Scream 4 gameplay for iphone 4

The Weinstein Company owns a lot of lucrative properties. Like many other companies who've come before them, they realized that these franchises could be developed into other forms of entertainment. Previously, though, the investment to get into doing so was considerable, often resulting in awful, expensive games that suckers ended up buying and taking home to their consoles and then raging about as they realized they'd been had.

Weinstein hopes to avoid this trend by focusing on the wireless market. The goal? Make small, downloadable games that can back up their properties, and can be made by established developers who know how to develop quality titles. Next week, coinciding with the April 14th release of the Scream 4 film, iPhone and iPad owners will be able to get in some kills themselves with Scream 4 for iOS.

It's a great idea, and a potentially lucrative promotional tool for the film, but I'm not sure their first attempt is all that fun. The crux of Scream 4 iOS is this: you play as the infamous killer, guiding them from above through a small environment where you try and kill all the people in the map without being stopped. To kill people, you simply drag or tap on them, watching as the killer runs up to them. Once he's in proximity, a knife appears on screen and you have to drag it in the indicated direction across the screen. 

It works, and it's easy to pick up and play, but the levels I played were kind of repetitive (despite being only a few minutes long). Additional points are awarded based on how you kill the victims -- killing the "jock" and the "cheerleader" one after the other is a bonus, for instance -- but the kills were all the same. You never hang someone up for someone else to find, catch someone in a garage door, or do any of the other more gruesome and recognizable kills from the films. You simply walk up, slash, then they fall down dead and you hide from a cop. It feels like a rush job to coincide with the film's release, rather than a thoughtful game that takes advantage of the themes and imagery that made the films so famous. It might not be as expensive as the licensed games we've all been suckered into buying before, but Scream 4 isn't that much of a departure from what you'd expect so far. 

Scream has always been about spoofing other horror movies, or taking advantage of the themes they've developed, but the only place where Scream 4 iOS really does this is in the achievements. Almost every achievement is named after a video game, with such zingers as "Dead Spaces." I appreciate the effort, but it's another weird choice. I mean, how many iOS owners are going to get the video game puns? Are the iOS users all gamers, or are they more interested in picking this up because they love the films? I just can't figure out exactly who the intended audience of the game is supposed to be at this point. 

Scream 4 iOS releases next week with four levels and more "on the way." If it starts at the 99 cent price that they think it will it might be worth checking out, but for now I'm just not sold. If nothing else, though, I'm excited to see how The Weinstein Company uses the mobile marketplace to its advantage. Who says the games have to be limited to the movies that are coming out in the future? This is the company that owns properties like Rambo, The Fighter, and Inglorious Basterds, after all. .


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