Resident Evil: Deadly Silence (Nintendo DS)

RESIDENT EVIL: DEADLY SILENCE, a remake of a PlayStation title, is the first Mature-rated game for Nintendo's DS system. An elite police squad is sent to a seemingly abandoned mansion to investigate the disappearance of other members of the team. Before long, the team is blasting zombies, demon dogs, spiders, crows, giant snakes, and a variety of other mutant monsters as they piece together a story of secret experiments gone horribly wrong.

On DS, the action plays out on the touch screen and the upper screen displays a map. A new "Rebirth" mode puts the features of the DS to use: Players solve puzzles using the system's touch-screen and microphone. They also engage in some fun first-person battles in which they must knife monsters to death with swipes of the stylus. (Players can also play a "Classic" mode, which is very close to the PlayStation original, without touch-screen interaction.)

The zombie killing action gets intense and exciting at times, but this version only half-heartedly updates the 10-year-old gameplay and lacks the truly creepy atmosphere of newer installments. At its heart, this version is like the original. It's still one lightly armed cop against an army of mutants -- and beasts could be lurking around any corner. The violence is still intense: Players blow off zombie heads with guns, incinerate mutants with flame grenades, knife sharks to death, etc.

Players also run into familiar frustrations, such as clunky controls and odd camera angles. Nevertheless, there is a reason the Resident Evil series is legendary, and mature fans of the original will probably enjoy the remake.