Nintendo showed off how Ubisoft's upcoming Wii U-exclusive zombie game, Zombie U, will take advantage of the upcoming platform's tablet controller at their E3 press conference earlier today.
If you didn't see the game when it was initially revealed yesterday, ZombiU was shown last year at E3 as "Killer Freaks From Outer Space" a kind of cutesy-looking first-person shooter where players had to take out aliens. That game is gone, and out of the ashes came a game that, aside from the first person perspective, looks nothing than what came before. ZomiU is a realistic looking zombie experience where players have run, hide, and fight intelligently to survive because just like in the movies, a single zombie bite means game over.
As a Wii U exclusive, you'd expect that ZombiU would use the platform's tablet-like gamepad in a variety of interesting ways. Though some functions, like inventory management, are conventional, others are more interesting.
Some ways are simple: when you come up against doors with keypads or computers, you'll use the touchscreen to input the codes. That may not seem novel, but if you're at a locked door with rushing zombies right behind you, the action isn't going to stop when you go to unlock the door. If you panic and press the wrong button, you're as good as dead,
Other features include sonar for players to detect nearby zombies, a scanning tool to find out what's in boxes, and using binoculars or a sniper rifle scope will all be shown on the gamepad. And like entering keycodes, looking at these features will not pause the game, so zombies can get the jump on you if you aren't too careful.
After showing all the ways gamepad make ZombiU an even scarier survival horror game, Ubisoft's Xavier Poix ended the demonstration on a light note, showing one of what I assume are very few funny features in the game, the ability to take a picture with the gamepad's camera, and make yourself into a zombie.
As if Reggie Fils-Aime wasn't scary before...
