I’m holding up the Wii U GamePad and using it to analyse the pier in front of me; this function can reveal hidden messages with a UV light, but right now, I’m just searching for items. I spot a couple of dots, each labelled, and lower the controller. My in-game character mirrors the action by stowing his “Analyser”, and I push him towards the dot that was labelled “dead Infected”. A prompt to loot the body appears. Naturally lacking respect for the dead, I hit the respective button and look down at the GamePad screen to file through the inventory – and suddenly, there’s a much more animated Infected on me from behind.

My eyes shoot back up to the screen; I’m caught off guard. I shove my assailant away and quickly whip out a cricket bat, and he stumbles backwards bleeding after I strike him. I move into a more strategic position and repeat my assault. This violent, mindless thing is resilient, I note, and then I push him off the wooden dock into shallow water ten feet down. Unfortunately, that’s where I was heading. The infected man isn’t dead, and I can’t fight him in the waist-deep water because my in-game character would rather hoist his bag above his head to keep it dry.

So I wait, and eventually the Infected crawls back up the ladder. I smash him in the head and a button prompt to finish him appears briefly, before he slips off the edge and back into the water. It’s not my finest moment. The Nintendo rep behind me murmurs something about knocking him to the ground and smashing his head in. I wait. The Infected appears. I hit him, and back off the edge he goes. The rep looks at me with incredulity. I make my excuses – “PC gamer,” I mutter in embarrassment – and wait one last time. The Infected crawls up. I step back. He lunges, and I crack him around the head with the bat, knocking him to the ground, then hold a button that makes my character finally break his skull.

That was my first zombie encounter in the suitably titled ZombiU, and you may be surprised to learn that I actually managed to survive a full half hour before I died. That gave me a chance to try out a fair chunk of the gameplay, with some fun features like picking locks and sniping with the GamePad screen, and surviving undead assaults with an array of weapons. Surprisingly, for a fellow with an aversion to twin analogue sticks, I even managed to score a few perfect headshots with the crossbow, by far one of the most useful weapons (Max Brooks would agree, I’m sure). I had a handgun and a hunting rifle in my backpack too, but these aren’t your main offensive tools: the sounds of gunfire draw Infected, and ammunition is very sparse. That’s good, though, because the pulse-pounding mêlée combat works best with the game’s atmosphere.

Meddling with your backpack won’t keep you safe (and nor will looting bodies on a pier). This isn’t Zelda, it’s Dark Souls: if you feel like diving into the bottom of your bag, you better hope the area’s clear or you’ve left yourself seriously vulnerable. It’s so much more dangerous than realised on consoles before, thanks to the GamePad controller; you’re looking away from the screen, so a zombie truly has the upper-hand when an attack is unexpected. I wrote a while ago about how neat this sort of feature would be for a hardcore Fallout instalment, and it turns out it’s just as fantastic in ZombiU. In fact, I really enjoyed many aspects of the game, even though I felt it was under-polished in portions; for instance, the inventory system still feels a bit unwieldy and it seemed quite easy to make a mistake and have to repeat the same action a couple of times to see the desired effect.

Nonetheless, I’m optimistic about this particular game: it doesn’t feel like Ubisoft are going to wind up with a Red Steel situation on their hands again, and if they do, I optimistically assume they’ll patch any significant problems using the Wii U’s updated online facilities. I would have loved to try out the excellent-sounding permadeath mechanic in person, but there was unfortunately a two-and-a-half hour queue forming behind me at this point, so I abandoned the stall, hoped the Nintendo rep wouldn’t judge me for my lack of skill, and made a mental note to check this one out again in a couple months’ time. It holds promise.