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    ZombiU

    in Nintendo Gaming

    Posted

    ZombiU Review

     

    London Bridge is burning down.

     

    ZombiU is terrifying. Let’s get that out of the way early. This is a game that hammers home how fleeting life is, over and over again. It’s a game that makes you swear out loud with frustration, and a game that has your heart racing with every hit of a cricket bat to a zombie’s rotting skull. It takes you up high, and then throws you off a building. As London burns to the ground around you, you inhabit a series of survivors from the zombie infection. How many survivors you play as all depends on you.

     

    As you take on the role of each survivor, you begin with the cricket bat and a pistol containing six bullets. This is true no matter how far along in the game you are. How well prepared you are to handle this sort of consequence is entirely up to you, as your safehouse holds a storage box in which you can stash weapons and ammo. Every time you die, all the gear you held remains attached to the now-zombified body of your previous character. You have one chance to kill that zombie and reclaim your goods; if you die in that effort, those supplies are forever lost. You can replenish these items, as they regenerate in areas you have previously found over time, but to say that losing supplies is a setback is a major understatement.

     

    Melee combat is slow and difficult, requiring precise timing and spacing. If you miss a shot, you leave yourself vulnerable to attack for several moments, which is all a zombie needs to kill you. Don’t fret, though: you will die a lot no matter what you do. This is the nature of the game. As you play longer, however, it’s easier to adjust to the challenges of swinging the cricket bat, becoming more proficient at beheading undead foes. Some zombies take quite a few hits to kill, so if you have to deal with a horde, you are better off advancing and retreating to maximize your chances of success.

     

    The game requires you to use the screen on the GamePad for all non-combat tasks, such as inventory management or barricading a door. While in many games having to take your eyes off the screen may seem like bad design, in ZombiU, it’s effective in adding to the sense of panic and vulnerability. When you need to manage your inventory, you have to do so quickly and without error, or you leave yourself helpless against attacks. The inventory screen is a bit clunky, but perfectly usable without resorting to the stylus. ZombiU also uses the GamePad as a scanner. Scanning requires that you hold the L button on the GamePad, and use either the right stick or the gyro controls to move around and detect items in the distance. Unlike in games like Metroid Prime, where the story is largely revealed through scanned items, the scanner in ZombiU is mainly used to find ammo and health items. It can help identify from a distance which zombies are worth looting for supplies, and which are empty-handed. It’s occasionally used to progress the story as well, but if you find it slowing the pace too much, you can scan only as often as you feel is necessary most of the time.

     

    The story is a bit uneventful, unfolding the tale of a prophecy that foretold the zombie apocalypse. A faceless NPC called “The Prepper,” whose sole job is preparing survivors to get by in this hellish world, guides you through the game. It’s a bit jarring when he talks to you as if you’re the same character the entire way through when clearly you’re going through multiple characters as you die, and the same goes applies to several other NPCs you meet in the game. The story feels as if it came before idea of multiple player characters was developed, and never tweaked to make the two agree. Regardless, the voice acting is well done, and lends to the realism of the bleak world.

     

    Aside from the cricket bat, your character can use firearms, but they are easy to lose if you die, and ammo is hard to come by. You always start out with a pistol and one clip of bullets, but the pistol doesn’t necessarily seem like a better way to kill zombies once you are proficient with the cricket bat. Luckily, you can upgrade all the weapons, and those enhancements survive even when your player character does not. It’s one of the few things you can bring across from character to character, and it’s very helpful.

     

    The longer you survive and kill zombies as an individual character, the higher the score attached to that character. This ends up being a fun way to have a high score battle with yourself as you play, and alternatively, a fun way to know how well you were doing after you die. Folks from Miiverse show up in the game as zombies as well, carrying whatever loot they had on them when they died, which is another way to compare character scores and get extra supplies. It’s a fun reminder that Nintendo has built a very subtle, but effective, social media platform running underneath the games on Wii U.

     

    The world of ZombiU looks fantastic, for the most part. Some textures blur when you get too close to a sign or a wall, but many areas have incredible detail and are littered with embellishments that make this post-apocalyptic version of London believable. One scene in particular subjects you to a thunderstorm, and the weather effects add to the game immensely. The lighting tricks the game employs are very successful, and despite my early misgivings about blurry textures, the more I played of the game, the more impressed I was by how it looked. The world of ZombiU falls apart around you, and the mood is set early and often.

     

    The game contains a few simple local multiplayer modes wherein one player uses the GamePad to deploy zombies, and another player uses the Wii U Pro Controller or Wii Remote and Nunchuk to play as a survivor. One mode has you capturing flags, and another simply asks the survivor to hold out as long as possible in a score attack-like mode that includes leaderboards. Neither mode seemed all that interesting when compared to the single-player campaign, but their inclusion is a nice touch. Another way in which you can compete for high scores is the Survival mode. This mode is identical to the main campaign mode, except once you die, that’s it. There are no continues. You are scored based on how long you last and how many zombies you kill, much in the same way that you are scored in the regular campaign on a per-survivor basis.

     

    ZombiU seeks to scare the hell out of the player by making their very survival doubtful, and wildly succeeds. This game is stressful, terrifying, bleak, and, in all of that, wonderful. It is one of the best launch titles I’ve ever played, and quite simply, a return to form in a genre that has taken a distinct turn toward run-and-gun. These kinds of games are not for everyone, and some people may not like ZombiU due to its high level of difficulty or clunky combat. However, if you appreciate the qualities of the older Resident Evil games, the challenge of a game like Dark Souls, and the exploration of a Metroid-style world, this game is absolutely for you. Enter the survival horror.

     

    Summary

     

    Pros

    + Fantastically realized world

    + Great voice acting

    + High level of challenge

    + Scary as hell

     

    Cons

    - Multiplayer options are limited

    - Some blurry textures

     

    9/10

     

    http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/32557

    Wii U Headsets

    in Nintendo Gaming

    Posted

    Does anyone know if iPhone ones work?

    From the looks of the links above I would have thought they would.

     

    Yes, I'm fairly sure they do.

     

    Also, the headbanger headset lives on so. You'll need a female USB to 3.5mm converter but that can be picked up on Ebay for a few €'s.

    Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

    in Nintendo Gaming

    Posted

    I know what you mean but in truth, other than a 3D Mario a Metroid or a Zelda, this would always have been my most anticipated game!

    CoD with Wiimote is truly the best console FPS!

     

    Exactly, so let's hope it's not gimped. Batman and ZombiU had great potential but unfortunately they seem to be broken.

    Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

    in Nintendo Gaming

    Posted

    It seems the headphones don't need a mic after all, the headphones activate the mic on the gamepad, so any headphones you own will work. Awesome, I've got some great ones!

     

    That's great. I hope more developers implement voicechat in this way. Any review in at for this game yet? It's fairly disappointing that this is the last game that has a chance of being a killer app.

    Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition

    in Nintendo Gaming

    Posted · Edited by Wii

    BATMAN: ARKHAM CITY -- ARMORED EDITION REVIEW

     

    Sometimes reviewers can't see the forest for the trees. When I finished Batman: Arkham City, I immediately cataloged what I thought it did wrong. It tossed in too many villains and didn't flesh them out, it clearly tried to replicate the Scarecrow stuff from the first game and didn't do it as well, and Batman still moves a bit stiffly when simply walking around. When I formed the list, I found myself disappointed with the game. But the days rolled on and I couldn't stop playing -- in fact, I only wanted to play more. The hundreds of things Batman: Arkham City nails outweighed my nitpicky problems. I realized Batman: Arkham City is a brilliant game.

     

    If you've missed the roughly 1.4 million stories on IGN, Batman: Arkham City picks up months after the events of Asylum. Former Arkham warden Quincy Sharp now reigns as the mayor of Gotham City, and he's moved the bad guys from Blackgate Prison and the inmates from Arkham Asylum to a cordoned off area in the heart of Gotham. This is Arkham City, Dr. Hugo Strange runs it, and Batman's job is to see what the hell is going on inside. It's an interesting story that starts with one of the best openings in modern games. After two years of dreaming about where this sequel would go, Batman: Arkham City delivered and hooked me. That can be said for most of the game.

     

    Fans of the Batman: Arkham Asylum will immediately be at home in Arkham City as developer Rocksteady took the core gameplay, refined it, and polished it. You brawl with one button, counter with another and leap when you feel like it. Batman's got a slew of new counter attacks -- including the ability to take out several attacking enemies at once -- and the ability to use nearly every gadget in battle with a hot key system. Even though the system can seem simple (that's if you ignore the combos and multipliers) the diversity in the attacks and battles keeps it interesting. I wanted to engage bad guys instead of sneaking past them. Maybe it was the promise of more experience points and the upgrades they unlocked, but it probably had more to do with wanting to see Batman dislocate another elbow.

     

    Rocksteady kept me on my toes by peppering in special enemies. Guys with stun rods, armored outfits and broken bottles all have to be dealt with in very specific ways. I needed to assess threats and engage situations like Batman would. I don't know if I can express how awesome that makes a comic nerd like me feel; after years of hypothesizing how Batman would beat Character X, I now have to do it to survive.

    Feeling like Batman made Arkham Asylum a must-play, and Arkham City continues that tradition. I felt like I had the upper hand when I walked into a room where the enemies outnumbered me 20 to 1 because I could drop a smoke pellet, use freeze grenades to take enemies out of the game and basically kick ass. Five gunmen with hostages didn't scare me because I knew I could disappear into the shadows to string them up from gargoyles, punch through walls to take them down and glide kick them over railings.

    This feeling of empowerment carries over to bosses, which is weird at first but makes sense. No boss in Arkham City really gave me a challenge. In fact, they're all a bit easy. Mr. Freeze had me stumped for a while as once you use an attack on him you can't use it again, but then the Bat-computer just sent me a cheat sheet. (Although, disabling hints would've eliminated this moment.) That specific instance was no fun, but overall, the joy of Batman bosses is the journey to them and not the fight themselves. The Penguin will never challenge the World's Greatest Detective.

    Arkham City isn't an open world like Liberty City; it's more like a hub world with a bunch of dungeons like The Legend of Zelda or a bigger version of Batman: Arkham Asylum. You can't go into every building, but as you explore, you're going to find you're kept from discovering some of the 400-some Riddler Challenges until you double back with new gadgets. As you unlock the game's dozen side missions, you have to search nooks and crannies for murder victims and political prisoners in distress.

     

    If being Batman sounds good to you, expect to play this game twice and have the second time feel light years better than the first. New Game Plus unlocks after your first runthrough of Arkham City, and it carries over all your gadgets and shares your Riddler Challenge data. It also doesn't erase your original game's progress – it lives in its own section of your save. Historically, I despise playing games more than once. I know what's around the next corner, so where's the fun in it? Well, I adored Batman: Arkham City's New Game Plus. The difficulty is amped up, the enemies are more diverse from the get go, and the reversal indicators are turned off.

    New Game Plus takes the training wheels off and forces you to be Batman. When Batman enters a fight, he knows how to win; he just needs to execute his plan. That's you in this mode. You already know what's coming, you just need to execute your 45-hit combo, dodge explosives and save the day. This left me feeling more like Batman than ever before.

    “

    I had the upper hand when I walked into a room where the enemies outnumbered me 20 to 1.

    Challenges rooms return and have been given an update since the days of Arkham Asylum. There are a dozen combat challenge maps (take out the four waves of bad guys) and a dozen Invisible Predator challenges (sneak around and silently eliminate all the bad guys) and each comes with three medals to earn. All that is standard, but Arkham City offers up Riddler Campaigns. These link three challenges together and apply gameplay modifiers like low health, time limits and so on. There's even an option to make your own Bat-exams. These challenges mainly serve to point out how slow my version of Batman is, but I'm glad they're here. They help hone my skills and provide leaderboards to chase and keep me playing.

     

    The four Catwoman story missions inserted throughout Batman: Arkham City are a fun (albeit simple) change of pace. This former downloadable content is now a natural, integrated part of Batman's story, and it expands the mythos of the game as you're playing it by changing perspectives to Selena Kyle to explain events that are happening off camera.

     

    Outside of the four missions, there are also has challenge maps for the feline and the ability to get the special Catwoman Riddler Trophies in Arkham City.

     

    For those who played through Batman: Arkham City in 2011, the Armored Edition doesn't offer much in the way of incentives -- by and large, this is the same top-notch action/adventure game Rocksteady released last year. The new BAT mode gives you an additional combat option, but it's both unoriginal and ineffective. You'll charge a meter, activate BAT mode, and become mildly stronger in a fight. The inclusion of the Harley Quinn's Revenge expansion, Robin and Nightwing's challenge rooms, and character skins goes a long way to lengthen the experience, but the Wii U Game Pad functionality is clearly a consequence of launch-title experimentation. Arkham City looks and plays just as excellent as always on the Game Pad screen, but when it's used for touch-screen weapon selection, or as an in-game gadget, the Game Pad is just awkward. Moving the real-world object to look for in-game objects is a chore, and better left to the analog sticks. Glancing at the Game Pad to see your sonar radar is the best usage, really, but even then it's unexciting and not as helpful as simply absorbing yourself in the game proper.

     

    THE VERDICT

     

    Batman: Arkham City isn't perfect, but listing the little things I didn't like gets in the way of all the stuff I adored. The voice acting, the challenges, the amazing opening, the unbelievable ending and the feeling of being the Dark Knight -- these are the things that standout looking back. I've beaten this thing twice and still want to call in sick and chase Riddler Trophies.

     

    Batman: Arkham City isn't just better than Batman: Arkham Asylum, it's better than most games on the market.

     

    9.5

     

    AMAZING

    Batman: Arkham City on Wii U is the quintessential version of one of the generation's definitive games.

     

    + Excellent combat and exploration

    + Outstanding character performances

    + Absorbing world and an engaging story

    + Inclusion of Harley Quinn's Revenge and Robin/Nightwing challenges

     

    – Irregular, awkward Wii U Game Pad usage

     

     

    http://ie.ign.com/articles/2012/11/18/batman-arkham-city-armored-edition-review

     

    I think we're looking at probably the highest ratest game of the Wii U launch. From Dark Knight to Dark Horse.

    ZombiU

    in Nintendo Gaming

    Posted · Edited by Wii

    Though it's still not up on their website here is the Edge review of ZombiU:

     

    ZombiU is a smart and engaging exploration of what Nintendo's strange new machine can muster. Historically, third party releases in a console launch day have been chequered and timid affairs made by inexperienced teams fearful of losing their footing on unknown terrain. When Ubisoft Montpellier's ZombiU works in smart union with its host console, however, it frequently delights.

     

    London has been ravaged by a zombie plague, and the shambling husks of its businessmen, Beefeaters and tracksuit-garbed working classes make for tough opposition. A single zombie must be dispatched with five or six cricket bat blows to the head, and even then a final coup de grace is required once the creature's on the floor. When faced with a crowd, running and slamming doors behind you is often your best option. Ammo is scarce, health depletes in worryingly large chunks and the virus can be passed on with little warning.

     

    As a survivor (or rather, a sequence of survivors), you're guided by the voice of an ex-squaddie known as the Prepper - a Yorkshireman who chunters from a tinny radio withing your GamePad. Operating from a central safehouse deep in the London Underground, your quest is an odd mix of survival objectives and discovering the overarching intentions of the followers of Elizabethan occultis and academic John Dee. You must carefully tread through zombie-packed hubs, some tourist spots and a few housing estates. Throughout it all, your primary objective isn't just the plot MacGuffin you're after, but to also find savepoints and manhole shortcuts that will make your progress secure.

     

    ZombiU's gloomy colour palette isn't the only area of the game that's deeply in hock to Dark Souls: death for your character is final, so your first task after respawning is always to tramp back through areas to reclaim your lost gear. Armed with a mere six pistol rounds and a willow bat, respawning is a grisly process that invariably involves murdering your former zombie self. It's a somewhat lightweight variant of what Hidetaka Miyazaki acolytes have come to adore, yes, but this trick can help the game ratchet up to a remarkable level of tension. Fear of lost ground and fear of losing your gradually levelling character's abilities keeps you alert, involved and deep-set within a survival mindset that an autosave safety net would dispel.

     

    It's Wii U's GamePad that conspires to make this game impossible on other platforms, it's subtle art being to divert your attention from the primary screen. When you, for example, reorganise your inventory, you much touch-and-drag weapons, health packs and molotovs into easy-access slots on its screen, but up on the main display you're still vulnerable. As such, whether you're picking locks or inputting puzzle codes, you're forever worriedly peeking back up to the main screen to check the shadows. Very often those shadows move.

     

    Ubisoft Montpellier has been given free reign to experiment with the new hardware, and it's relished every moment. ZombiU makes the relationship between TV and GamePad screens fell fresh, and - displaying a clear awareness of horror gaming conventions - it toys with you brilliantly. Red herring clues, twitching corpses and suspect doors all play into its manipulation and contribute to sophisticated shocks. The GamePad's new way to play also presents new ways for you to be played, and the resulting suprises areoften delightful.

     

    As you move through the game, you develop a routine of survival: you turn off your light to let it recharge, you scan the area for loot and danger by raising the pad to the TV in a riff on Arkham City's Detective Mode, and you knock the head off anything that looks like it could cause mischief in the future. Beyond that, it's crowd control: dividing, conquering and nailing doors shut in the face of zombies, whether you're negotiating a party in a block of flats that's taken a turn for the undead or the Tower of London's corriders.

     

    The trouble with ZombiU comes when you go off-piste - those moments when you're thrown from the ribbon of the game's missions, or die deep down withing an unscanned area without a saved shortcut to easily retrace your steps. This issue is underlined when, just before the final act, the game forces you into a needless and poorly explained treasure hunt through previously explored environments. The strange dead end that confused you the first time round suddenly makes sense (and the Dark Souls-style symbol messages left by other players might water down the frustration), but it shines a light on the fact that ZombiU is a lot less fun when it can't deal out fresh shocks and surprises.

     

    The game's strong feeling of earthly realism, meanwhile, is also sadly lost as it continues. At first, threat and variety are ramped up by zombies growing faster and more reactive, and the occasional policeman in body armour. Beyond this, however, enemies break with what a purist might call Romero canon and the game takes an unwelcome lurch away from horror and into fantasy. A late-game forary into an arena scenario, meanwhile, is another instance of the needs of the game pulling out of synch with the needs of the narrative. The use of explosive zombies, which ignite upon a thwack of willow against gas tank, genuinely feel unfair with the odds stacked so high.

     

    The terrors of the horde that has descended on London come with caveats, then. ZombiU, however, is a title that will infuse impulse buyers, early adopters and Nintendo diehards with relief and appreciation for the novel gameplay that Wii U can and will continue to provide. It's a confident start, if not an end in itself - one that makes us eagerly anticipate where Montpellier will take it's ideas next.

     

    7/10

    ZombiU

    in Nintendo Gaming

    Posted

    I'd wait for a lot more reviews to come before forming an opinion. Gamespot, like they've never ever been at the centre of controversy regarding reviewing games on Nintendo platforms. They just love generating the hits. Skyward Sword anyone?

    ZombiU

    in Nintendo Gaming

    Posted · Edited by Wii

    EDGE have given it 7/10. I'll get the link shortly.

     

    It'll probably take a bit of time for the review to hit the site. 9.2 + 4.5 + 7 = 6.9 so far.

    We have ourselves a Metroid: Other M title it seems for the Wii U already with opinions wildly varying.

    GT Play Wii U LIVE and Answer Your Questions

    in General Gaming Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Wii

    The analogue sticks are probably one of my only real problems with the XBOX 360 controller, actually.. I much prefer the convex sticks that we've been accustomed to on Nintendo consoles so I'm glad to see they're still that way on Wii U :grin:

     

    I like the convex but then I haven't tried concave. Now that I think about it concave would seem more ergonomic. Going to check out photos of the controllers to see about the buttons layout though there is no substitute to holding it. Can't say I've ever had a complaint about their controllers. Maybe they could be bigger but I've got big hands.

    ZombiU

    in Nintendo Gaming

    Posted

    ZombiU - Exclusive gameplay - Visiting Brick Lane Markets

     

     

    ZombiU multiplayer: twice the screens, twice the genres

     

    “Asynchronous multiplayer” is a stupid way to describe people playing a game together in varying ways. Fortunately, WiiU launch title ZombiU makes the whole concept simple with its innovative RTS-FPS combination.

     

    zombiu_4.jpg

     

    The idea of the double-screen set-up is one every console platform manufacturer latched onto in the last year, and WiiU will be the first native implementation of it when it releases in the US later this week. For the first time in mainstream console gaming, this will allow “asynchronous multiplayer”. You’re going to be hearing those words a lot in 2013. The first time I ever got to try it was with ZombiU at Ubisoft Montpelier last month.

     

    “Asynchronous multiplayer” sits alongside “platform agnostic” as being a supremely stupid way to describe a simple concept. In ZombiU’s case, it means one person using the Pro controller – or “the rubbish 360 pad,” as most seem to call it – and WiiU’s touch-screened GamePad. In the mode we played, the person with the GamePad is zombie-lord King Boris. He’s trying to kill the other person, who’s playing on the TV in a traditional FPS style. The aim is to capture a required number of flags.

     

    As the pad player, you’re given a suite of zombies with which to attack the FPS player. You drop them into the game by touching the screen, and you’re unable to place them too closely to the FPS player. You have blockers, which are useful at choke-points and only attack when the opponent approaches; you have normal zombie chaps, who just attack the player wherever he is on the map; and you have red zombies, who never attack and are solely focused on capturing the flags. The number of zombies you can place in the world is restricted, and there’s a cool-down so you can’t just spam enemies at the FPS guy. Based on your successes, you level up, each upgrade bringing options to add new zombie types. There are explodo-zombies, dashing zombies, and all the rest of it.

     

    As the FPS player, you have to run around an arena, capturing flags, shooting zombies with a variety of guns, setting things on fire and generally shitting yourself as Boris becomes more powerful. Thanks to the survival horror bent of ZombiU, killing things is a slow process. You get powerful guns, but they’re not much good to you unless you’re headshot-capable. It gets hectic.

     

    Think of it like being a sole player in Left 4 Dead. FPS guy is the traditional player. The pad guy is the AI Director.

     

    “It’s a new way of playing, this asymmetrical gameplay,” said co-creative director Jean-Phillipe Caro. “For the first time, a classical FPS player could be defeated by his own mother playing the tactical game on the tablet. It’s good. A new sensation. It’s funny.”

     

    Which is all great – it really is great, and it really is new – but there’s one pretty major catch: it’s offline-only. While WiiU may be the dawn of gaming’s fresh dual-screen era, quite whether or not it’s going to make a real impact in terms of the online side of play is still muddy.

     

    zombiu_multiplayer.jpg

     

    ZombiU’s multiplayer was originally created as a base concept in the game’s previous incarnation, Killer Freaks from Outer Space. Offline isn’t a problem, JP said: a lot of its fun is playing in the same room and swapping roles when rounds end.

     

    “It became clear that it’s just going to be a funny mode to discover, that’s cool to play,” said Caro. “It’s cool to discover the new capabilities of the GamePad. It’s a cool way to play fast and exchange roles. Everyone can play with the controller.”

     

    We were told, however, that online play would be a target for a sequel, should it come to that.

     

    As with ZombiU’s single-player, WiiU’s GamePad adds something absolutely new to core console multiplayer. The experience of being the pad guy is one of omnipotence, of maniacal diabolism as you pump specials into the arena. FPS guy is Ash in Evil Dead II: the seriousness of ZombiU’s campaign is replaced by a frenzied horror comedy, of popping heads and screaming laughter in the face of overwhelming odds.

     

    “Laughing” is a key element to ZombiU’s multiplayer, actually. There appeared to be a great deal of it going on during our session.

     

    For the record, JP claimed FPS players tend to get the continual upper-hand against pad players if they’re accomplished. I played as the pad player and beat one of the devs as the FPS guy. Just saying.

     

    http://www.vg247.com/2012/11/16/zombiu-multiplayer-twice-the-screens-twice-the-genres/

    The NEW New Super Mario Bros. U Thread

    in Nintendo Gaming

    Posted

    I wonder how long they'd take without Miyamoto upending the tea table all the time :laughing:

     

    Looks very polished to me. Really can't wait to have a good play. On a personal note, my brother's recovering from a mental illness at the moment and I've found that playing the Wii seems to help him relax and communicate. He actually smiles and becomes his old self. It'll be great sharing this with him in co-op :)

     

    That's something we can all agree for once is great news.

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