As the world becomes more and more accustomed to sharing large amounts of personal information with the rest of the world (whether we like it or not) and cell phones become better equipped with more powerful hardware, incorporating location into software and social media is becoming more commonplace. It's also finding its way into games. Games filled with shambling zombies.

Introducing MobZombies, an iPhone game that sounds phenomenal in concept but struggles in execution. MobZombies uses the iPhone's GPS abilities to scan the area around you and utilizes the database of location-based social network FourSquare to identify specific locations, as well. Though this, I'm able to pull up the area right around the G4 offices (aka E! entertainment) and find out where the undead hordes are lurking. It doesn't take long to locate the menace.

If I'm close enough, the game lets engage the zombies. That's where MobZombies needs some serious work. iPhone games are based on touch, so it's crucial touch mechanics be extremely precise. They also need to be explained with a heavy hand, to ensure the user is fully aware of what their finger movements are capable of. MobZombies does a poor job of explaining its top-down combat and an even worse job of allowing you to implement it. I had no problem walking around the bland, procedurally-generated zombie lands, but actually turning my character around proved problematic.

There's two reasons for that. One, if you rely on touching the iPhone's screen to rotate your character's perpective, the game's reliably imprecise. If you rely on the iPhone's accelerometer to shift movement, you end up spinning around in a circle a bunch, which isn't very fun.

The "game" part of MobZombies doesn't work. It's not fun. Everything else about MobZombies, however, is pretty fantastic. It's a wonderful idea...in concept. The rest needs to catch up.

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