something like Left 4 Dead or Dead Rising, so I feel Ubisoft did a good job here. I love the fact that a single zombie doesn't pose much of a threat but you need to be careful and not have a group catch you or else you'll be wasting your ammo reserves to survive. I do wish there was some more stealth elements involved such as crouching, prone, peeking behind corners, possibly sneaking up behind a zombie and delivering a knife to the cranium. But this leads me to a big downside of the game
COMBAT
It's depressingly atrocious. I honestly don't mind the gunplay so far. I've picked up and used a good assortment of guns so far and there's a very basic upgrade feature. My complaint is the melee combat. I'm not sure what Ubisoft was thinking. They give you an assortment of guns but only one melee weapon? Okay, whatever, I could overlook that if it was fun to use but every single encounter with a zombie is the same when using the cricket bat. Push away/overhead bash x4 (unless you encounter the armored ones) and then the same finishing move EVERY time. What a missed opportunity here because with more melee weapons, more animations, and more customization (not Dead Rising caliber, but something where it would actually be worthwhile to scavenge and make kick ass weapons) this game could have been really something special. I am sure Ubisoft would have addressed this if ZombiU 2 was greenlit but it looks like that's never going to happen.
So overall, it's a very good launch title for the Wii U that deserved more love and definitely deserves a proper sequel for Ubisoft to further tinker with the game, but the combat is so tedious I can see why it was not a big success.
I'm still not too far
(currently helping the Doc at the Royal Palace)
I do prefer slower-paced survival horror games like this as opposed to something like Left 4 Dead or Dead Rising, so I feel Ubisoft did a good job here. I love the fact that a single zombie doesn't pose much of a threat but you need to be careful and not have a group catch you or else you'll be wasting your ammo reserves to survive. I do wish there was some more stealth elements involved such as crouching, prone, peeking behind corners, possibly sneaking up behind a zombie and delivering a knife to the cranium. But this leads me to a big downside of the game
and you all know what I'm going to say.
COMBAT
It's depressingly atrocious. I honestly don't mind the gunplay so far. I've picked up and used a good assortment of guns so far and there's a very basic upgrade feature. My complaint is the melee combat. I'm not sure what Ubisoft was thinking. They give you an assortment of guns but only one melee weapon? Okay, whatever, I could overlook that if it was fun to use but every single encounter with a zombie is the same when using the cricket bat. Push away/overhead bash x4 (unless you encounter the armored ones) and then the same finishing move EVERY time. What a missed opportunity here because with more melee weapons, more animations, and more customization (not Dead Rising caliber, but something where it would actually be worthwhile to scavenge and make kick ass weapons) this game could have been really something special. I am sure Ubisoft would have addressed this if ZombiU 2 was greenlit but it looks like that's never going to happen.
So overall, it's a very good launch title for the Wii U that deserved more love and definitely deserves a proper sequel for Ubisoft to further tinker with the game, but the combat is so tedious I can see why it was not a big success.