[PAX] ZombieU is as Hardcore as They Come

Back in the day you never had to defend Nintendo games as being difficult or hardcore. The Wii changed that however with its flood of casual, family, and generally vanilla fare games during its life. Now it looks as though Nintendo wishes to change this perception once again by working to prove that the WiiU is just as suitable at bringing and immersive, intense, and hardcore experience starting with Ubisoft’s ZombieU.

I’m going to be straight with you: I didn’t like the way it played too much.

Granted, playing on a show floor is a very distracting experience, and it didn’t help that I was fumbling my way through the demo because of inelegant design. Starting with the positives, I liked how the screen was free of all that HUD clutter. Ammo count, items, maps, and all other things that usually take up the small corners of the screen was not completely relegated to the WiiU tablet screen. The game played in the classic left trigger aim, right trigger shoot formula and it felt natural on the Wii pad. No, the awkwardness set in with the integration of touch controls and gyroscopic movements.

I understand that the use of the additional camera on the Wii pad is meant to be for a more immersive experience, but all it did was take me out of an atmospheric zombie game. It’s sort of distracting when after exploring a bit using a traditional control scheme, one is prompted to lift up their controller and scan for something on screen. Similarly, having to use touch controls for actions that could easily be mapped to the buttons is also something I don’t really appreciate.

It’s not all bad. Having one’s items and ammo on the touch screen works slightly better than the other touch controls but it’s still a bit chaotic. All in all, as an action horror game ZombieU works, but the lack of subtlety with its use of the Wii pad sharply contrasts the elegance of Rayman Legends touch controls.