ZOMBI

If you close your eyes and imagine what a PC port of a Ubisoft Wii U game from 2012 is like, I suspect you'll hit pretty close to the mark. Zombi looks a bit dated, the controls are a tad cumbersome, there are extremely limited video and sound options, and there are a number of bugs and broken features. It's a damn shame, too, because buried under the rubble of this lackluster port is a spooky, startling, challenging, and often highly enjoyable survival horror game.

Zombi takes place in an undead-infested London, and after stumbling into the safehouse of a man who calls himself Prepper you begin undertaking various missions for him, and later, perform tasks for other characters with their own agendas. You'll visit a number of locations during these linear missions, including a zombie-infested Buckingham Palace, and as you reach these areas they become open-world, meaning you can revisit them later. With only a small backpack to carry what you find, you'll constantly have to make tough choices about what scavenged weapons and supplies to take or leave behind as your progress through the story missions.

Zombified Londoners are no joke. While a lone zombie isn't much of a threat, putting it down is still hard work. Just as smashing a head open with a cricket bat in real life isn't easy (I imagine, anyway), so it is in Zombi, and I found myself mentally grunting as much as my character vocally grunted, as we smashed and smashed and smashed until that zombie head finally burst. When you're swarmed by several zeds it can be a harrowing, almost exhausting experience. If a zombie lands a swipe, kiss a big chunk of your health goodbye, and if they get their teeth on you, you're finished. It often takes several shots from pistols, rifles, and crossbows to put down a shambler, even with headshots, and ammo is precious and needs to saved for the most dire of circumstances. This results in a lot of cautious exploration, tons of tension, bouts of panic, and careful planning, all of which is essential for an effective survival horror.

Robbing zombie

I'm gonna need that backpack, zombified-me from a few minutes ago.

A wonderful aspect of Zombi is that when you die, you begin back at the safehouse playing as a different survivor, but the character who just died is still out in the world along with your collected weapons and supplies. Head there with your new character and you'll find your old body, shambling around zombified, and get to beat its brains in and take back your loot. (If you die before you can recover your gear, though, it's gone forever.) The different survivors you play don't speak but you do absorb a little of their personalities: some gasp in horror or panic as they split open heads, some roar with rage, and one—my favorite—occasionally erupts in nervous, horrified laughter while pummeling zombies into pulp. It's a nice little touch to make you feel as if you really are playing a different person every time you lose someone.