Alien Hominid: Redialled

You have to feel sorry for these friendly alien types. They come in peace, asking for nothing more than a warm welcome and a cultural exchange, only to be blasted out of the sky by The Man.

The original flash game (subsequently ported to a number of consoles) Alien Hominid set just such a premise, with our titular yellow extra terrestrial reeking madcap revenge on his would-be captors in a charming 2D blaster. Alien Hominid: Redialled takes the same protagonist, universe and presentation and wraps it around a mobile-friendly selection of mini-games.

We should applaud from the start the level of thought that has evidently been put into the game from its conception onwards. Its bite-sized chunks of gameplay are perfectly at home on your wee mobile. Kudos also to Tuna Mobile for laying on such wonderful visuals. The highly stylised comic book universe has been brought to the small screen with some panache, throwing vibrant colours and brilliantly chunky sprites around with evident relish.

The mini-games themselves are suitably simple and, for the most part, pretty fun to play. With one or two notable exceptions, they'll have you repeatedly returning for a quick go as you try and best your previous high scores.

Cannon Ball, for example, sees you firing the Hominid from a tank's cannon and trying to sustain his momentum for as long as possible across a busy street. A single click of the thumbstick will set the cannons angle and fire. Subsequent presses timed just before you hit an object will activate a personal force field, which basically turns the Hominid into a bouncy ball for a split second, thus extending his flight.

On offer from the start are two ways to play, Story and Arcade, each containing the same six mini-games. Play through the Story mode to unlock each of the games in Arcade, which itself allows you to play any of the games in isolation. As mentioned, there is significant replay value in the best of these games (Cannon Ball and Chickin' Lickin' in particular) as you constantly strive to top your performances.

Sadly, there is one glaring fault in the otherwise extremely polished Alien Hominid: Redialled package. Level four of Story mode, Stack 'em High, tasks you with piling up a bunch of fat kids until they're able to reach our alien chum, who's hovering just above the ground in his flying saucer.

While it's a perfectly reasonable premise, cannily reminiscent of Digital Chocolate's excellent Tower Bloxx series, the sudden increase in difficulty is just too great to ignore. Having cruised through the first three levels, you'll find yourself banging on this one's door over several long attempts before you crack it, which breaks the flow of what is otherwise an enjoyable casual title.

And yet, even given this major misstep, it's a testament to quality of the game that there's still plenty of throw-away fun to be had with Alien Hominid: Redialled. The just-one-more-go nature of several of the games, coupled with such knock-out presentation add up to a worthwhile, if flawed, experience.