ZombiU

2026-01-17
Exploring zombiefied London as a lone survivor scavenging for supplies while fighting off hordes of ex-Pret-enjoyers sounds like the dream. And when your fingers are frantically tapping on the Mattel-plastic-ass screen of the Wii U's GamePad, scrambling to fill your inventory before the Queen's Guard who's right behind you sinks his rotten canines into you, it feels like they did it. But those moments of bliss where the marrying of the onerous inventory management and the suspense and thrill of impending death produces something sublime are drowned by the sheer amount of bullshit this game is full of.

What I wanted was a sandboxy chance to pick through London, eking out an existence amongst the undead. And with the promise of permadeath for each survivor who dies, resetting their stats if a zombie gets 'em, and the fact that supplies and zombies are replenished randomly across the city, it feels like they tried to build a grander game that'd fulfill that wish. One you'd play over and over, going off on little missions to pick up more ammo and food to set off on the next mission. But all of that is utterly gutted by the sheer linearity of the levels, the story, and the scripted encounters. London it turns out is like 8 places all tied together through the same exact train station with a hole in a wall leading to a basement to another hole in the wall. Spitalfields is it, governor? You'll be wanting the basement hole in the wall. Ah, Buckingham Palace, of course! You'll be wanting the basement hole in the wall. Picadilly Circus? Piss off, cunt, that's not one of the 8 locations.

And each one of those 8 locations is just as linear as the last. Sure, a shortcut here and there, and the occasional wall to blow up later in the game, but there's no real randomness to excite here. You're always finding not enough ammo and you're always fighting boring ass zombies--more on that in a bit. No in fact they go the complete opposite direction with the same set of predictable scripted tricks they trot out every chance they get. The first time you go to open a door and an alarm goes off or you go to lockpick a door and a zombie drops down behind you you'll shit your pants. But they keep fucking doing it over and over. It got to the point where every time I went to lockpick a door I'd start the interaction and then exit it and turn around and almost always catch a zombie popping up out of nowhere behind me. Rookie shit.

But hey at least we have fighting zombies. And fair play to the sound design team because the sound of your survivor screaming and yelling, exasperated and terrified as they swing their cricket bat (ha ha Shaun of the Dead reference classic!!!) to cave in an unlifer's head is excellent. But it's fucking boring. Every hit stuns them long enough to always stunlock a zombie one-on-one. But each hit is slow as hell and the beginning zombies take 4 hits. One......two....three.....four..... Later zombies can take TEN hits. Ten FUCKING hits. Are you fucking mental? There are so many fucking zombies to hit in this game. In my 11 hours to finish the game I must have spent one hour of my life watching that cricket bat attack animation. "Well, just use a gun?", you astutely suggest, in your sweet, cherub-like innocence and naivete. Sure, mate, only you can't because you'll always be out of ammo then. So instead to play "smart" you have to basically play Cricket All Stars 2012 for the Wii U, only occasionally pulling out your spicier armaments when you draw a crowd.

Sure the GamePad of it all--using it to scan things or line up a headshot, having to look down away from potential danger to lockpick a door or punch in a door code--is excellent. The game has excellent tension at times like when you wade through water you hold up your backpack, locking you out of attacking and accessing your inventory, and the entire time the game plays this maddening low-frequency "woo woo woo" to keep you on edge. But it is Bad. Clunky, molasses-like controls, blurry graphics, scripted encounters, permadeath mechanics that feel poorly thought out--why can I level up gun skills if it takes more ammo than I'll ever encounter in the game to max out AND they reset when I die--boring repetitive levels, combat so dire that it will hollow you out until you're a zombie. It is B-A-D, bad.

At some point in the game you find out there is no cure to the zombie virus, only a vaccine. And similarly there is no cure to ZombiU's problems. There is only a vaccine: don't play it.