Left 4 Dead. On the iPhone. Without online play, just local Bluetooth. Also top-down. Also set in arenas.

It looks like this.


So, yes, it’s another top-down, twin-stick shooter. It’s a good one, though. The controls work nicely and each level has a main objective and a bonus objective. The first level tasks you with killing sixty zombies, the challenge is to kill them in less than three minutes. A few levels later and you have to rescue a survivor, the challenge being not to let any survivors die. The level after that asks you retrieve a briefcase with a vaccine in it, the challenge wants you to kill fifty zombies on the way. It mixes things up nicely, especially as survivors need to be protected as shuffle slowly to the safe zone and when carrying a briefcase you can only use your pistol, rather than your main gun.

There’s even an RPG-style levelling system, that lets you upgrade your character.


You also earn money for new weapons by completely levels and doing challenges gets you bonus equipment, like extra health or ammo. It’s a nice system that keeps you play and it all adds up to being one of the best shooters on the App Store, even in single-player. (I doubt I’ll ever be able to try the multiplayer mode.)

My only quibble right now – apart from the standard problem of your thumbs obscuring the bottom corners of the screen – is that you don’t seem to be able to see whether or not you’ve completed the challenge for a level when you’re selecting a level to play. That’s going to be annoying, I think.