It's a review, kinda thingy mabob!

So you find yourself owning an iPhone, interested in playing some games on it but you want something with a little more depth than the Popcap style games. I’m sure if I owned an iPhone and was determined to game on it, this is where I would find myself.
Playing around with a friend’s iPhone the other week, I found a surprising solution to this dilemma in the form of ‘Resident Evil: Degeneration’. Firstly let me state that I am a huge Resident Evil fan, the name stamped on a product usually piquing my interest but the overall quality being the final card of my judgement on whether it’s good or not, Resident Evil branding or not. That said; let’s get on with this review!
I had heard about a RE: Degeneration game for phones before, but this was a static game where you just timed shots with a button press while aiming the reticule about the screen. Definitely not a game I’d pay money for, but when I saw screens of this new RE I was actually quite excited.

Degeneration is a game based loosely on the CGI film of the same name. Gameplay closely resembles that of Resident Evil 4 with players controlling protagonist Leon S Kennedy around the airport environment of the film, generally killing zombies and completing mission objective to save people and contain the viral outbreak to the Airport. Narrative wise it strays a little from the film, but it’s a fun game so I can forgive that. Graphically the game is watered down quite significantly, but it’s a 3D mobile phone game so in that respect the graphics are incredibly impressive. The areas are all relatively populated with objects and the textures, while low in resolution have a fair amount of detail, giving a consistent overall appearance of the airport.

The controls are the original RE “tank control” forcing players to turn on the spot which might put some players off, but the control scheme itself isn’t what bothered me. Players control Leon using a semi transparent on screen analogue stick. While this can be troublesome at times as the lack of a physical stick detracts any form of resistance often leading to your thumb slipping half way across the screen, but it works and works well enough to make this game more than playable. Should you find your thumb slip off the area on screen the analogue stick resides, Leon will continue to move around allowing you to slide your thumb back into place without losing your general direction of movement. To aim you click a button on screen to enter the aiming mode before tweaking your laser sight to the enemies with the analogue stick once again, the same enter aiming mode button removing you from it. There is a mild auto aim system to aid this as well, getting the laser sight to around about the correct place and it will then home in if you hold your shots off for a few seconds.

There is another button on the HUD to quick swap to the knife for breaking creates in my play through and a QTE style button appearing when attacked by an enemy to shake them off. Players can also shake off an attack by shaking the iPhone but I preferred to mash the button to save having to adjust my hands repeatedly. Reloading is also accomplished by a quick shake but that’s more of a flick of the wrist than manic shaking to remove a zombie from Leon’s neck.
The game is quite easy gameplay wise, the enemies being quite slow most of the time and taking few shots from the pistol, let alone other guns which can be upgraded via money you collect from downed enemies. The enemies are scarcely varied in type with a few boss fights with Tyrants, zombie dogs and a variety of zombies, ranging in appearance only for the most part, but there is enough there to keep you slugging them down to then and go find more.

I can’t say much for the narrative nor the in game script as it’s cheesy as the older RE games in that respect, but it does enough to drive you from one location to another while giving you puzzles to overcome in-between.
The final boss is only killable through a puzzle itself but that comes down to pressing some buttons and sitting back to watch the ending cut scene.

Overall this is a simple and very fun game to play during short journeys, giving you the fun of a modern Resi game in your pocket while boasting some impressive visuals for the mobile gaming market. I personally thought it was amazing from the graphical standpoint alone but the game had me hooked enough to play through it all the way while repeatedly commenting “This makes me want an iPhone”.

If you have a few spare quid and the means to play this game, and the want to shoot zombies in the face repeatedly, GET THIS GAME!

Greg