ZombiU an original launch title for the WiiU finally manages to drag it's festering corpse onto the Xbox One. But after a three year wait has it been worth it? The game starts with you being totally overrun in a zombie infested London. A voice crackles into life through a tannoy system shouting instructions at you. If you want to survive you had better do as he says. The Zombi moans get louder and louder until you find yourself trapped in a room with only a ladder between you and certain death. This disembodied voice soon becomes your greatest allie (maybe) as he let's you into his bunker to sleep and use his workbench to upgrade the various weapons you find hidden around London.
The big draw of ZombiU on the WiiU was it's use of the gamepad's touch screen. You would hold it up and use it as a window into the game like a basic VR. If you wanted to look behind you would have to literally turn around. This would let you interact with the world around you and spot clues. It was a unique feature that really added a lot of atmosphere. That feature is now activated by the LB button and works just as well as you would imagine. It's quick, simple and intuitive to use and is an essential tool.
When you die in Zombi it's permanent. The character you were previously playing as is now a zombie. When you restart you are a totally different character. So the first thing you should do is go and find your previous self and kill your zombie self pm you can reclaim all the loot you have scavenged in your previous life. It a neat feature and while it doesn't add an awful lot to the gameplay it's always fun to see your old self shambling around with a backpack full of essentials. But whatever you do make sure you don't die because if you do the contents of the backpack will be gone.
Collecting objects, weapons and upgrades is a huge part of Zombi and if the thought of spending half your time doing that bores you leave this well alone. Using the gamepad as a scanner does take away a lot of the boredom though because it quickly picks up objects for you. With guns and ammo in such short supply you will feel compelled to search absolutely every single thing you can. But sadly most of the time you will end up picking up nothing especially from dead bodies which soon becomes very frustrating. Even lockers which in most games hide something worth picking up are mostly empty. At certain times when your looting a corpse or a locker the game switches to a third person viewpoint. This adds an extra layer of tension especially when you see a zombie shuffling towards you as you hurriedly ransack a corpse. The fact that this game never stops no matter what your doing will keep you on your toes at all times. You should never assume you're safe just because you have taken a few zombies out. There are always more to take their place.
You will spend a lot of your time backtracking but thankfully there is a network of tunnels that you discover from time to time which make this a lot less tedious than it could have been. Combat can become a bit monotonous after a while especially if you decide to stick with your trusty cricket bat or spade. Some of the zombies take one hell of a beating and even if you connect squarely on the head they will still keep coming at you until you have hit they several times more. If you are fortunate enough to knock a zombie over a prompt appears giving you the option for a quick kill. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't which can lead to you taking damage for no reason. Even a bullet to the brain isn't a guaranteed kill. You also have a flashlight with you at all times which has two beam setting. Neither do much to help you see and all the brighter setting does is burn your batteries out quicker. Your radar on the other hand is an extremely valuable tool which scans the area directly in front of you in a wide circle and highlights any zombies that are in your vicinity. This is especially useful later on in the game where you can find yourself getting surrounded very easily.
Do not get this game expecting to see groundbreaking graphics. Very little has been done to enhance the look of the game and in some places it really shows. But don't let that put you off because the games atmosphere is still very scary and the unpolished graphics just add to it. There are some slight graphical glitches as you play but nothing that detracts from the game and thankfully nothing game breaking either.
When a game is released with very little fanfare it’s always a worry. But I enjoyed my time back in zombie infested London although nothing extra has been added to help prolong the life of the game the. If you like your zombie games to be played at a more sedate pace Zombi is the game for you.
Review copy supplied by XCN.
Game: Zombi.
Genre: First-person shooter ,survival horror.
Developer: Ubisoft Montpellier.
Publisher: Ubisoft.
Platform(s): Xbox One.