Undead: The Last Refuge

They’re ugly, stupid, and their movement is rather stilted at the best of times, but a lot of people seem to be interested in them at the moment.

No, we’re not talking about the England football team.

Zombies have appeared in some truly excellent iPhone games over the past year or so. From Plants vs Zombies to Zombie Infection and Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies, people seem to love getting touchy-feely with the undead.

Undead: The Last Refuge takes more than a few cues from the latter on that list - in fact, if I was being as merciless and unfeeling as a brain muncher, I'd call it Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies Lite.

The premise is practically the same, just in a more contemporary setting. You defend a dilapidated house against increasingly intense waves of zombies.

Their singular goal is to break through the flimsy shutters that block each window and shuffle towards you. To defend against this you have a small arsenal of firearms, starting with a pistol and working your way up as you gain cash (these zombies must have been investment bankers before they turned, as their pockets are lined with cash).

It carries similar controls to Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies. One minor difference is that while you move around using a familiar virtual analogue stick on the left and aim using your right thumb, the fire button is unalterably located next to you left thumb.

This means that you can’t comfortably move and shoot from the hip at the same time, calling to mind the more considered stop-start pace of Resident Evil 4.

Unfortunately, these controls aren’t as solid as they should be. Movement feels laboured and at times you’d think you were a zombie yourself. The aiming, too, is curiously hit and miss. You frequently score headshots you could have sworn you missed and vice-versa.

A combination of the two makes things a little more frustrating than they should be when you’re surrounded by multiple zombies.

When you’re managing targets at a distance, though, the nature of the controls makes the game less of a frantic run-and-gunner and more an absorbingly strategic crowd-management game. It becomes a matter of moving around to assess the location and proximity of each target before carefully choosing where the fight should occur, then calmly stopping, aiming, and finally shooting.

It has to be said that Undead looks handsome. Well, as handsome as a game about zombies set in a dank house can look. The sprites are chunky, the textures detailed, and the tone is suitably schlocky.

Having said that, the game doesn’t always run as smoothly as hoped – at least not on my second generation iPod touch. It’s never less than playable, but in a slick action title such as this you really notice every little stutter and pause in the action.

It’s also disappointing to see the lack of multiplayer. It’s a curious omission given that co-operative play was a highlight of the competition.

This contrast could be explained away by the difference in price at the time of publishing – Undead is $2.99/£1.79 to Call of Duty’s $9.99/£5.99 - but that doesn’t justify the total lack of any online high score facilities. It’s a considerable oversight in any major iPhone release nowadays, let alone a game this focused on such achievements.

On its own terms, Undead: The Last Refuge is a solid and attractive high-score chasing blaster. Unfortunately, however, it lacks the major online elements of its main rival, and ultimately comes a distant second to Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies.