ZombieU: When It Makes Me Start Again

If you haven't played ZombieU on Nintendo's Newest Console just yet, I really don't want to spoil anything, but try to not die.  This may seem like pretty obvious advice when it comes to video games and life in general, but this game is a little different.

When you play Call of Duty or Halo or Resident Evil or Gears of War of any number shooter/survival games, you die... a lot.  In fact, players die so much so that many of these games keep a running kill/death ratio as a mark for how good you are and the ratios are never high.  I don't play a lot of Call of Duty, but I don't think my Kill/Death is much higher than 0.  Then again, I'm awful at it.

In ZombieU, however.  My Ratio is much higher.  It isn't because I'm better at this shooter than others.  It isn't because the game is easier, though it does have a more forgiving learning curve than jumping into an online multiplayer match.  But the reason my K/D is so high in ZombieU, is that I'm afraid to die.

Wrap your head around that.  When were you ever afraid to die in an online shooter except for when your team is one kill from losing?  And even then, the kills happen so fast that it's hard to tell how many kills any team needs at any given time.  These other games are based on the desire to jump right back into the action after a death, essentially making death, not meaningless, but without punishment.

When I die in ZombieU(all 12 times), I start over with 6 bullets for my pistol and a cricket bat.  Yes, I can store up materials in a chest that carries over from survivor to survivor.  I can even hunt down my previous survivor(now zombie) and kill them to loot their body, but every time, I wake up on a bunk in my safe house with minimal supplies and even less hope.

I'd love to say that it gets easier.  But I'm 7 hours in and every time I get comfortable or confident, something awful goes wrong.  Sometimes the undead attack my safe house.  Other times I take a hasty step forward and find a room full of awoken, angry zombies.  Every decision I make has instant and very measurable consequences as the time survived, K/D, and other statistics fade from the screen after a death.

This game isn't for everyone and it's probably better for it.  I hope you give it a shot.  I hope you get to feel the same fear and panic I have felt.  Mostly, I hope you don't die.

Nintendo Land: What I Didn't Expect

When you pick up and play a Nintendo Mini-game compilation, you have certain expectations.  You think of playful versions of Nintendo's already playful franchises.  I imagine repetitive actions that must be performed at lightening speeds.  I remember always having four people in a room dying with laughter only to be screwed by some die roll or whim in the end.  These are the things that I expect.

This post is about what I didn't expect from Nintendo Land and why it impressed me.  We'll start from the top:

Single Player Experiences: If there is anything I don't expect to do with a Mini-game-fest is play alone. Historically the whole point is to encourage single couch multiplayer wrapped in a package of hilarity and fun.  Imagine playing Mario Party or Rayman Raving Rabbids by yourself.  You'd be competing with no one in a room with no one because the value is inherently tied to the multiplayer.  Nintendo Land on the other hand has 6 games, half of the games, that are single player only.  This strong emphasis is strange to see.  Did you ever sit around(or stand when appropriate) playing Wii Sports or Wii Play by yourself?  No, those games, once again, revolved around the multiplayer and barely offered the chance to play single player.

I think the part that really sold me though is that these single player offerings aren't bad.  In fact, some are even good!  While Takamaru's Ninja Castle and Captain Falcon's Twister Race bottom out my personal ratings, the rest of the options are not only worth checking out, but worth investing some time into.  Octopus Dance is a competent ape of Rhythm Heaven.  Yoshi's Cart is a puzzler that offers something I've never seen before in terms of translating from big to little screen.  Donkey Kong Crash Course is the kind of thing I can play for days, not unlike those labyrinth boxes or apps you can find on your phone.  Then Balloon Trip Breeze may be the best in the bunch in terms of replayability and fun.

Engage the Living Room:  All the single player experiences lead me into my next point of interest.  Historically, Nintendo has always been about same couch multiplayer and getting people of all ages and skill level into the games.  With Nintendo Land, they also seem to be giving those not in the game something to watch.  They're putting on a show.  Most of the mini games have an option to see the camera's image streaming the player's face from the game pad.  Even the single player games offer something to watch when I'm not playing.  I enjoy planning out the route for Yoshi's Cart and watching as the player's trail plays out.  People not playing the game, have a reason to watch and, for me at least, it's pretty engaging.

Replayability:  Once you figure out exactly the broken, awkward bowling swing that get's you the best scores, Wii Bowling looses it's luster.  Once the new wears off, Mini Games get returned to the used game shop.  This is where Nintendo Land borrowed a couple ideas from other major blockbusters, namely, unlockables.  As you play through the multiplayer and single player games within Nintendo Land, you will stumble across, find, and reveal all kinds of secrets including new maps and attractions.  While the "tutor" computer-thing is annoying and unable to be skipped, it does point out some really neat stuff wrapped up in this collection.  Essentially, Nintendo Land set out to make people want to play their silly little games again and again.  With me, it worked.

Nintendo Land doesn't reveal motion gaming to the masses like Wii Sports did.  It doesn't create a competitive yelling fest like early Mario Party's did.  It does, however, introduce the strengths of the game pad, asymmetric multiplayer(I'll spend some time on this later) and engage a watching audience like few games have tried before.  It does all this while being a really entertaining game with a lot of options.

And The Winner Is...

Me.

I'm the winner.  When Nintendo branches off and does their own thing, I am the beneficiary of the experiment.  I get to experience game types, styles and ideas of which I've only dreamed.  All because Nintendo refuses to do what the economy, strategists, and competitors tell them to do.

I've owned my WiiU for 4 days and only played 2 games on it and I'm already convinced that it is the system for me.  How can I possibly know this soon?  How are 2 games and several hours anywhere near enough time to make a judgement call on a system that, admittedly, has many bugs and kinks to work out in the coming months?  3 Words: New Gaming Experiences.

Lets take a look at what new things I've done on my WiiU in the last 4 days.

1. Local Multiplayer with a twist.  The Multiplayer suite of ZombieU is far from impressive.  5 Maps, 3 game modes and limited number of weapons with no customization should add up to a mediocre experience.  And the hook brings me back: Because of the separate handheld screen and asymmetric(different for 2 players playing the same game) style, I get to test the mettle of my nephew's first person shooter skills by throwing zombies of multiple types and styles at him in a poor-man's RTS manor.  I get to see him backing up into the strategically placed sleeper that will jump him when he gets close enough.  I get to take control of the survivor and let him throw zombies at me.  Simply put: I can't do this anywhere else.  Therefore, I will do it on my WiiU and laugh out loud every time my spitter covers my opponent in zombie-pus

2. A Sandbox I want to play in.  I've played Scribblenauts on the DS.  I played Super Scribblenauts on the DS, but now I've played Scribblenauts Unlimited on the WiiU and I can't go back.  The puzzles are entertaining and appropriately silly(Yes, this fireman can build a mech for you to fight off the zombie horde), but the strength is in the more, bigger, best mentality of these items.  Each item is liberated by the adjectives introduced in Super Scribblenauts, but now, I can take those items and make them my own.  I can literally make them my own.  I summon them to my item editor, change every characteristic imaginable, give it a new name and it is now mine, my own, my precious.  It is without a doubt the best item editor any console has ever seen.  I don't know why I would want a stick that grant's me invisibility and shoots grenades that don't explode, but that isn't the point.  The point is that I can make it and it's mine.

3.  Investing in the Community.  You won't find me on forums or comment sections or chat rooms about games.  This may be to my detriment.  I'm not much for the anonymity of the internet.  On the WiiU, however, I found myself commenting on people posts. I reached out to people asking for help.  I found people with similar thought processes and taste in games and I friended them out of the blue.  There is something about the way that Nintendo set out to integrate the Miiverse into the game experience and into the DNA of the WiiU itself that makes me want to contribute.  Add in the fact that their filtering software and community driven tools for reporting poor behavior not just work, but work well, and I'm in a community of gamers that I'm not ashamed to introduce my family to.  It's a brand new world of interaction for me in a gaming community.

4.  The Controller is Enough.  This is a silly, stupid,  mediocre feature that really shouldn't be mentioned, except for how amazing it is.  "Hey, can you turn that down?  We can hear those brains exploding in the kitchen!"  "Yeah, sure."  We've all had that conversation before, but now, turning down the volume requires no additional effort or searching for remotes or reaching for the "right" remote.  The WiiU Gamepad is the right remote, for the TV and cable box.  This isn't about me being lazy; this is about Nintendo wanting their console to be a part of every interaction the living room and I commend them for it.  No, this isn't some amazing new and crazy feature and no, it won't revolutionize gaming, but I love changing the input to the Blu Ray player for my wife when I want to make more hover tanks that shoot exploding sheep on my Gamepad.

The WiiU is far from perfect.  The load times between standard menu selections are a little ridiculous.  The friend system isn't quite as intuitive as it should be in Fall of 2012.  There isn't a "Halo" or "God of War" to drive sales yet.  There is, however, a strong pulse and piles of creativity in Nintendo's WiiU.