@TheBigG753

I killed one of your zombies... holy crap, that thing was loaded with ammo! Thanks?

@VofEscaflowne

You're...welcome...?? Actually, I think it's a really cool touch that higher your character's score at the time of death, the harder it is to kill their zombie. When I'd see zombie @Kal-El814 every so often outside the safehouse and kill him in 2 hits, I knew it wasn't even worth bothering to try and loot.

@TheBigG753

You took a good 7 or 8 hits I think haha.

Yeahhh! Good going Zombie-Me!!! Way to not go down without a fight!

Man I just got to the arena part. My least favorite part of the game so far. I've lost tons of guys. I guess I just suck at it, but it feels completely different than the rest of the game. Pretty much just standard FPS stuff.

After many tries I decided to take a break. The good news is, it's not scary so I'll get back to trying again tomorrow. Haha.

The funny part is that right before that there's that part where you're in the catacombs and crossing planks while tons of zombies are underneath you, so you know that if you take a bad step and fall down, you'll be completely screwed. That part was incredibly tense and awesome.

@Jargon

Man, I LOVED that part. Was not expecting it, and it was crazy intense. I only died on my first try because I panicked and didn't use my ammo very smartly. It was one of the rare moments in a video game where I felt completely helpless (and shows just how much of a reliance on the scanner I had built up).

@TheBigG753

I loved that part also, so intense! That sense of helplessness really permeates the psyche, and it's such an overwhelming relief to survive it (then you realize there were a lot of hidden items that would have helped you if you had been able to find them!).

Jargon said:

The funny part is that right before that there's that part where you're in the catacombs and crossing planks while tons of zombies are underneath you, so you know that if you take a bad step and fall down, you'll be completely screwed. That part was incredibly tense and awesome.

That too, was incredibly nerve-racking. The bad part about this first person view is not being able to see your feet! I never inched my way so slowly through a video game level like I did here; "Am I perfectly centered on this narrow plank? Oh crap, here comes a turn..." Sooooo thankful I didn't fall down.

roykoopa64 said:

@TheBigG753

I loved that part also, so intense! That sense of helplessness really permeates the psyche, and it's such an overwhelming relief to survive it (then you realize there were a lot of hidden items that would have helped you if you had been able to find them!).

Jargon said:

The funny part is that right before that there's that part where you're in the catacombs and crossing planks while tons of zombies are underneath you, so you know that if you take a bad step and fall down, you'll be completely screwed. That part was incredibly tense and awesome.

That too, was incredibly nerve-racking. The bad part about this first person view is not being able to see your feet! I never inched my way so slowly through a video game level like I did here; "Am I perfectly centered on this narrow plank? Oh crap, here comes a turn..." Sooooo thankful I didn't fall down.

That was also one of my favorite parts. While it was tense, it was also fun to taunt the zombies knowing they really couldn't get you. I liked clicking my flashlight on and off while sticking my tongue out at them. If I had enough crossbow bolts for all of them, I would have picked them all off for target practice. So far, the crossbow is my favorite sniping weapon (as long as I can retrieve the ammo).

I have reached "The point of no return!" Whatever that means. I ripped the eye out of the Dr's head, and now I have to open that last door. And damn... those electrified zombies are creepy. Only because they keep messing with my scanner!

I finally beat that part. It legitimately doubled the amount of survivors I've used. Lame.

It annoys me that they gave you such limited ammo but had you face the zombies that require headshots to kill. I never actually got killed in that part really, just ran out of ammo and then had to let myself die. I guess I suck at getting headshots with the Gamepad's dual analog (maybe I've lost it but I used to be quite good at it in Halo) but it seems needless to have a section that requires that kind of precision when it's definitely not necessary at any point beforehand (and I hope after).

@Jargon

It took me about 2 tries before I realized I had to use the bomb zombies and carefully placed propane tanks to off those armored zombies in one hit. When I finally accomplished escaping, I think I fired a total of 7 bullets haha. It was just a matter of being precise, and being good at running. But you are right... when all was done, and I was able to explore, there were a couple nice waiting spots that I could have utilized had I known about them before.

@TheOldManFromZelda

Wait, you can shoot propane tanks and they blow up? I never even noticed that. Where were they? Could I have used them to kill the zombies in the first wave? That's where I had 90% of my trouble. In fact, I got past the first three zombies on my second try and almost won it all but didnt realize what I was supposed to do. Then it took me like 14 more tries to get past those first three zombies again. Ah well.

By the way, the scuba diverzombies are one of my least favorite parts of the game. When you first encounter them in the water it makes sense but then you find them all over the place and it's just stupid that there's scuba divers randomly in these locations. It kind of takes me out of the game and makes it feel like a video game.

@Jargon

Yeah. There are 3 tanks. One in the center, one on the right, and one on the left of the cage where you start. My tactic to survive the first wave was to get the gun, run around in a circle so the 3 armored guys got grouped together, then wait for them to convene by a tank, and shoot the tank.

And yes, those scuba guys suck. I got pretty awesome at sniping their head as to not hit their body. It also pays to recognize them when they are laying down, and try to get a nice head shot in.

I think I'm about to finish. I just got back from getting the Panacea USB drive from the Palace Underground. I made it back to the Safe House (was more difficult than it should have been because I never found the CCTV in the area outside the Palace).

I was half expecting some showdown with the Prepper when I got to the Safe House because he always gets mad when I do anything to try and solve the zombie problem. Maybe there will be a showdown once I actually open the chest in the Safe House, which seems to be my next goal (Load Up). Then I'm off to the Tower of London I guess. Hope the shit doesn't hit the fan too much, I used a lot of ammo blasting my way out of the Palace.

I'm guessing I'll beat the game when I play tomorrow morning. It's been a fun ride, but I will be relieved when the credits roll and I don't have to go back to the game anytime soon. Maybe I'll stop having stress dreams. Haha.

Wow, I've got to say this game made one of the stupidest design decisions of all time: I got to the credits and then during the post-credits sequences I had about half my life left and only a couple of large health packs so I decided not to use one and save them until I was in more dire straits. Well, shortly after I was up against zombie with a helmet and I was doing fine pummeling him, but I didn't realize a zombie was coming up behind me and he killed me. So I got the bad ending and after that, the file was completely locked so I couldn't try again.

Why the fuck would they decide that was a good idea? I just played a 16 hour game and they expect me to play it entirely over again if I want a chance to see the good ending (and if I die again in that part, I have to start over again). A decision like that in this day and age is completely unforgivable. Sorry, as someone who likes to get the best ending, the game is now forever unsatisfying to me, since I refuse to play through it again just for that. Really lowered my opinion of the game. Too bad.

@Jargon

I really liked the way it ended. It kept with the whole theme of the game, which is that you were always just one expendable survivor that was always just one mistake from being a goner. It's one of the bold moves that ZombiU does that separates it from most modern games, much like Resident Evil before it became a dumbed-down mess and you were actually punished for dying (play a few hours without using an ink ribbon because things are going smooth, and you paid for it). As a result, the last segment was incredibly nerve-wracking for me, knowing what was at stake.

In any event, you really didn't miss much of anything so I wouldn't be too bummed out. There's really not much of a difference (a 2 or 3 second cutscene? And it's not like there's an achievement that you're missing out on ). In a lot of ways, it's sort of an epilogue since the credits already rolled. More games should make you feel bad about failing.

@TheBigG753

Resident Evil never punished you by making it impossible to go back to a previous save.

It's hard to say the post-credits sequence is a bonus when the "real ending" is so unsatisfying. Why did it end there? What did I as the player accomplish? Nothing.

As it is, I played through the entire game just to end in something that can only be considered complete failure. I find it impossible to be satisfied by that. If the bad ending still had some measure of success than I wouldn't be as annoyed but as far as I'm concerned I might as well have run out of continues fighting the end boss. No way to interpret that as a victory.

It's all well and good that it made the end sequence more exciting for you but denying any semblance of satisfaction to people who happen to slip up at the end is not a fair trade off, in my opinion.

@Jargon

Resident Evil could be ruthless if you made really bad decisions, though, which I did on a few occasions throughout the years. Using too many ink ribbons when I didn't need to, or saving at a point where I didn't have enough health and ammo to make realistic progression in the game (I think it was REmake or RE0 on my first playthrough ages ago, not sure which, where I had to play about an hour of the game perfectly or I wasn't going to be able to finish it; oh, I learned my lesson after that. )

With ZombiU, I feel like the ground rules were established from the beginning, and this design decision on Ubisoft's part (regarding the end game) was more or less the design concept that the entire game is built around. Which was that at any point, you were one very regrettable mistake away from being a very sad person. Reality set in for me when, at one point I had been playing for a while and had acquired a lot of ammo, health and weapons, got overconfident and became infected when facing off with 3 or 4 zombies. The part that was tragic was that my next survivor died at the same part when trying to go back and get supplies, because there were still a few zombies there in addition to my super-powerful former-self. Bye bye all of the supplies, back to 6 bullets. My first inclination was to go exit the game immediately and load an earlier save, but to no avail; the damage was already done.

The moral of the story was that I was upset at myself rather than the game, and as a result, I made sure that didn't happen again. I changed my strategy and played better, and each time I was presented with a dire situation where screwing up would be a very, very bad thing, the game became much more of an intense experience. The knowledge that they weren't fucking around with the idea that dying sucks really, really bad is part of the reason why I appreciate this game so much for what it brings to the table. If ZombiU was just another hand-holdy modern game that doesn't expect much of the player and made my (numerous) slip-ups inconsequential, it wouldn't have come close to being one of my top 3 games of 2012.

(Obviously, this type of game isn't for everyone these days, I recognize that. ZombiU did get really awful reviews from the same mainstream outlets that all but threw a parade when Resident Evil 4 was turned into a mindless shooter. So I get that my ZombiU love isn't going to be universally accepted, but I will nonetheless show it the love. )

And I feel like when the ending is brought into the equation, having that be something that you could just keep retrying over and over would be a betrayal of everything that the game is built around. The finality of it all is something that you don't see in games, not because it's bad design, but because not many developers are willing to make the player feel bad. Maybe as a launch title Ubisoft had more freedom to take risks, but I'll be damned, this game had me floored over and over with a lot of what they did with this game.

Once the credits rolled, I wasn't sure what to expect because it happened really abruptly. I had died between the time I got the USB stick and approached the Tower of London, so I didn't know if I had already gotten a bad ending or ran out of time or something. I obviously expected something after the credits, probably just a cutscene, but once I was back in control I had a feeling I only had one shot at this (seeing as the Prepper turned on you and moved on to someone else, and the game never let you go back to an earlier save). So that final 5 minutes or so was incredibly intense, maybe moreso than at any other part of the game.

Obviously, I can't speak about failing that part and what my reaction would be, though I got incredibly lucky to make it to the end. Out of necessity, I had to kill one of the explosive zombies when it was close to me, and miraculously I didn't die and was able to clumsily use a large med kid before another zombie got to me. But had I died, I would have been disappointed at myself but I also feel like that impact of finality stemming from your last survivor either living or dying was the most fitting ending to the game.

I think it's too bad that this ruined a lot of the game for you, especially since there's a minuscule difference between the endings, and no tangible reward such as an achievement. Although I suppose I would have been fine with any ending, after I had such a positive experience with the game up to that point. But I also appreciate films that have unhappy endings when that is the appropriate end that the movie built up to, and didn't cop out with a happy ending where the good guys win. I think in an era where the vast majority of games end with a hard "you win!" and most of those games having everything work out for the good guys, I find it refreshing and in a lot of ways ballsy that Ubisoft would end the game that way, and in a way that doesn't go against ZombiU is about.

And not to sound like I'm delighting in the misery of others -- I'm not (I could write the book on losing) -- but I think it's really awesome, rather than something inconceivable in this day and age, to basically have a "You Suck!" ending. It may come across at first as disrespecting the player by not giving them another chance to succeed, but I see it as the opposite. That the game holds you, the player, accountable for your own successes and failures and really sticks to its guns in that regard -- in a lot of ways it embodies the ultimate form of player respect. And in the era of dumbed-down video game experiences and in particular, the neutering of survival horror, everything about ZombiU really resonated with me.

@TheBigG753

I understand what you're saying, but I think there's a big difference between being hand-holdy and simply allowing you to try again with another survivor the same as anytime before.

I mean the game already broke from its normal setup during the arena section, where if you died you started as another survivor who had been captured by the bad guys. Would it be so bad to have you be another survivor who gets the call from the Ravens of Dee and has an opportunity to escape. If you're able to grab the Panacea on the way, all the better. If you die before you can get to the Panacea, then no more chance at the Panacea. Basically, it would fit with the rest of the game fine and it would be far from hand holding since you'd have to make it out with just the cricket bat and a handgun.

I agree that the game distinguished itself by being much less forgiving than your usual game these days, but it went too far in compromising the feeling of satisfaction that is integral to a video game, in my opinion.

@TheBigG753

Very well said; you put into words my feelings exactly on why this game is so utterly brilliant.