Zero Punctuation: ZombiU

[duchaked]

I'd be more open to Nintendo trying to win back its hardcore audiences (especially those of us who grew up with their games and systems) if it involved putting out good games rather than...well what I feel are half-baked games with some decency but brought down by forcing the hardware on us.

Skyward Sword made me not miss Legend of Zelda really. of course I still have my N64 and GameCube

 

[Canadamus Prime]

At least they're trying to do something different.

Yeah, this morning I decided to eat cyanide-laced dog feces, instead of Cornflakes. At least I was trying to do something different!

Hey, I didn't say it was a good idea.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Ok, we gotta start using the words Fugbar and Daygunt as proper words!!!

 

[ex275w]

"...gimmicks that are a solution looking for a problem" is a golden statement that just about sums up the Wii and the Wii U's control scheme, thank you Yahtzee.
And before someone tries to tell me with a straight face that this is how we're going to move forward with technology/innovation...no, just no. And again, before someone tries to tell me "at least they're doing something different", I tried to take a shit while standing up today for the sake of doing something different. It didn't go too fucking well.
Also see Yahtzee's Bread Submarine.

This is how we're moving forward with technology/innovation. Nintendo is at least doing something different.

Now on a more serious note, I don't think Nintendo is really looking for a solution for problems with their consoles. I just think they're looking for alternatives with their consoles, so they have a unique position in marketing, remember the PS2/GC/Xbox era, all consoles were basically the same at playing games and had similar control schemes. So yeah Nintendo is a cold marketing bastard and that's why I love them.

 

[Negatempest]

I was waiting to see what he made of the whole look-at-your-controller-for-inventory-management thing. In most games it certainly would be annoying and pointless, but since this is survival horror, this sort of thing accomplisheses the all-important task of keeping the tension high since having to look away from the TV screen gives the zombies a chance to sneak up on you, making even navigating a menu a something of a nervous prospect. Maybe Yahtzee figured that ZombiU doesn't deserve a thumbs-up for it because he figures every other WiiU game is going to shoehorn in touchscreen-based menu systems for far less useful reasons... which will probably soon prove 100% correct as the WiiU's library expands.

At any rate, great review, and well worth the time spent in anticipation of it. Let Yahtzee's epic struggle against the WiiU begin.

I dunno, when something makes me look away from the screen during a fight or whatever it's just irritating and immersion-breaking, not more tense.

Depends on the reason. For example, a fighting game or action/adventure game that has you look at the screen for specific button promps to use a specific ability that only works when certain conditions are met. Like GoW where the QTE get in the way of you enjoying the carnage.

ZombiU WANTS you to not look on the TV for the purpose of getting in the way of your Line of Vision to increase tension. Think of it like yourself rummaging through your back-pack at high school and a close friend decides to scare you. You may jump to the attack because it was sudden. Now imagine that same scenario but you have eyes in the back of your head now. Now you see your friend coming a mile away and are now completely aware of your surroundings and your own fear is nearly none existent.
So in a Zombie game where you have you place yourself in a situation where you lose sight of your surroundings on purpose adds tension to your simple task. "If" the screen was clear than you kinda sort of see the scares coming a mile away....thus killing any fear potential.

In short, that duel screen complaint is stupid.

 

[Woodsey]

I was waiting to see what he made of the whole look-at-your-controller-for-inventory-management thing. In most games it certainly would be annoying and pointless, but since this is survival horror, this sort of thing accomplisheses the all-important task of keeping the tension high since having to look away from the TV screen gives the zombies a chance to sneak up on you, making even navigating a menu a something of a nervous prospect. Maybe Yahtzee figured that ZombiU doesn't deserve a thumbs-up for it because he figures every other WiiU game is going to shoehorn in touchscreen-based menu systems for far less useful reasons... which will probably soon prove 100% correct as the WiiU's library expands.

At any rate, great review, and well worth the time spent in anticipation of it. Let Yahtzee's epic struggle against the WiiU begin.

I dunno, when something makes me look away from the screen during a fight or whatever it's just irritating and immersion-breaking, not more tense.

Depends on the reason. For example, a fighting game or action/adventure game that has you look at the screen for specific button promps to use a specific ability that only works when certain conditions are met. Like GoW where the QTE get in the way of you enjoying the carnage.

ZombiU WANTS you to not look on the TV for the purpose of getting in the way of your Line of Vision to increase tension. Think of it like yourself rummaging through your back-pack at high school and a close friend decides to scare you. You may jump to the attack because it was sudden. Now imagine that same scenario but you have eyes in the back of your head now. Now you see your friend coming a mile away and are now completely aware of your surroundings and your own fear is nearly none existent.
So in a Zombie game where you have you place yourself in a situation where you lose sight of your surroundings on purpose adds tension to your simple task. "If" the screen was clear than you kinda sort of see the scares coming a mile away....thus killing any fear potential.

In short, that duel screen complaint is stupid.

A real-time menu would still work better. If a horror game relies on immersion then the worst thing you can do is make me physically look away from the main screen and have me acknowledge the room. Hell, it's bad enough when controls aren't very well designed and you become more aware of your hands.

It's the same problem that motion controls inevitably and unavoidably have.

 

[Negatempest]

You have no one else to blame for your ruined immersion than yourself. Kind of goes with the "Suspend your disbelief" kind of thing. Like watching a movie, the whole thing is fake in more ways than one when you watch it in a theater with a few dozen other people in there. You hear them there and can possibly hear a few people talking or laughing. Do you walk out of the theater than because your immersion was ruined?

What I am trying to say is that the control scheme is part of the immersion and if you don't like it, like I don't like a turn-based system in an RPG, than you (I) are/am to blame for the immersion break.

 

[Marik Bentusi]

That's the problem with a "serious" zombie game like this, after you introduce them you can't really add anything new exept for more intense encounters. You can't introduce, say, fly-men once you've established this is a "conventional" zombie outbreak. This is probibly why Resident Evil made it aobut bio-weapons, to add giant snakes and lizard-men giving the game some variaty.

You can make zombies as scary as you want them to be without straying *too* far from the formula. You can make them a slothing shooter gallery or a gun-spraying mad horde highly alert to sound. Just like you can twist a game around them anywhere between "Action", "Stealth" and "Survival Horror".

 

[Marik Bentusi]

You have no one else to blame for your ruined immersion than yourself. Kind of goes with the "Suspend your disbelief" kind of thing. Like watching a movie, the whole thing is fake in more ways than one when you watch it in a theater with a few dozen other people in there. You hear them there and can possibly hear a few people talking or laughing. Do you walk out of the theater than because your immersion was ruined?

What I am trying to say is that the control scheme is part of the immersion and if you don't like it, like I don't like a turn-based system in an RPG, than you (I) are/am to blame for the immersion break.

Some things make it easier for people to immerse themselves and others make it harder. Regardless of his, yours or my opinion.

 

[Bindal]

ZombiU WANTS you to not look on the TV for the purpose of getting in the way of your Line of Vision to increase tension.

You know how they also could have achieved the "loose sight of surrounding"-thing? BY HAVING A FREAKING GUI ON THE SCREEN BLOCKING SAID VIEW!

 

[geier]

"Come and join as, the master will be home soon"

I laughed so hard at this sentence, i will download the video, rip the audio from it, cut this sentence out and use it as ringtone on my cell phone !

One of the most funny videos from Yahtzee

 

[SweetShark]

The sad part inside the review is the cat actually can eat anything, including the dead corpse of the one that had took care of the specific cat with so much love.

 

[JoJo]

Heh, interesting, even as a Nintendo fan I'm still on the fence about whether to get this console or not. I liked the part about the Queen particularly. The section at about 4.00 with the crosshair on a group of a children though; a reference to recent events in Connecticut or simply an unlucky coincidence?

 

[Negatempest]

ZombiU WANTS you to not look on the TV for the purpose of getting in the way of your Line of Vision to increase tension.

You know how they also could have achieved the "loose sight of surrounding"-thing? BY HAVING A FREAKING GUI ON THE SCREEN BLOCKING SAID VIEW!

Yes, we as gamers want more ****/stuff on the screen. So if I get this straight. You want alot of clutter on the main screen? I'm glad for the second screen so the clutter doesn't block my field of view. And yes I have played so many games like GoW, Bayonetta, DMC, CoD where the clutter on the screen hid enemy movement and got me killed a few times. I, at the time, accepted it as the limits of a console. Now that we got a console with a second screen on the controller to free up the screen more...you complain? A clutter-free screen video game is hard to come by, and the Wii-U is helping to fix that and I couldn't be happier.

 

[Vausch]

As a reformed PC gamer who couldn't give a fuck about the console wars, I really am starting to wonder if there is ANYTHING Nintendo can do to satisfy Yahtzee.

They could make games that are meant to be engaging and fun without relying on gimmicky hardware flicks and waggles that are more likely than not to take you out of the experience, like the 3D on the 3DS. It's like when a person realises that a last-gen console controller makes the game better (SSBB) then something has gone wrong.

 

[turrel1981]

The funniest thing is yatz thinks David camoron is running the country, well he's running it into the ground,
and why do games and films only portray Britain though the eyes of London. god forbid any visiting tourist step outside the suburbs of London and discover there's an actual civilization outside that self obsessed over rated dump.

 

[ex275w]

Also, it appears that the Wii U is not as powerful as the PS3 even in spite of being more powerful then the Wii.

How is it even possible to release a next gen console that is less powerful then a LAST gen console?

I get the Wii not being as powerful as the PS3 or the Xbox 360 but the Wii U?

This is lame.

Yea yea graphics aren't everywhing bla blah blah and whatever.

The graphics processor unit on the Wii U is better than the one on the PS3 and Xbox 360. The processor isn't as fast though. So games like Dynasty Warriors or Dead Rising might suffer from slowdown. A game like Zelda or Mario will run at 60fps and display nice graphics since those games don't need that much processing.

http://www.tgdaily.com/games-and-entertainment-brief/62505-developer-says-wii-u-not-as-powerful-as-xbox-360-ps3

There are more articles about this, but this is the first one I could find with a simple google search.

Ashens also did a Wii U review on his channel where he played the Wii U version of Batman: AC and complained about it having a worse framerate then the PS3 and X360 versions.

I am not saying that there is some huge difference between the Wii U and the PS3/Xbox 360, but it still does appear to be there.

Well I wouldn't trust just one developer on their word, but the graphics processing unit is somewhat better, look at that Zelda demo they put last year, it looked pretty good and was the demo ran on the console, since you could change the lightning and angles and other stuff.

New technology takes time to be adopted. Games are looking better and better as developers start to understand the console. The early Xbox 360 titles barely looked any different than Xbox. Time will tell if developers can make pretty good looking games on the Wii U.

But yeah, the framerate is worse on a lot of games that were on the 360/PS3 due to the processor.
http://venturebeat.com/2012/11/29/the-wii-us-processor-and-graphics-speeds-are-slower-than-xbox-360-and-ps-3/ so developers need to focus on the GPU to get a good framerate out of the games.

As an aside I don't think the other new consoles will get much farther in graphics advancement, we already saw what a disaster concentrating on graphics this generation became. (Bloated costs, long development cycles, Final Fantasy XIII)

 

[Arif_Sohaib]

I didn't know Yahtzee followed cricket.
But the Australian team has won 3 world cups and England has tried several times(and lost, despite creating and introducing the game to the rest of the world). Wonder who he supports in an England vs Australia match.

 

[Basement Cat]

Please tell me Yahtzee recorded this last week, and the sniper scope view is just a coincidence.

Heh, interesting, even as a Nintendo fan I'm still on the fence about whether to get this console or not. I liked the part about the Queen particularly. The section at about 4.00 with the crosshair on a group of a children though; a reference to recent events in Connecticut or simply an unlucky coincidence?

It takes him something like 2 weeks to make an episode.

He's tactless for the sake of humor but he's not the sort of comedian who'd suggest raping women is funny. Nor is he the type to go for shock-jokes on RL mass-child killings.

It's just a coincidence. Like how Hollywood released the movie "The Watch" last year which was about dumb/incompetent neighborhood watch guys and which bombed because it came out after the brough-ha following the highly publicised racially charged real world killing of a Florida teen by a neighborhood watch guy.

 

[PunkRex]

The Wii U's controller is the stupidest think I've ever seen. People thought the Wii's controller would be "revolutionary" and the Wii was just a shovelware box. I'd give it a year before we see the same exact thing from the Wii U.

Wait, there are still people who think the British Monarch is an active political entity?

'Muricans. 'Muricans everywhere.

1. No one in America actually thinks that.

2. I'd rather be in a country where people think that a Queen should do something than be in a country that is backwards enough to still have a Queen, stupid enough to not have her do anything, and shallow enough to publicly make her and her family's affairs into pop culture... but that's just me.

Ohoho, country dick waggerling is it *gets out 'Bush' portfolio*

Seriously though guy/gal, the only peeps who give it the 'God save the queen' thing anymore are proberly much akin to the 'God bless America' lot. Shes like the relative no one likes, we only really put up with her at Christmas. Shes good for coaxing tourists away from their money though.

Hey, I'm just defending an attack on America with a legit point.

America is a huge place filled with everyone from geniuses to idiots... just like every other country, but we get shit on the most, and eventually you hit a breaking point.

Hell, America is even harder to generalize about because it's got so many people and so many different ones at that.

Well I hope it didn't seem like I was attacking you, twas not my intent and I agree that America is MASSIVE and as a result peeps from one end are very different from those on the other in terms of culture. The 'Muricans I believe my countrymen were refering to though were those who dictate a large portion of media, I proberly know a good amount of the American life style from watching their shows growing up even if it is generally based mainly around rich white areas... or New York. Were as England tends to be portrayed as either working class cockney (im a South Londener, my dad claims that theres a difference) or aloof aristocrate. Im not mad, being the bad guys more fun anyways.