This is by far the most unique and interesting horror game I have ever experienced. It's criminally underrated, tough as nails, and best of all, it's genuinely scary. Easily the best horror title I've played yet.

The permadeath system is fantastic. I love that when you get bitten, there is no coming back. All of the weapon skills you have obtained, and your survivor score are completely reset, which creates huge tension when you want to avoid failure. It makes death actually mean something, and it makes even the most common grunt zombies a legitimate threat, something I don't think any horror game has done before or since. With the combat, you're capable of dealing damage and getting the job done, but you aren't superhuman. The combat system makes you feel vulnerable, but not to the point where combat becomes a repetitive mind numbing slog like in Silent Hill 2. This ties into the survival part of survival horror: you need to plan ahead, take it slow, and use the resources you have wisely because they're very scarce, and I think this is ingenious design coupled with all the other mechanics I mentioned. Not to mention, when you die, you need to track down your previous now infected survivor to get your stuff back, which is a really cool and interesting fresh spin on these typical zombie games, almost like a roguelite esc take on survival horror.

The Wii U gamepad is what really sells this however. You need to constantly glance down at the gamepad screen to do a whole myriad of tasks: check radar, scan for potential loot, inventory management, picking locks and hacking doors, and so on. The thing is when you do this, the game itself doesn't pause, so the infected can easily have a chance to sneak up behind you and try to kill you, forcing you to multitask different things at once. This adds huge amounts of tension to the game, as while you're doing anything with the gamepad you're vulnerable at all times. It really does feel like an experience you can only get on Wii U.

As for the rest of the game, the atmosphere is top notch, and really sells the feeling of complete ruin and isolation. The fog penetrating certain areas, the crows flapping all over, the screams echoed in the distance of far off infected, the grunge of the decaying London subway system and sewer tunnels, it's all handled wonderfully, and areas that take it one step further (such as Buckingham Palace and The Nursery) are done even better. The music is surprisingly very well made as well, more of a somber soundtrack with a few instances of heavy tense techno. On top of the main campaign, there's also a fun multiplayer mode that has the gamepad user control a hoard of zombies, spawning them and leveling up and gaining new perks as the match continues, while the pro controller player plays a survivor, killing the infected in a variety of game modes.

However, I do still have some issues even with a game as great as this. The game is a tad on the short side (only about 10-15 hours for a single campaign), the loading times can be frequent and pretty bad, and the game visually could stand to be improved even though I think it looks great as is. Regardless, please consider checking this game out on Wii U, it is an extremely underappreciated gem.