ZombiU is the Best Exclusive for Wii U Thus Far

So I know it wasn’t the biggest game by Ubisoft to be revealed and thanks to killers like Watch Dogs, AC3, Far Cry 3 and Splinter Cell: Blacklist it has almost slipped by for the hardcore gamers. This is also in part thanks to it being a Wii U exclusive. However, I’m going to point out it is for me looking like the best Wii U exclusive.

A bold thing to say and it will perhaps result in a Backlash from Nintendo fans. Regardless, I’m going to say it because Nintendo Fans aren’t the people who need to be persuaded to buy a Wii U, people who are primarily Playstation, Xbox and PC gamers are the ones who do. For them ZombiU is  the only real hardcore exclusive to be announced for Wii U at the moment and quite frankly, it’s looking like it could be one of the best survival horror games to come out in ages. By Survival Horror I mean real Survival Horror, not survival co-op shoot ‘em ups like Left4Dead or what Resi 5. Think about it, those games aren’t really that scary…  This has low light, limited supplies(when you’re out of ammo you can resort to melee) and a health bar. Remember those?

ZombiU looks really tense and perhaps genuinely scary. Note the nice use of the controller as a sonar device too.

ZombiU has a really dark gritty vibe, something rare for a Nintendo Exclusive.

ZombiU on the other hand really has the horror vibe going for it. It’s claustrophobic and tense as the gameplay has shown (GameTrailers have a good few gameplay videos here) but also what it really has going for it is the sense of desperation. If you die, you die. No checkpoints or retries. If your character was leveled up heavily then say goodbye to those bonuses and unless you can find your infected self in the game, you won’t be getting that gear back either. So death for once in a survival horror game is pretty final, which means Survival Horror genuinely has survival as an objective for the first time. That’s all well and good but what about post death you say? Well the game will place you as new survivor minus all the gear and experience you had, perhaps near to the are you died, you then have to go forth and find yourself to retrieve the gear. You will also have the opportunity to come across your friends dead characters, which you can then kill and take their gear from.

Zombies actually look pretty damn terrifying, here's one getting stabbed with a very large… Needle… Thing…

I often think with most things in life although the big things matter a lot, the little things add up too and that’s important for Wii U. Little touches like when you go to open a chest in game, you then look at the Wii U controller to see what is inside or when sniping the scope is viewed on the controller while on the main screen you’ve got your character from an over the shoulder perspective, aiming. These little things add up to one simple fact, this will only be possible on the Wii U this year. No other console can currently do that and so it puts a real emphasis on it being a Wii U only experience.

London is an old claustrophobic city, ideal for a Zombie game then.

The Setting is also a nice touch, and I don’t say that because I’m British. London is a real fresh location rarely explored in games, it’s totally unique and more importantly claustrophobic… I can say that it doesn’t get more claustrophobic than the train stations in London, especially the Tubes. This is ideal for ZombiU then, as it means that they can use the tubes and in General London to create that atmosphere which may be harder to believe in a newer modern and generic American city. After all, it would be hard to believe that the town planners of a new city would make it as old style and tight as London.

Finally all new games need good multiplayer and although ZombiU’s multiplayer only appears to support two players, it still sounds fun. Basically one player controls a survivor, whilst the other reigns as king zombie or the puppet master of the zombies if you like. He basically has to use the Wii U controller to place traps and zombies while the survivor uses the controller and plays on the big screen with the classic controller. The game modes from what I understand range from simple survival to capture the flag. This does sound pretty awesome, although why you can’t have more survivors doesn’t make sense to me, perhaps playing it for myself will yield an answer.

So ultimately, ZombiU could become Wii U’s killer title for the hardcore adult market and, coming from someone who generally dislikes Nintendo’s direction, I really hope it does.

For more pretty pictures and videos check out the game’s official site.