Wall-E

Initial expectations weren’t high for this latest offering from THQ Wireless. Movie tie-in games for consoles are normally the result of rushed efforts of Biblical proportions, and are usually shockingly bad. Mobile phone versions are even worse — generic afterthoughts designed on a marketing man’s lunch break.

Yet the mobile tie-in to Wall-E, the new summer blockbuster from Pixar, is refreshingly different. Despite the dubious connotations that normally accompany any game based around a kid’s movie, this intriguing little platform puzzler is neither condescending nor chock full of cutesy graphics. Instead, you are presented with an intuitive 2D puzzle-based platformer akin to the halcyon days when game consoles were judged by how many "bits" they had.

Wall-E has the player ambling around a futuristic rubbish tip as a Short-Circuit look-alike, mashing, throwing and jumping over perfectly square blocks of rubbish in order to reach the goal of a rubber duck – or some such pointless item. It’s simple to get into, fun to play, and once you’re fully immersed, is surprisingly challenging.

Puzzle games are always well-suited to the mobile medium. As dull as it sounds to some, slowly planned strategy and logical thinking are far more practical on the minute, unresponsive number pads of mobile phones than the dextrous reflexes that action games crave. Yet even with Wall-E, as the player shifts boxes onto buttons in order to open doors and the like, it’s far too easy for one wrong shunt of waste to mean restarting the whole level. Frustrated groans of exasperation ensue.

As little Wall-E progresses he picks up new skills, such as jumping higher or being able to magnetise boxes of rubbish; these can then be used to find new objects in previously completed levels. Whether it’s either a cheap way of rehashing old levels or an innovative means of varying gameplay depends on your perspective, although it certainly increases the game's longevity, allowing gamers to pick and choose levels to postpone the moment they have to complete "that tricky bit".

Despite the minor flaws, this mildly addictive, challenging little puzzler is anything but a cheap movie cash-in, and one that’s guaranteed to enlighten many a dull coffee break.