For those who have never heard of the Doom franchise let e give you a brief over view.  Doom is about a space marine who, while investigating an accident in a research station on mars, happens upon an infestation of demons and he must fight through them till he ends up finding the heart of the problem, a gateway to hell itself.  Traditionally Doom has always been a first person shooter but this iPhopne/iPod Touch remake strays the course to become an on-rails shooter a la Time Crises or House of the Dead.

The controls in Doom Resurrection are well designed and very accessable. Tapping the upper right of the screen reloads, you’ve got ammo count in the top center, and your own health in the bottom center. The options menu also lets you invert the cursor controls if you prefer reversed tilting, and there’s a lefty flip for the fire and dodge buttons. With no sensitivity change, however, shooting at corners requires a bit too much of a tilt for my liking, though the game does a nice job of keeping most of the enemies out of the more extreme corners.

As most fans of the series would expect there is a variety of weapons strewn throughout the game. Some of these include an assult rifle, double barreled shotgun, plasma rifle, chainsaw and yes, the near famous BFG. Weapon selection is more than just an addition to visual flair though, as different weapons are more or less effective on different enemies. Health and ammo pickups are available throughout levels and are picked up by tapping on items directly.

As far as the overall presentation goes, Doom Resurrection is one of the better looking iPhone games, and a true benchmark as to what the iPhone can do. The enemy and character models blow most 3D games found on the iPhone out of the water, the lighting is very well done, and other than of some iffy blood textures Doom Resurrection is an incredibly good looking game. There’s also a pretty nice amount of enemy variation throughout the game and each has their own gimmick to them. Commando zombies require you to take cover, the fat zombies can grab you and require that you shake your device in order to escape, some enemies will fire projectiles and have you constantly dodging, and the Forgotten and Maggots do a lot of rush attacks. There’s even a pretty awesome battle with onrushing pink demons and a chainsaw you just found.

On the audio side things are kept pretty creepy and well produced, though you won’t get music for many portions of the game and voiceover work is exclusive to the game’s intro. Still, with assets taken and scaled from Doom 3 it’s at least obvious where your higher price tag ($9.99) is coming from. I’ll repeat myself, this is a great looking iPhone game.

While I had a blast playing Doom Resurrection I was left with the feeling that I should be getting more in order to warrent the premium price tag. While eight levels at about 15 minutes each is still a nice amount of content, and you can always go back and play through each stage on harder difficulties to extend play. There are no leaderboards for top scores though, so you’re basically getting a couple hours of play (two to three for most) for $10. There are deeper games out there in the premium price bracket, but if you have your heart set on Resurrection either spring for the game now or hang tight for a price drop. It’s a great game, I’m a fan of the on-rails design, and it’s visually stunning for iPhone. It might just be a bit too costly for most impulse buyers.

Flamming heads are always annoying.

Who's a good doggy?

The cinamatics are jaw dropping compared to most other iPhone offerings

Told you the blood effects were shoddy.