Zombi (ZombiU Remake / PS4, ONE, PC / August 18th)

[Junko]

The nail-biting survival experience of ZombiU™ has been upgraded for download on next-gen consoles and PC. ZOMBI takes the power of the latest generation of hardware to bring you a new level of horror. Test your will to survive, but beware: death is permanent, and one wrong move can cause you to lose everything.

If you look at that like/dislike bar, maaaaaaaaaaaan people are kinda annoyed. But what do you think?

Edited July 30, 2015 by Athena Cykes

[Willsy]

It's out on August 18th, Digital only. I enjoyed the original on Wii U but it did run like crap, so if there are any fixes in this, I may double dip.

[JezMM]

How on earth is this gonna work without the gamepad though?  That stuff was kind of all the game had going for it, take it away and you're left with a generic survival FPS.

 

Honestly I never finished ZombiU, I got it with the Wii U because it was the only launch title that seemed to make frequent, creative use of the gamepad, but I regret buying it.  The game had no personality, and the "start over with nothing" death mechanic became tedious to me the moment I first reached a difficult crescendo in the game.  Yes you can go kill your zombified self to get all your stuff back but... that plan fell through after I got killed twice in a row before getting back to my zombified self.  So I really had to start over with no supplies but still be expected to continue with the point I'd reached in the story.

I appreciated the developer's intentions, but it wasn't for me.  I do wish they had included a casual mode which allowed you to continue from the last save area but with your progress and items gained since that save intact, I might have finished it then.

EDIT: Oh, I was also disappointed it how not-open world it was.  I wasn't expecting a 1:1 replica of London to explore by any means, but I certainly didn't expect everything to be divided up into "levels" where you clicked to enter a manhole and then appeared halfway across the city after a dramatic loading screen.

[Badnik Mechanic]

How on earth is this gonna work without the gamepad though?  That stuff was kind of all the game had going for it, take it away and you're left with a generic survival FPS.

 

It's really not as hard as people claim.

When the game first came out a number of reviewers I saw pointed out how the game pad use didn't solve any problems and how it was just problems created especially for the game to try and say 'look at how cool the game pad is! Look at our game being clever and unique!'

I seem to remember that Zero Punctuation was one reviewer who commented on how the game pad was pointless and didn't actually have much use/do anything that couldn't be done on other systems.

[JezMM]

It's really not as hard as people claim.

When the game first came out a number of reviewers I saw pointed out how the game pad use didn't solve any problems and how it was just problems created especially for the game to try and say 'look at how cool the game pad is! Look at our game being clever and unique!'

I seem to remember that Zero Punctuation was one reviewer who commented on how the game pad was pointless and didn't actually have much use/do anything that couldn't be done on other systems.

I think that's a subjective opinion (if you don't like the gamepad stuff, I can totally see it feeling that way, but at the same time, of course a game gimmick requires problems to be created in order to be solved via the gimmick in order to make it relevant?), but the point still stands that without them, what does Zombi have going for it that makes it unique in a market already oversaturated with zombie games?

 

The only immediate solutions to the stuff that required gamepad before is to use picture in picture, axe them and the sections that require them entirely, or add new extra information to the screen that compensates for the lack of third person view during first person gamepad stuff (like you stay in first person the whole time but a little exclaimation mark appears if a zombie is drawing near - not really the same experience as on Wii U).  Just hope it's not as much of an embarrassment as the gamepad levels in Rayman Legends ended up being on the other systems.

[Junko]

The game came out today, so here's a graphics and gameplay comparison.

[AshGreninJovan]

Wait! Zombi PS4 doesn't support Remote Play?

[JezMM]

Interesting, the visuals really have barely been upgraded at all, though the larger field of view on the PS4 version is nice, everything did always feel a bit cramped in the original's view.  Some visual effects are improved, but some seem to be missing too (the splotchy camera was probably an artistic choice, but stuff such as the lighting being cast down on the tiled wall in that one shot of the underground is noticeably simpler on PS4.

The gamepad elements have been translated to the single screen setup pretty much as I expected them to, though the minimap on screen is certainly an odd choice that does break the atmosphere a little even though it was necessary to replicate the same level of information Wii U players have access to during gameplay.

What I'm curious about is if they changed any of the contexualisation of the gamepad features.  Is it still a blatant fictional version of the Wii U gamepad or did they modify it a bit to distance the design from the Nintendo version I wonder.

 

There only seemed to be one shot there where the PS4 had significantly improved textures, though that almost seems like a fixed glitch rather than upgrade.  Considering how high quality all the other Wii U graphics are it seems that's a brief moment where they haven't loaded correctly.  Lol at the sign saying "CANCER" instead of danger though... slight engrishness on Ubisoft's part (though my fave element of that in the game was the numerous cases of "ENGLISH BEER" brand lager you could find in the apartments lol.

[Kaze no Klonoa]

The port is supposedly 30fps and is actually quite buggy. From what I know it's definitely not as different as the Wii U version. They also took out the multiplayer too, which was actually one of my favorite parts of the game.

:/

I am honestly not surprised

 

What I'm curious about is if they changed any of the contexualisation of the gamepad features.  Is it still a blatant fictional version of the Wii U gamepad or did they modify it a bit to distance the design from the Nintendo version I wonder.

 

It's pretty much a straight up port of the game. Not much has changed (With the exception of cut features which is probably not a good thing). A lot of the gamepad features are things you just do on the TV by opening a menu.

[Junko]

The port is supposedly 30fps and is actually quite buggy. From what I know it's definitely not as different as the Wii U version. They also took out the multiplayer too, which was actually one of my favorite parts of the game.

:/

Thanks for the segue, because DigiFoundry released a frame rate test, and they're all capped at 30.

 

[Junko]

Let's dust this topic off by saying that Zombi must've sold decently, because it's now getting a physical release.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBeY76y_ziY

Zombi's recent PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One version will get a physical release on 21st January 2016, Ubisoft has announced.

The developer's London-set survival horror originally launched alongside the Wii U and made good use of that console's touchscreen GamePad controller.

Fast forward a few years and Ubisoft unearthed the game for a relaunch on other platforms this summer.

A few new features were added - a couple of new melee weapons, improved load times and uprezzed visuals.

But the biggest change was the game's inventory being moved up to the main screen. The game's hook is that gameplay continues on in the background while you search your supplies, meaning enemies can creep up on you unawares.

No extra changes are listed for this new physical version.

Take a look at how the new version stacks up against the Wii U original below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keOOGWmooPc

Edited November 17, 2015 by Kyoko Kirigiri

[Miss Metroid]

Not really all that interested. I wasn't interested in it when I got my Wii U, and I'm certainly not interested now in a version of the game which removed the only component of the experience that made it noteworthy - use of the gamepad.