10 Times Nintendo Games Were Not Family Friendly

Arguably the only third-party game to make proper use of the Wii U GamePad, ZombiU was a survival horror set in the city of London, post-zombie apocalypse. Armed with a cricket bat against the hordes of the undead, at least until they could scavenge some very limited ammo, the game was challenging, tense, and at times even terrifying. It was also fantastic.

A player’s inventory was permanently mapped to the GamePad screen, along with a touch-sensitive interactive map that could show locations of moving creatures. The twist was that while the inventory was being sorted on the GamePad, the game was not paused, meaning a player had to keep half an eye on the TV screen to avoid becoming zombie food. Similarly, the map couldn’t tell the difference between a flesh-eating monster and an innocent rat, meaning the player never quite knew just how much danger was lurking.

Nintendo were so confident in this very mature-rated title that it became one of the options for a pack-in game on launch day, although it was apparently not enough to tempt in the hardcore crowd. Their loss.