You might be expecting Doom on the iPhone to be the latest in an increasingly tedious string of ports of the original game. But it ain't no such thing. Doom Resurrection on the iPhone is a completely new game developed exclusively for iPhone and iPod touch by iD software. It's £5.99 and we've been smearing brain against wall all afternoon.
Remember the House of the Dead games? Y'know, the first-person shooters where your dude walks a pre-set path? Yeah, it's like that. Only to aim, you tilt the iPhone, and all other controls are displayed as virtual buttons on the screen. Oh, and instead of a house, it's Mars, and you're the last surviving Marine in a sea of Hellbeasts.
Those of you thinking, "Cripes, that sounds to me like the epitome of tedium," let us assure you: you're only partially correct. For the most part, iDoom, as we like to call it, is impressively playable, with some of the best graphics we've seen on an iPhone game to date.
There is a range of shooty-bangs on offer, numerous enemies to dismember, some Sega Mega Drive-esque text-on-the-screen cut-scenes and heaps of blood and brain to get plastered in. And most of the time it performs well, although we noticed on several occasions that dropped frames caused the game to stutter. Maybe it'll be even better on the iPhone 3GS (ours was running on an iPhone 3G).
It takes a little patience to get used to tilting the phone to position the crosshair over the thing you want to become dead, but as we say to all gun-wielding freaks: if at first it doesn't bleed, try, try, try again. Eventually, those limbs will fall, soaking you in mixture of satisfaction, blood and crippled organs.
And now you can take that pleasure on the bus and show the old woman next to you how you're so disturbed you have to carry a portable violence machine everywhere you go. The elderly are hilarious when they're running in fear. Go ahead, find an 'old' and scare it.
Doom Resurrection is available now in the iTunes Store for £5.99, and piles of screenshots are over the page. Look out for the guy whose stomach's falling out!