Looking at gameplay videos/reviews I could tell that ZombiU is not a good game, but still got it since I was desperate for christmas present ideas. I was right about the game being rather poorly made. Now those crazy people that compare ZombiU with the "master piece" that Dark Souls is, should be quite embarrased. A car broken in half and an F1 car are both difficult to handle, BUT only one is hard because its good.

Dark Souls had great varied combat with some actual tactics and enemies that were fair if you knew what you were up againts. ZombiU on the otherhand relies on zombies spawning from nowhere (monster closets are considered out of nowhere), poor unresposive controls and a ridiculously narrow field of view. A game with good mechanics like Dark Souls can be challenging even if you are going 1 vs 1 againts an enemy. ZombiU on the other hand relies on "surprising" you with enemy encounters which shoudlnt happen and at least in the beginning, making those encounters "hard" by explaining the controls too late. The scanner funcionality is also pretty atrocious. Why on earth would I want to almost turn around in my seat to scan my enviroment? Looting corpses and dragging stuff on the touchscreen isnt thad bad, except when you just want to close the menu on an empty corpse and wind up having to move your hand instead of just pressing a button. More of an annoyance really.

If you want a good zombie game/expirience, get Dead Island instead.
If you want good combat mechanics in a hard game, get Dark Souls instead.

The game is also very buggy. I've had my menu item to open my backpack disapper completely for half an hour, now I'm expiriencing a game breaking but that is preventing me from completing the game. After 6 hours of gameplay, my game is giving me 2 objectives (the one I completed last time) and a new one. However I cannot complete my next objective since the my scanner refuses to scan a code for a keypad I have to get open. Before purchasing the game, I recommend visiting the official forum to see if "game breaking bug" is still a the most common name for thread...… Collapse

My adventure was finished around 6 hours by a game killer bug at brick-lane market door-code. That tower of London helicopter just keeps hovering there although I have already completed that area.

Okay, the amount of 10s here is kinda baffling. The game starts out good, but quickly goes downhill. The combat system is clunky and dull, which I thought was fine at first, because I wasn't playing a highly skilled character (except for the policemen, majors, generals, etc, who were just as useless with a gun as the musicians and clerks), but the kind (and amount) of enemies they throw at you after a while makes killing them a chore. You have zombies in riot gear, which is understandable, at least some people would have been wearing riot gear when the infection spread, but there are tons of them. And they take like 20 slow slow slow hits to kill (also, they're bullet proof). Then you have zombies that spit acid.. and zombies that self detonate. Which makes absolutely zero sense if they're normal zombies. Maybe someone is controlling them? I won't find out, since I quit playing after 10 hours, which, normally, I NEVER do... but there are so many missed opportunities and bad decisions in this game. You'd think having a map/pad thingie with motion sensors would offer the player some sort of strategic advantage, and would allow for creative solutions to maps, but it only serves to warn you about the zombie's presence (except for when zombies are just waiting for you to approach them before they start moving, which .. doesn't make sense T_T).. you'll have to take the same route regardless. Throughout the game they use cheap tricks to scare you, like loud aggressive music, sounds that get triggered (every time) you walk past certain areas, flashlight going out in some areas. Which wouldn't have been necessary if they got the basics right. Sorry about the messy review, it's not often I'm so mad at a game that I quit playing it halfway through, so I won't waste too much time on this review. OH, and one time when I jumped off a six feet pier into two feet deep water, I died from the fall damage. I was at full health. GG Ubisoft, GG.… Expand

Disappointing Anyone who has had any substantial experience playing video games will immediately notice the many horrible game designs used in this subpar game. Allow me to elaborate, in detail, why this game is horrible and you should save your money for a more enjoyable game: 1. Controls (5/10) Aiming with a thumbstick is a horrible and outdated way of aiming in 3D games on a next generation console. It’s ineffective, slow and frustrating. The technology the WiiU has makes it possible to make aiming a much more pleasant and enjoyable experience than fumbling around with a thumbstick. One only needs to look at the Zelda Archery minigame in Nintendoland to see that aiming projectile weapons in games on the WiiU can be both easy, fun and accurate rather than backwards, clunky and inaccurate.
The rest of the controls such as map, inventory management, “pinging” for nearby zombies, scanning a room are all executed on the WiiU gamepad. Many of these features are used very often making looking down at the gamepad a common occurrence that detracts from the immersion in the game and makes it more difficult than necessary to accomplish simple and always repetitive tasks.
It seems that Ubisoft went to great pain to make sure their game used EVERY SINGLE NEW FEATURE of the new WiiU regardless of if it actually even added any value to the title. Just because your game can utilize a feature of the WiiU console/gamepad doesn’t necessarily mean it has to. The scanning feature is cool the first two or three times you use it, but pulling out your scanner and waving your arms around every single time you enter a new room gets repetitive, boring and slows the gameplay and action to a crawl. Over 50% of the time you play this game you will be spent either scanning each and every new room you enter or collecting the items you find during said scans. This makes the core of ZombieU feel mostly like a easter egg hunt game rather than a zombie survival game.
For a title that makes it’s main selling point the game controls, ZombieU leaves a lot to be desired on the controls front.

2. Graphics (5/10)
The game actually looks pretty nice when you can actually see it.
ZombieU has this persistent dirty screen effect that puts random circles on the screen that look akin to viewing the entire game through a dirty piece of glass. This I feel detracts from the game or was put in to obscure the overall average polygon counts in ZombieU.
ZombieU also has a habit of making light sources look like someone installed nuclear powered light bulbs in every socket. Being blinded by overly bright lights is just another graphics gimmick that makes actually seeing the environment difficult.
The game is also notoriously dark making the viewing area in such areas just as wide and as far as your non nuclear powered flashlight can shine. Flashlights in games are cool but only if they are used sparingly here and there such as in games like Metro 2033. ZombieU has a heavy reliance on flashlights making it even more difficult to view your environment.

3. Combat (3/10)
I hope you like that pretty cricket bat you get at the start of the game because 90% of all combat in this game will be you bashing zombies over and over and over with the damn thing. Between scanning rooms and bashing zombies over and over with your cricket bat, 80% of the time you spend in this game will be doing one of these two repetitive actions.
Aiming is difficult and the firearms in the game are weak. A headshot to a zombie (if you can even manage to hit a moving zombie in the head with a crappy thumbstick aiming device) doesn’t kill a zombie, it takes upwards of three headshots to kill a zombie. With ammo being scarce as it is already coupled with crappy and ineffective alternatives you are pretty much stuck with that crappy bat.
Speaking of that crappy bat, your character really really sucks at using it effectively. The animation (not animations) to swing it are slow, boring and repetitive making combat a thing of timing seeing as it can take a whole 4-6 seconds from the time you push the swing attack until the time you can swing again. Timing combos, varying bat animations and effects and not to mention just different melee weapons (knives, swords, hammers) could have made the melee combat more enjoyable.

4. Gameplay (4/10)
I hope you like a linear roller coaster gaming experience. This game is not open in the least, it does not give you choices to make you simply hop in the ZombieU roller coaster and tackle each and every problem it throws your way in the proper order it wants you to. There isn’t even any dialog choice to make, the only voice characters in the game simply talk at you rather than talk with you.

Overall, this game doesn’t feel so much like a fun well designed game but rather a gimmick to show off all the new features of the WiiU that will drive you utterly insane with frustration at it’s backwards game design.… Expand

The game started off great. But then zombies that explode on contact simply because they're wearing a tank on their backs even if you don't actually hit said tank, and a plethora of game breaking bugs just made this a pointless purchase really. With no official word on a patch to fix the various issues with the game, I'd say skip this. Don't even ask for it as a gift.

Worst game ever, belongs in 1999. Lost my save for some unknown reason. Way to ruin my holidays. Played an hour or 2, saved and turned off. Went to play next day save file says empty. No way am I doing that boring start again, I'd already started over due to the bad tutorial. Taking the game back first thing tomorrow, may even take back the Wii U. Bad Ubisoft, bad

The graphics are bad, the animations are bad, the combat is dull and repetitive, and the game is incredibly buggy. I have run into two separate game breaking bugs. Other than that there was general buggyness, things like context sensitive actions sometimes not showing up. I cannot even complete the final mission because a mission critical item disappeared from my inventory. This game had so much promise, and even though i prepared myself for disappointment I cannot believe how badly this game was made.… Expand