Going back to the old-school

ZombiU was one of the major Wii U announcements yesterday as part of Ubisoft's press conference, with a CG-filled trailer that showed plenty of zombie chaos. Our interesting fact of the day is that Ubisoft's first ever game release was called Zombi, which was an icon-driven adventure game released in 1986. It was critically acclaimed, and was originally released on Amstrad CPC as an exclusive, before it was later ported to such stellar systems as ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Atari ST.

A fact-sheet sent to us about the 2012 version, meanwhile, confirms that it's a first-person shooter, with an emphasis on horror and survival as you fight through hordes of the undead in London. There'll be a multiplayer mode where one player uses the GamePad for an overhead view, moving zombies strategically, while the second player uses the Wii U Pro Controller to fight for survival on the ground. You'll be able to customise zombies with well-known faces using the GamePad's camera, and if you die you can hunt your old character's zombie down, reclaim the body and in the process retrieve your loot. Our feeling is that this is shaping up to be one of the most interesting Wii U launch titles confirmed so far.

It'd be a neat touch, particularly to gamers of a certain age, to include the original Zombi on the disc for nostalgia when this title launches with the console. It also means that Wii U will always share an interesting fact with the humble Amstrad CPC; we didn't see that coming.

[source atarimagazines.com]