REVIEW

Zombi Review

by Luke Walsh, August 18th, 2015

ZombiU was one of the first games on the Wii U and their flagship title. Now the game comes to Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC with improved graphics and redefined gameplay. How will the redefined gameplay match with the next gen consoles? Will it rise from the dead or be smash over the head and buried? Let’s take a look.

Being a re-release but on next-gen the story for Zombi (which was not very detailed) is exactly the same as ZombiU. If you played the version on the Wii U, don’t expect any new changes, but new players will be able to face the undead horde across key locations in London. This is all with the help of your trusty ex-army signals expert, the Prepper. The opening of the game is the same, and it throws you right in the deep end of Zombi. Making newly in existence you run away from the undead, under the commands of the Prepper. Short but tense and still a good opening, you make your way through an underground station in London to a safe house.

The safe house in Zombi as also in ZombiU is your main hub of all the activity in the game. It is your safe heaven from the Zombies that lurk around the capital, and the place you can use to store your supplies, check the CCTV, save your game and upgrade your character’s weapons. Storing your supplies is an important part of the survival aspect of the Zombi, if you are out and about and your character dies. When your new one wakes, having some additional supplies can take you much further in the game. There is no need to have to scavenge for supplies all over again before you feel a little more secure.

Leaving the safe house you take your prep-pad with you, the device modelled after the Wii U’s GamePad. Players are able to replicate what you could do on the game pad just by selecting the left bumper to bring up your scanner or what would be the select button on either console. Zombi does a fine job at being able to play the game without the need for the Wii U’s gamepad, but the usefulness of having two screens and the added immersive experience is missed when just using a controller. A companion app would help with Zombi and allow gamers to play similar to the Wii U version. At the moment of writing there has not been a companion app announced, but it could be coming and would be a good idea.

The benefit with a standard controller is just a nicer experience in general, the Wii U gamepad was always awkwardly sized and felt unnatural to use, meaning that more control and less of a floating feeling meant dying less through poor movement. Zombi is what ZombiU would of been like if you were able to use the Pro Controller for the main game, and not just the multiplayer. The problem I had while controlling the character is a strange lag which jolted the screen back to a certain position. It was more like a glitch, but one that was very annoying when it did happen and did make me die on occasions after being grabbed. Hopefully this is something that can be easily patched, and is not a fundamental error. There were numerous other bugs while playing but most annoying the radar not working as it should, even when a zombie was right round the corner the Prep-pad said it was fine to go ahead. Inevitably this caused for some easy jumps scares but also some frustrating deaths.

Zombi boasts to have improved graphics, and the textures have all been updated with HD versions. Zombi does look better with its more clearer and crisper visuals than ZombiU, but is not anything groundbreaking. Still a graphical update is better than not having one.

The best thing about Zombi is still the perma-death. Being able to play as one survivor and when that ones dies another one pops up to take their place all with a new face, age and occupation is a cool little feature. With normal mode, your only “loss” is your gear and time if you don’t make it back to where you were, kill previous you, now zombie and steal his loot. If you want the real challenge you can select the hardcore mode, which does mean once you are dead your dead, having to start the entire mode again from the start and getting an end screen with your survival score. Normal mode is good to get the entire experience, but survival mode is the way the game should really be played and adds more risk for your actions.

The game is still tense even if you have played ZombiU. Something about the game is just creepy, the low light, the feeling of being completely alone and isloted. Even with the lack of story, maybe the lack of story is what enhances the feeling, but Zombi is still errie game to play.

Ubisoft mentions redefined gameplay but the definition is not clear on its meaning. Apart from the using a controller instead of the game pad and a couple new melee weapons, Zombi is exactly the same as ZombiU. This also means it brings along its down falls, combat is okay but does not bring in anything innovative like other parts that ZombiU did. After killing your 100th zombie with your cricket bat, it does start to get old and not being able to unequip the bat means using up a valuable slot. Even with the creepy dark lit corridors that add tension, corridors get boring and you do spend a lot of time in them, they can also be disorientating.

Taking away the multiplayer mode, is a wrong move in my book, the asymmetrical game play was a breath of fresh air in the console market. Considering the price of Xbox One and PlayStation 4 games, it does not seem like a wise choice to offer less than the previous and cheaper version of the game. It also backs up my previous statement of a companion app, with this app the multiplayer becomes a possibility and gives more bang for your buck. For £15.99 though, they clearly have thought about the cost for the game based on what they are offering.

Leaderboards are still present in Zombi, and are a nice way to having bragging rights among your friends to see who has lived the longest in Survival mode. But this does not offer any additional bonus. As nice as it is to see how you do among random players around the world, its a shallow feature.

Overall Zombi is a port with updated graphics to make it playable on Xbox One and PlayStation 4, but has less features than the port is comes from. The lack of companion app / second screen is disappointing, considering it really could use one for both the single player campaign and the non existent multiplayer. For those who have not played ZombiU, Zombi can be a tense experience but it is not perfect. It feels less innovative than the WiiU version, which made it different from the other zombies games out there. If you are looking for a different zombie game to play, wait and see if there is a companion app coming. If you are a zombie fanatic, than you will probably enjoy this as just another Zombie survival game.

Zombi's improved visuals make it playable on next-gen consoles, but it is the same game as ZombiU with less. Players of the WiiU version won't find anything new, and the missing multiplayer shoots owners of Zombi in the foot. The lack of a second screen makes it just another okay zombie survival game, and it could be worth waiting to see if one is coming.