Hands on with Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ on DS

The big bad wolf shouldn't be the only one scared of Little Red Riding Hood. From sweet, innocent girl to crimson vixen cocking a shotgun, something happened on the way to grandma's house. Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ grills up meaty action and lathers it with funny sauce for a one-of-a-kind handheld experience. Even if it's supremely basic, we can't help but love donning the red cloak.

Dressed in her fashionable red cloak and carrying a woven basket, Little Red Riding Hood's well-known traipse through the forest to her grandmother's house turns deadly wrong when zombies initiate an attack. All of fantasyland has come under siege. Shedding her cloak to reveal a saucy number underneath and ditching the basket for a shotgun, Little Red Riding Hood is aiming to ride something: zombie carcasses all the way to her grandmother's home.

The game gives you a choice between playing as the titular gal or a male companion, which seems an obvious choice to us. Taking control of Little Red Riding Hood involves using the D-pad to move and the stylus to target enemies with your various guns. You can only move left and right along the bottom of the touchscreen since you're automatically moved forward through each stage. Enemies stream down both screens as you slowly move forward. Naturally, this creates quite the challenge because you have to blast back foes before they run into you.

Fortunately, you have more than enough firepower at your disposal. This little girl is packing some serious heat with over two dozen different weapons, including a machine gun, laser rifle, shotgun, and bombs. There's even a flamethrower for fricasseeing zombies.

Zombies come in all shapes, sizes, and flavours, so utilizing your weapons is key in killing them all. Stomping through a cemetery saw a barrage of undead that required switching from flamethrower to dispatch enemies at close range to our machine gun capable of firing shots all the way through the top screen. Knowing how to best apply your weaponry makes boss battles much easier, too. Knocking on Pinocchio's wood meant avoiding his rolling head attack and spraying him with as many bullets as possible.

Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ has an arcade feel to it and we like it. It's hard to deny the simple structure, but that lends the game appeal as much as it limits its depth. On DS, the game works well because of the straightforward nature of its design. Here's something to pick up and play, and you'd know exactly what do in moments. Granted, the game is pretty challenging, so successful frying foes takes talent.

Simple, funny, and fun – key elements for a great game and Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ has them all. We'd be keen to see some sort of multiplayer, particularly a cooperative mode; however, the single-player game looks satisfying on its own merits. Enjoy Up promises to fire up the grill this autumn.