Seeing the original Zombi makes me realize I'd love to play a survival horror isometric turn-based strategy zombie game.

XCOM but with zombies everywhere and the goal is to sneak around and survive. You'd encounter other randomly generated surivors who could be hostile, or friendly, or deceptively friendly. Then, like XCOM, when your survivors get strong enough and find/make enough sweet loot, you just start massacring zombies.

Then, unlike XCOM, the next stage in the game takes place. Instead of just securing safe rooms, you start securing towns, then cities, etc. Then it introduces elements of a Sim City game as you rebuild society! But you start having to deal more often with other humans who want what you have, all along with a much more massive amount of zombies.

Holy shit, I'd play the fuck outta that.

I liked this article. Excellent read. More like this please.

@mrpandaman said:

@ll_Exile_ll said:

I've never understood the hate for so-called "animation priority." It seems less like animation priority and more like common sense. Taking actions take time, whether swinging a sword, reloading a gun, or crouching. I just don't get it, how else would you expect these things to work?

I think it's sometimes the inability to get out of the animation that becomes the problem. The inability to interrupt yourself.

To me Animation Priority has become another way to do combat, and nothing else. It's not bad, it's just preference. It's totally reasonable to hate it. The most obvious examples, the Souls games, do it really well. Surprisingly enough, Dead Rising 1 & 2 also heavily rely on animation in combat.

In these sorts of games, a significant part of the strategy is to know how long an animation will take, and plan attacks accordingly. I love it :)

Great article Patrick! I love that you took the time to go in depth with an underappreciated game. Keep up the good workq

Great article, I still haven't gotten around to playing this game, maybe after Ni No Kuni, but I am looking forward to it!

A good article. The title is maybe a little awkward.

@CptMorganCA said:

@mrpandaman said:

@ll_Exile_ll said:

I've never understood the hate for so-called "animation priority." It seems less like animation priority and more like common sense. Taking actions take time, whether swinging a sword, reloading a gun, or crouching. I just don't get it, how else would you expect these things to work?

I think it's sometimes the inability to get out of the animation that becomes the problem. The inability to interrupt yourself.

To me Animation Priority has become another way to do combat, and nothing else. It's not bad, it's just preference. It's totally reasonable to hate it. The most obvious examples, the Souls games, do it really well. Surprisingly enough, Dead Rising 1 & 2 also heavily rely on animation in combat.

In these sorts of games, a significant part of the strategy is to know how long an animation will take, and plan attacks accordingly. I love it :)

Ninja Gaiden also relied on animation

@Daveyo520 said:

I thought this was going to be about Sleeping Dogs.

@mrpandaman said:

@ll_Exile_ll said:

I've never understood the hate for so-called "animation priority." It seems less like animation priority and more like common sense. Taking actions take time, whether swinging a sword, reloading a gun, or crouching. I just don't get it, how else would you expect these things to work?

I think it's sometimes the inability to get out of the animation that becomes the problem. The inability to interrupt yourself.

To me Animation Priority has become another way to do combat, and nothing else. It's not bad, it's just preference. It's totally reasonable to hate it. The most obvious examples, the Souls games, do it really well. Surprisingly enough, Dead Rising 1 & 2 also heavily rely on animation in combat.

In these sorts of games, a significant part of the strategy is to know how long an animation will take, and plan attacks accordingly. I love it :)

I could have sworn that other than GB, this game was widely reviewed poorly.

Killing female zombies is sexist.

You kill female zombies

I thought this was going to be about Sleeping Dogs (though I liked the first True Crime).

Good read. I'm still not entirely sold on a WiiU, but if more experimental stuff like this gets put out on it then I might have to bite the bullet.

I generally hate nursery levels in horror games because they rely on "Oh look it's a dead baby /pathos" but not when it's like you've described. That sounds more like the return to the Ishimura in Dead Space 2 which, while totally overblown, was memorable because so little happened (for the first ten or so minutes) in a game that was all about bombast. I like that, because it's a minimalist approach in a modern, pew-pew world. I want more minimalism in my horror games in general, but wish they could find a niche to live in like, say, strategy games or something.

@TheHT said:

Seeing the original Zombi makes me realize I'd love to play a survival horror isometric turn-based strategy zombie game.

XCOM but with zombies everywhere and the goal is to sneak around and survive. You'd encounter other randomly generated surivors who could be hostile, or friendly, or deceptively friendly. Then, like XCOM, when your survivors get strong enough and find/make enough sweet loot, you just start massacring zombies.

Then, unlike XCOM, the next stage in the game takes place. Instead of just securing safe rooms, you start securing towns, then cities, etc. Then it introduces elements of a Sim City game as you rebuild society! But you start having to deal more often with other humans who want what you have, all along with a much more massive amount of zombies.

Holy shit, I'd play the fuck outta that.

This just makes me wanna play UFO Defense.

Thanks a lot.

I was sure it was going to be about Sleeping Dogs.

The couple of hours I played of ZombiU, before I said "fuck this" and traded it in, were spent fighting with bad controls and terribly boring combat. That anyone compared it to Dark Souls is crazy. That game is actually fun to play.

@ProfessorEss said:

@CptMorganCA said:

@mrpandaman said:

@ll_Exile_ll said:

I've never understood the hate for so-called "animation priority." It seems less like animation priority and more like common sense. Taking actions take time, whether swinging a sword, reloading a gun, or crouching. I just don't get it, how else would you expect these things to work?

I think it's sometimes the inability to get out of the animation that becomes the problem. The inability to interrupt yourself.

To me Animation Priority has become another way to do combat, and nothing else. It's not bad, it's just preference. It's totally reasonable to hate it. The most obvious examples, the Souls games, do it really well. Surprisingly enough, Dead Rising 1 & 2 also heavily rely on animation in combat.

In these sorts of games, a significant part of the strategy is to know how long an animation will take, and plan attacks accordingly. I love it :)

That's one of the big things that confuses me about ZombiU. I also love animation priority (used appropriately of course) but how much strategy can it really add if there's only one weapon? Would it really take someone who's played a lot of Monster Hunter or Souls much effiort to master a single weapon's timing?

That's a good point. I haven't played ZombiU, but it sounds like a game that could greatly benefit from a myriad of melee weapons. Anyone who's played the game for an hour can get a feel for the cricket bat and begin to master it.

Well, I guess some people liked it. Honestly, I thought the game was a bit of a mess. I don't think it was terrible, but it wasn't by any means good. Adequate, mediocre. I thought it tended toward dull and tedious. But terrible? I guess not. I'm not sure why this is much of a surprise, though. Maybe Klepek ought to stop judging games so harshly before them come out?

@JoshyLee said:

@gladspooky said:

I don't know when Giant Bomb is going to quit making dumb assumptions about how good/bad a game is supposed to be based on the title. I bet they just assume sequels to good games are going to be just as good as the original, too.

Dude, don't you know a game's quality is based on a few non-game related things like title, when it comes out, and what the advertising is like?

Did neither of you read the explanation? Ubisoft has a less than stellar record NIntendo launches. He was coming off the disappointment of Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed 3, which soured him a little Ubisoft games. Combine that with an uninspired name, which in the grand tradition of shovelware, is horribly generic. If they are going to put so little effort into "creatively" naming their game, I don't think it's an unfair assumption to have low expectations going in. After all, when you hear Wii Party, Wii Play or any other game that has 'Wii' in it, do you immediately think quality?

@TheHT: Perhaps you should check out 'Dead State', an RPG being developed based on survival from zombies.

http://www.deadstate.doublebearproductions.com/about/

Screw this game. Got to the invasion of the safe house right after the tutorial area, first guy dies, go try to kill him before zombies appear to get my stuff, 2nd person dies, then all my items are gone and i have 6 bullets and nothing else, 2nd person dies, rinse and repeat in loop of unable to kill the 5 zombies they throw at me with NO ITEMS, resist urge to destroy controller, take disc out, put in box, never play again. I repeat: Screw this game.

@tremors said:

At least the picture of a mutilated torso isn't front and center on the homepage anymore.

edit: It wasn't when I posted this at least. I guess they switched it back for more clicks.

@Miketakon said:

This was a lot better than yesterday's hit grab.

@jbuchan76 said:

eyes roll back and forth quickly.. wait.. this is a article about a game??? OMG Really! There is a god!

Good article Patrick :)

holy shit i fucking hate you people

I must admit that I've grown a little tired of the Giant bomb sentiment of "This game was better than It had any right/business being." I think a lot of it grows out of our constant desire to be taken by surprise by games. Maybe we long for the days before internet told us everything we needed to know about a game before it even came out. Maybe we crave that feeling of discovering a game to be way awesome and falling in love with that experience.

Or maybe I'm just reading into too much and I'm more just tired of Patrick and Ryan saying, "This game is better than it had any business being."

I don't understand why Patrick loves this game so much and doesn't like Dark Souls but eh whatever. Good article and a fun read

I didn't think this game was all that good. But I rarely agree with the reviews/opinions on Giant Bomb anymore, unless it is Vinny. To be fair I don't agree with a lot of other review sites as well. My tastes are just different than the mainstream games writer these days, it would seem.

I gave Zombie U a go. It was the first game I bought for the wii U. I listned to what Patrick said and I played it until it frustrated the shit out of me. Then I played it again, thinking it has got to get better. It did not. Then I gave it one more shot. The difficutly didn't stop me (I beat super meat boy). It was the stupid cricket bat, no story and the fact that your character has no personality. Why would I care if he or she died other than the fact I would lose all my items. Screw Zombie U.

Great article Patrick!

Not enough sexism.

@Grimluck343 said:

Not enough sexism.

I agree... But just wait... it will get to that point... it always will. }; ) <-- evil? (that's the best i got)

@bkbroiler said:

@tremors said:

At least the picture of a mutilated torso isn't front and center on the homepage anymore.

edit: It wasn't when I posted this at least. I guess they switched it back for more clicks.

@Miketakon said:

This was a lot better than yesterday's hit grab.

@jbuchan76 said:

eyes roll back and forth quickly.. wait.. this is a article about a game??? OMG Really! There is a god!

Good article Patrick :)

holy shit i fucking hate you people

I love you too bkbroiler... Happy Friday! :)

I love pretty much everything about this game, from a conceptual point of view anywhoo since I haven't played it. Just wish this was more widely available since games of this sort are of a depressingly small variety these days, and I'm otherwise still not very interested in getting a Wii U.

@patrickklepek Care to expound on WHY you (and so many other game critics) have (or had in your case I guess) such a negative opinion of animation priority?

Anyway, good article Patrick. :)

@Hailinel said:

@MildMolasses

@JoshyLee said:

@gladspooky said:

I don't know when Giant Bomb is going to quit making dumb assumptions about how good/bad a game is supposed to be based on the title. I bet they just assume sequels to good games are going to be just as good as the original, too.

Dude, don't you know a game's quality is based on a few non-game related things like title, when it comes out, and what the advertising is like?

Did neither of you read the explanation? Ubisoft has a less than stellar record NIntendo launches. He was coming off the disappointment of Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed 3, which soured him a little Ubisoft games. Combine that with an uninspired name, which in the grand tradition of shovelware, is horribly generic. If they are going to put so little effort into "creatively" naming their game, I don't think it's an unfair assumption to have low expectations going in. After all, when you hear Wii Party, Wii Play or any other game that has 'Wii' in it, do you immediately think quality?

The Wii Sports games are actually really good.

True, I think those are like the most played Wii games of all time, which may or may not be attributed to them being packed with the system. Anyways, why have preconceived notions based on the title/marketing at all? Most trailers and teasers nowadays feature little to no gameplay, so if you don't consume anything beyond that you have no idea what the game is like. Is being cynical more fun than playing and enjoying games?

The title of this article should be "The Game That is Terrible"

"Dark Souls Dark Souls Dark Soulsian"

@RageKage14 said:

The title of this article should be "The Game That is Terrible"

And we have finally found the wittiest person on the planet, ladies and gentlemen! A true master of his craft! HOLY SHIT!

@RageKage14 said:

The title of this article should be "The Game That is Terrible"

Agreed, one melee weapon for the whole game? This game is not good, and I can't understand what Patrick likes about it so much.

@KlUMZeE: "the game that sould have been terrible and suprise it was"

@Soapy86: I think it's just unfairly associated with unresponsive/sluggish/slow controls. Snappy controls feel good, so people assume it's bad if it's not like that. Plus I think generally speaking it's harder to do right, so people have more bad experiences with that stuff.

judging a game before it is finished and done is just plain stupid. i always thought this game looked like the one cool game coming to the wii u on launch day.

I got this game for Christmas, and only popped it in last night. I wanted it because Patrick was raving about it. The quicklook made it look fun. I got to that horde part Patrick barely survived and died 7 times. I was ready to smash my gamepad. I hate this game. I fucking hate it. It wasn't made for me. I can see why the reviews were so polarizing. I feel so guilty that I asked for this for Christmas.

Still love ya, Scoops!

I get he likes the game but one of THE best experiences last year? No, and it seemed like it was included on the GOTY list because everyone had to have their game on the list (Jeff's Syndicate e.g) then it being legitimately a good game.

@KlUMZeE said:

@RageKage14 said:

The title of this article should be "The Game That is Terrible"

Agreed, one melee weapon for the whole game? This game is not good, and I can't understand what Patrick likes about it so much.

Maybe he is just fighting for the weaker Nintendo and wants equality in the GOTY rankings.

The title of this article has virtually nothing to do with it's contents - or even the article's deck, for that matter. And the justification for saying it "should have been terrible" is supremely weak - an unrelated franchise's fifth installment being a bit of a letdown (but still getting a 4/5 from a website called giantbomb.com), a nebulous claim of Ubisoft Nintendo console launch games being shit with no examples, and pointing to the game's silly name, despite lots of good games having silly names. It also ignored the media buzz that had been surrounding the game for months - mostly positive.

I personally think ZombiU looks boring as hell, but this kind of sensationalism isn't really necessary. Though I won't go so far as to say I think Patrick did it to attract hits. Such cynicism is unwarranted.

I did want to like this game but I just couldn't get on with it. I had way too many instances of shooting a zombie dead centred in my crosshair and it missing, then getting chomped.

Also whoever thought that the "hold out against the waves coming for your safehouse" bits would be fun needs a stern talking to :/

Interesting, definitely unexpected.

@patrickklepek Next stop, Dark Souls.

@Mystyr_E said:

I get he likes the game but one of THE best experiences last year? No, and it seemed like it was included on the GOTY list because everyone had to have their game on the list (Jeff's Syndicate e.g) then it being legitimately a good game.

I personally really liked Syndicate, but was utterly mystified at a) how little resistance it faced from the rest of them, and b) how high it ended up on the list, as a result. It was a short game with an above-average campaign, a cool setting, and great co-op - nothing more.

Yet Vinny had to fight tooth and nail to scrape Sleepy Dawgz in at the bottom of the top ten.

Scoops emerges.

You know, if the WiiU has as good a run as the Dreamcast, hardware-wise, the software library will eventually have enough of these gems to make the purchase worth it.

@AlKusanagi said:

I could have sworn that other than GB, this game was widely reviewed poorly.

The European press seemed far more pleased/interested with the final game, with Eurogamer giving it a really positive review.

Most of my online friends who have reacted positively to ZombiU seem to be rogue-like or classic Resident Evil enthusiasts looking for an old-school kick. I haven't played the game, but I think I'll try and find a cheap copy eventually when I pick up a Wii U. :)