It does in more ways. Resident Evil and Alone in the Dark started slower paced, Left 4 Dead however was faster paced. Clock Tower has no weapons, Dead Space has high qualified ones. Silent Hill has psychological entities, Fatal Frame has vengeful ghosts.
And then there is ZombiU, something inbetween. It's based upon Zombi for the Amstrad CPC, but I never played this is 1986. Playing as a random survivor, you are guided by the Prepper to survive your surroundings in London.
It's an experimental game from Ubisoft for showing off what the Wii U GamePad is capable of, but it also attempts to go back to the concept of survival horror in the sense of scarce ammunitions, outnumbered, disorientated and some uncomfortable settings.
The character models are laughable, but some of the backgrounds were nice, and the graphical details of objects can be pretty. Luckily, if you are able to scan the CCTV cameras, your GamePad will be equipped with maps.
Your scanner, or the GamePad, is able to gain intel from objects in the area as well as sending off signals for any zombies nearby. For a better playthrough, you ought to scan new areas so that you will be more prepared for any possible upcoming attacks.
ZombiU has been criticised for having way too few animations for both your only melee weapon, the cricket bat, and for the zombies as well. There was enough variety in their appearances, but not in the way they moved.
I did enjoy the capable features that the GamePad was used for. Another feature would be the way item management is done upon here. As you open your backpack, you must manage it using the touch screen, however, you are still vulnerable to attacks on your TV screen.
The more I saw of ZombiU, the sooner I knew that the game was most likely rushed due to having way too much visible bugs or glitches. Aside from minor bugs such as dialogues overlapping another, or zombies getting stuck in doors, there was one huge glitch that cannot be excused on Ubisoft's part. I even recorded it to give you the proof: ZombiUbugged
As for the difficulty, it's true that getting surrounded will most likely leave you to die, but if you are a seasoned gamer like me, you ought to know how to exploit these situations by the use of your surroundings or the available items.
What was also creative is the feature of dying, and then returning towards your former survivor in order to recollect the items the survivor carried. After killing them as a zombie of course. You could even encounter survivor zombies from other players, and then get their items as well.
Leaderboards are also present, and you are able to leave behind messages during the single player campaign that frankly aren't helping much because you are only able to leave behind symbols, not actual text messages.
There is also a fun multiplayer mode which is somehow offline, called King of Zombies. One player is a regular survivor trying to capture flags, playing a FPS basically, while the other is able to see the survivor on his GamePad screen and spawn zombies to stop the survivor and to capture flags as well, RTS style.
After beating the game, seeing a very poor ending in a long time, ZombiU in the end does not feel committed enough to be the killer app for the Wii U. There were very few scary scenes, but on a second playthrough you would dismiss them with a dull thought most likely.
ZombiU had both very clear upsides and downsides to explore for me. Are you willing to go through a buggy and clunsy game while repetitively smacking your way through zombies? And are you willing to go through a genuine survival horror game that is actually trying to be innovative in a genre that has been drastically different these days? Repetition or tactical approach? Poorly tested or brave features?
Take your pick.
Rating: 7.3
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