Genre: First-Person Shooter
Developer: MADFINGER Games
Publisher: MADFINGER Games

Running on its highest detail setting on a powerful phone, Unkilled looks more impressive than most Wii U titles; real-time dynamic shadows, shaders galore, and incredible texture filtering are matched by the superb urban setting designs. Unfortunately, everything about the overall art direction is painfully rote-- the last thing the world needed was another zombie game with police cars and screaming women.

Other than the grating theme and menu song, there isn't much in the way of music in Unkilled. Characters throw out one-liners during gameplay, but the desired humor just doesn't come off like it does in other shooters, such as the amazing "Rise of the Triad" remake. There are a plethora of gun sounds, but in general the audio in the title is meant more to overwhelm, rather than finesse a kind of character or personality.

Unkilled supports HID gamepads, but happens to also be one of the rare mobile titles where the touch controls are so good as to be superior to a controller. The game's stages are absolutely miniscule, taking less than two minutes each to complete. There isn't much in the way of level design-- the player generally just stands in a room and fends off zombies from all directions. There is an "Arcanox"-like "invade other people's fortresses for gold" mode, but there is no actual gameplay behind it-- merely menus.

Unkilled has some outstanding art work, an impressive engine, and fun core shooting mechanics-- all of which could have been used to create a real first-person shooter, with actual levels and sophisticated gameplay. Instead, its designers created a cheesy icon with a sniper rifle and an American flag in the background, then slapped that on top of a run-of-the-mill, Skinner box, "stamina"-driven, freemium currency grind fest. As is usually the case with modern mobile titles, so much creative potential squandered...