Regarded as the best Wii U game that implements the pad i always wanted to play this, but after having done that i understand why some say this game does not live up to its fame. Story is really, really bare bones and the pad just distracts from the actual action instead of giving the so called "gameplay enhancements". The game loves to just kill your character with unexpected traps or ambushes that you can't do nothing about just to force the player into this switching-bodies mechanic, that in the end doesn't change shit and you just lose stuff and weapon abilities. In the end is just a slightly harder FPS with worse controls and uninteresting story, i'd say is worth it just to "experience" yourself the Wii U gamepad usefulness.

Top 50 Favorites: #19 (2015 Zombi version)

Games I Like That Everybody Else Dislikes

Phenomenal zombie crusher with some of the most unique gimmicks I've ever seen in a horror game. Clearly a product not afraid to take risks, and it's all the more nuanced because of it - its atypical quirks which, at the time, were read as blemishes now seem like highly original and bold moves. This includes but is certainly not limited to its terrific use of setting, moving keenly from the grimy slums of post-apocalyptic England all the way up through Buckingham Palace and beyond (each level as excellently designed as the last). It's got great scares, devilishly fun combat, tons of definable setpieces, and - a must for any good horror game - backtracking that actually seems tense, strategic, and enjoyable. Can't sing the praises of this criminally under-respected curio enough. It's wonderful - plain and simple.

Ao revisar alguns jogos para jogar, deparei-me com Zombi U, que joguei quando foi lançado em 2012. Lembro-me de que o jogo recebeu uma campanha de marketing bastante significativa, considerando seu nível. Na época, durante o lançamento do Wii U, o jogo se destacou por apresentar uma proposta completamente diferente daquilo a que estávamos acostumados nos consoles da Big N.

No entanto, para surpresa de zero pessoas, uma vez que estamos em 2023, esse jogo é medíocre ou até mesmo ruim em tudo o que se propõe a fazer. Isso não me deixa muitas opções sobre o que falar sobre ele, já que a palavra "medíocre" define completamente o jogo.

An interesting game on the wii U, that's for sure, but I guess I was expecting a little something more from it. There are a lot of cool ideas put in this game, such as the "permadeath" concept, where you have to kill your previous self as a zombie if you die, as well as the many various uses of the Wii U gamepad in order to increase tension. However, those ideas really aren't put to the very best use, since the gamepad stuff just has you constantly scanning every room to make sure you see items and the permadeath stuff doesn't really matter since the story progresses anyways. I think it would have been cooler if they had made a more difficult, shorter roguelike kinda game where the gamepad stuff is more prevalent to keep you constantly on edge from the zombies instead of the game that they made here. The game is paced kinda poorly and there's a huge big dumb mcguffin hunt for no reason at the end which sucks. Game was disappointing because I could see what it was trying to be, it just wasn't doing the best job being that.

Zombi U is one of the most effective horror games I ever played. The level of tension as you explore the City streets is always very high since enemies are very aggressive and strong. On top of that, there is a 'souls-esque' mechanic that makes the player lose all of its equipment, weapons and loot every time you die and you can only recover your items by reaching the exact point you died at. Other tension-building features include crafting of material which was masterfully done using the Wii U gamepad all while the game is running on your TV meaning that you could get attacked as you were crafting items in your gamepad.

This being an effective horror game doesn't mean it automatically makes it a good overall game: I had some issues with the pacing and design. Overall this is a good game that stands out in building tension and providing excellent horror elements. Unfortunately, the proper way of playing this game is with a Wii U gamepad which will make its enjoyment harder to experience for gamers not owing this somewhat obscure Nintendo system.


That doesn't mean this is one of my favorite all-time games but

I'm tempted to say that ZombiU is a good game, as I did when I wrote my review of the PlayStation 4 version that landed on the front page of GameFAQs in 2016. There's some merit to that admiration: ZombiU is one of the few zombie games that feels true to the genre's origin. This isn't your Left4Dead or Black Ops zombies of the day. When the game says that this is a deadly disease that's gone viral, it's believable. You aren't an action hero; you are vulnerable at all times. All it takes for you to go down is one misstep. The use of the Wii U gamepad, while too gimmicky for some, hammers this home. Everything but the pause menu plays out in real-time, but unlike the ports of this game that would later come out, there's a genuine layer of tension that coats the entire experience. At any moment, you could be sorting through your inventory, and you won't notice a zombie pop up. Especially in an era where big studios weren't making the most memorable survival horror games, ZombiU stood out.

Ten years later, though? I hate to disappoint my eleven-year-old self, but ZombiU is not the most impressive game ever made.

I suppose I have more respect for this game than outright admiration. It's fitting that the GameFAQs review was written in the era where I used the format of reviews as writing practice, even if it meant I was writing about games I had never played before. I have consistently played through a quarter of this game, dropped it, and then picked it up again. I know the gamepad interactions get more complex because my older brother got much farther in this than I ever did. But he eventually dropped it, too, and all of these years later, I haven't ever heard him talk about it.

ZombiU is fascinating in concept, but facts are facts: it was developed in less than a year. Ubisoft's big game for the Wii U at launch was supposed to be Killer Freaks from Outer Space, a generic-looking fast-paced shooter with a hint of self-awareness. Perhaps they weren't too assured of that direction, though, because they took the feedback they got from it dead seriously. Here you had the Wii U gamepad, an excellent fit for large hands but not nearly as compact as your Xbox 360 controllers or Dualshock 3's of the world. They tried putting Call of Duty on this thing twice and couldn't justify doing it a third time; go figure. This put Ubisoft in a bit of a sticky situation. Do they keep pressing forward with a launch title that will likely sour their reputation with anything Nintendo-related, or do they course correct and create something more tailor-made to the hardware they're working with? Whoever was in charge of the projects that had effort put into them said "fuck it" and pressed the button on something else entirely.

Out comes something else.

I know for a fact that ZombiU was released in 2012 because I've immortalized that year into the farthest reaches of my consciousness. But let's say I wasn't a goofy fifth grader turning dumb middle schooler that year and I was handed this years after it came out. Honestly, I'd think this came out in 2006 instead. Several of the ideas that ZombiU has would lead you to think that its world has the same layer of believable aspects that its inhabitants do. But by the end of the game's five-minute prologue, you come to a wall and hit a realization. There's a ladder. If you've played a first-person game before, you should know where this is going. You keep pressing up; you go up. Or, that's typically the case. In ZombiU, pressing forward will only make you walk into the wall. In order to climb the ladder in front of you, you have to hit the contextual button for it. This doesn't seem all that damning until you realize that it's not the only aspect of ZombiU that's like this. You can't jump or crouch unless you're in a spot that the game designers want you to be in. The level of interactivity within the world you occupy is next to none. For a game all about survival, ZombiU leans a little too far on linearity. And it's not like any of this was done to make the game look good, either. This isn't one of those launch titles made to wow you with its visuals. It certainly has style, and that has to be commended. But once you look past that, ZombiU isn't exactly pleasant to look at. It's not ugly; it's just very plain and without a discernable personality.

And then you get to the act of playing the game itself, and another realization hits you with the force of this game's cricket bat: this game gets repetitive quickly. Staying in line with the developer's approach to survival horror, ammo isn't exactly in abundance. If you want to play this game like it's a 90s shooter, you're boned beyond the grave. This is where the cricket bat comes in. If you can't shoot your way through all of the hordes the game presents you with, you should at least have an option for self-defense that doesn't require ammunition. On paper, this is a fantastic idea and adds to what they were aiming for. Combat becomes less focused on the act of killing and is more a game of consideration. Do I need to kill this zombie? Should I waste my ammo on them, or would it be better to use the more risky alternative? If ZombiU had more time in the oven, I'm sure this would have played out in the way it was intended. Unfortunately, the linearity absolutely knee-caps you here. There are zombies that you need to kill, and you can't use your ammo on all of them. The solution to this problem? Take no risks; use your cricket bat—every time. What starts out as an intense struggle for survival becomes comical the more you have to do it, let alone exhausting. Eventually, the game opens up and gives you more to work with. But you really have to stick with the monotony to get to that point. It's not as noxious the first time around, but the more you find yourself in that opening area, the less accepting you become. It becomes its own struggle for survival, and the thing you're surviving against is your boredom.

So let's say you get tired of what the singleplayer offers and want to indulge in the multiplayer content—like the base game, fascinating in concept. A 1v1 match of asymmetrical multiplayer, where the player with the gamepad is responsible for spawning zombies and special infected around the player. The player competiting is just as vulnerable as the survivors are in the base game, so it's not always a one-sided victory. This should have been a slam dunk, but there are only two modes and a handful of stages at best. This is where the time constraints become all the more evident. Everything about it screams "afterthought." There's enough bite for a few rounds to be compelling, but past those few rounds, you won't find yourself coming back to it all that much. What's there works better in a room of twelve people competing in a bracket, not the one-on-one approach the game presents you with. As it stands, try to be surprised when I tell you that this multiplayer didn't make it into the other ports of this game.

Not every game needs a sequel or a remake. Sometimes it's good to leave well enough alone. But like another game I've played this year, ZombiU is one of the rare exceptions to this clause. It's honestly depressing that Ubisoft stopped caring about this after it sold poorly. Can you imagine you sweet and terrifying a game like this would be if the developers were given more time to make it? Let alone how much crunch they'd probably avoid in the process. ZombiU, in concept, is what makes me say that horror is a genre suited to interactivity like no other. In execution, it's a game that I haven't played seriously in years. Take that as you will.

I played the ps4 port, which makes the U in the title meaningless. Has some neat ideas, but they aren't executed particularly well. The graphics are exceedingly ugly and the game has a fundamental misunderstanding of light and darkness. The permadeath idea is interesting, but I only died like once in the entire campaign, so it didn't end up mattering. The ending makes the miscalculation of leaning into the game's least effective ingredients. Overall, entirely forgettable in the sea of zombie games