Resident Evil: Degeneration

Resident Evil: Degeneration tied in with the animated film of the same name, and Capcom released it in 2008 as a mobile survival horror for Java and Symbian phones. Instead of the smooth 3D horror of the consoles, the game offered sparse, blocky graphics and simple environments, but still tried to maintain the tension and scarcity of resources the series has been known for since its very first entries on PlayStation.

Controls relied on directional buttons for movement and one or two keys for shooting and interacting with the environment, similar to other action titles of that phone generation. The game worked with limited ammo and health, so the player had to think through every encounter with the zombie enemies — exactly the kind of pressure Resident Evil has built on from its beginnings. Story-wise, the game tied into the film's plot and added side situations that didn't fit into the movie itself, which was appreciated especially by viewers who knew the film and wanted to see events from another angle. The airport setting and enclosed corridors also suited the limited capabilities of the displays of the time well, since fear could be built more on sound and lack of information than on elaborate graphics.

It was a paid title distributed through carrier and Java stores without ads or microtransactions. Today the game is unavailable — the portals through which it was sold are long gone along with the decline of feature phones from the market, so only an archive or Java ME emulation remains.

Why play it: For Resident Evil fans who want to see how the horror atmosphere adapted to a feature phone — though today only as an emulated memory with no official availability.