Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ is a vertical shooter that uses touch screen controls to shoot and dodge incoming enemies. You control either Little Red Riding Hood, who totes a machine gun, much like B.B. Hood from Darkstalkers, or her friend Momotaro, a Japanese folk hero who shoots ninja stars out of a gun... Yeah, it is as awesome as it sounds.
Enemies attack from the top of the screen and you mow them down with bullets by holding the stylus in the direction you want to shoot. You reload by lifting the stylus from the screen and pressing it back down. There is also a grenade launcher that has limited use and can be fired by quickly double tapping the screen. Your character can move horizontally across the bottom of the screen between seven positions. Your enemies will attack from the top of the screen and you can either use the d-pad to move left or right to an adjacent square, or you can tap any square to quickly move to it in order to dodge attacks. You can also duck under some attacks by tapping your character.
Enemies vary between slow shuffling zombies, head tossing ghouls, huge rotting monsters that explode into a shower of corrosive goo, and evil toy soldiers that fire continuous lasers. There are explosive barrels and crates full of power-ups to help you fight the zombie hordes. Power-ups include flamethrowers, shotguns, which have short range but pack a huge punch, and lasers that rip through enemies to hit any that may be behind them.
The boss battles are by far the best part of the game, and include battles against Red Riding Hood's possessed grandma, a gigantic zombified Gretel, of Hansel and Gretel fame, and a giant evil Pinocchio who throws his head at you. These battles involve a lot of strategy, and you have to get the bosses' complex patterns down right in order to avoid being demolished.
The graphics are really fun and remind me of the old Neo-Geo and Capcom shooters, but with some enemies rendered in 3D, and with 3D rendered backgrounds. The enemies are big and colorful, and help to increase the overall fun factor of the game.
I personally had a lot of fun with this game. If you like retro styled vertical shooters such as the old G.I. Joe arcade game, or if you are just a fan of zombies in general, you need to give this game a shot. It is a fun little game that doesn't fail to entertain.
