Resident Evil 4: iPhone zombie-whompin'
How do you like your undead: Schlocky? Relentless? Axe-wielding? Then you'll want to check out this console classic, which brings much of the 2005 original to your iPhone.
Some people like chocolate, some like vanilla. Some go for Glenn Beck, some for Jon Stewart. And some dig vampires, while others love their zombies.
Me, I'm just waiting for the day I can buy a chocolate zombie Stewart. Until then, I will sit here eating Trader Joe's Swiss 72 percent Dark Chocolate (world's best), listening to The Daily Show in the background and whompin' the undead in Resident Evil 4.
Hot on the heels of Resident Evil Degeneration, the console classic just arrived in the App Store for $7.99.
In case you're not acquainted with the Resident Evil-verse, Degeneration offered a slower breed of zombie--the ambling, "braaaaaains" variety--while RE4 picks up the pace with faster-moving, weapon-wielding zombie mobs.
As you can see in the above gameplay video, RE4 looks about on par with its PlayStation 2 predecessor: muted, gloomy, and a bit jaggy. (I even encountered some clipping--ah, the good old days.)
The controls--an onscreen D-pad and various action buttons--lack the button-mashing pleasure you get from, say, a DualShock controller, but they're sufficient for the task at hand (and better than accelerometer-driven controls, in my opinion). The sole iPhone convention: shake to reload.
Unlike Doom Resurrection, another first-person-shooter classic that recently made its iPhone debut, RE4 doesn't keep you on rails: You get to roam free in every burned-out town and gloomy graveyard. Thus, it feels much more immersive, and much more like the original.
Of course, if you just want to mow down wave after wave of brain-munchers, look no further than the endlessly entertaining Kids vs. Zombies. The full version is now free.
In fact, the App Store is chock full of zombie-themed games. Which ones satisfy your need to demolish the undead?