Zombies in Space

I'm actually starting to feel sorry for zombies. Our peculiar fixation with the ambulating deceased has generated a seemingly never-ending procession of zombie-themed games.

This generation is so well-versed in the art of dispatching deadites (aim for the head, destroy the brain) that when the zombie apocalypse does come the poor buggers won't stand a chance.

In the case of Zombies in Space, the undead have decided that hunting their living human counterparts is too risky, and so they're roaming the universe preying on alien flesh.

Cast as a squiggly green space monster - the kind that gamers like myself have been conditioned to blast on sight - you have to utilise an arsenal of advanced weaponry to fend off waves of brain-eating nasties.

The whole game plays out in a single 2D corridor. You can move your alien left or right using your phone's navigation nub or face keys. Before you begin, you're be presented with a choice of five randomly generated missions, ranging from kill count and survival challenges to collecting a specific number of power orbs.

These orbs charge your alien's various attacks, with the colour of the sphere denoting which attacks it fuels. For example, red spheres charge a ball-rolling attack that knocks oncoming zombies down like decaying bowling pins.

The green orb, meanwhile, fuels an attack that sees your alien avatar plunging his tentacles into the floor, killing nearby aggressors from below.

The problem is, once you've gained enough currency to afford ammo and upgrades for these weapons the game becomes astonishingly easy and extremely repetitive.

Your first few goes will see you lashing out frantically with a puny short-range melee attack, wondering how you can possibly be expected to survive such a merciless onslaught

However, as soon as you uncover the upgrade system (which is mentioned nowhere in the Help menu, incidentally) and charge up your area effect one-hit-kill tentacle attack you might as well be invincible.

From that point on, every mission, regardless of the intended objective, amounts to walking right across an unbroken, single-tiered platform and effortlessly insta-killing everything in your path.

Although the discovery of these unbeatable attacks generates a few moments of power-crazed mirth, the tedium of omnipotence soon sucks any fun out of this shallow and ill-considered game.