Why I won't be playing ZombiU anymore...

(Warning: This post contains mild spoilers. If you're playing ZombiU and would rather not know what's coming, come back and read this once you've finished.

Lately my other half has been playing ZombiU, the new survival horror zombie game for the equally new Wii U. He's been loving it, and truth be told, I've been rather enjoying watching it. There are not a lot of games where spectating is as interesting as playing, but with the incredible amount of tension in this game, it actually works.

Now I am not usually a survival horror zombie game type of girl. I like my RPGs, card and board games, puzzles, point-and-click, and so on. I have an overactive imagination, the stress of survival games makes me tense, and I'm just not a fan of zombies. So I was quite surprised at my own decision to start playing my own game of ZombiU after a few days.

I quickly realised that watching someone play it is tense enough - and that when playing myself, I was even more tense. So tense that it was actually making me quite nervous to play, and even though I was greatly enjoying it as a game, I couldn't bring myself to look at it for more than an hour at a time, and usually with a day in between to break it up a bit.

Of course, my partner is not so easily frightened as me, and got a massive head start on me as well. Fast forward to the section he was working on last night. Looking for something for a quest... in a children's nursery.

Yeah, I'm not cool with that.

I'm not saying it's a bad design choice. I have no problem with the developers including a section where a nursery has been overrun and the teachers all turned. (Side note: there are no kid zombies. I am exceptionally glad of this.) It's just that it's so. Damn. Creepy! Add to that the freaky ghost zombie who you have to "kill" three times, and even then doesn't give the impression it's down for good? Eep!

So yeah. I watched him play that section, both of us getting a bit freaked out by the very well designed sound effects and environment, and me deciding that watching this level is bad enough. I do not have the will to sit through that section again, let alone play it myself. And since it's part of the storyline, I can't just avoid it.

So although I'm finding ZombiU to be an awesome game, it is one I will have to sadly set aside for myself. (But it's okay, my other half is still playing. And he's also decided he doesn't want to go back to the nursery anytime sooner than he absolutely has to.)