Zombi Review

A curiously adult oddity amongst the mostly family friendly line up of Wii U launch titles, Zombi comes to PS4 by way of PS Plus this month. Despite attempting to inject new tension into the zombie genre, Zombi’s intriguing gameplay premise fails to resonate through its clunky controls and ugly graphics.

Players are dropped into the role of a survivor, in the midst of a modern day London ravaged by one of those pesky viral outbreaks. Straight away, they are contacted over a radio by a mysterious (and suspiciously helpful) man known only as “The Prepper”. He sets you up with equipment and weapons at his underground safe house, before turning the survivor out into the city.  This is where the usual formula of supply scavenging and zombie brain bashing begins. You’ll need to remain alert as you scour the streets for equipment, as bloodthirsty zombies lurk around every corner.

Each encounter with a shambling undead is terrifying thing (as it rightly should be), mostly due to Zombi’s main selling point: its’ death system. When your character is killed, you respawn as another survivor with a unique name, gender and physical appearance. You must then seek out your freshly reanimated previous character, and kill them to claim back that carefully collected rucksack of lifesaving provisions.  Zombies are genuine, monstrous threats, their bites often killing instantly, and so it becomes second nature to avoid large crowds of the undead. It’s an interesting, Dark Souls style mechanic, that adds a twist of welcome tension to an otherwise a run of the mill first person action game. Perhaps the ultimate way to play Zombi is “Survival Mode”, where, upon death, you begin the game from scratch, right back at the beginning of the story. One for all the masochists out there.

“The sound design is excellent, and you begin to rely on your ears, as well as your high tech radar”

Zombi’s representation of London feels surprisingly authentic, with the empty tube stations, abandoned police vehicles, and deserted landmarks all giving off a “28 Days Later” vibe. The sound design is excellent, and you begin to rely on your ears, as well as your high tech radar, to locate moaning zombies hiding in the dark. Whilst it’s refreshing for UK gamers to see a fairly accurate representation of the capital in a video game, the drab, dreary and dated Wii U graphics haven’t translated well onto PS4. When the overwhelming colour palette of a video game is grey, flecked with other, different shades of grey, and the occasional splash of murky red, it doesn’t really scream “FUN!”  It might be an authentic look for a British based apocalypse, but Techland’s Dead Island and Dying Light proved that sun, sea, and palm trees can indeed work within the grim context of a zombie outbreak.

The gameplay quickly becomes repetitive, the first person combat entering an unwelcome rhythm of “attack, step back, wait, attack, step back, wait”. Guns pack a rather muted punch, and character movement feels slow and clunky, giving the whole experience a low key and underwhelming feeling. Despite this, Zombi limps doggedly on for an almost 13 hour playtime, grueling and exhausting for all the wrong reasons.