Basketball Dunkadelic

If you're going to call a basketball game 'dunkadelic', you should really include some dunking in it.

Oddly, Basketball Dunkadelic features none. No alley-oops, no kiss the rims, no Tomahawks. Nothing.

Instead, the game challenges you to land a series of shots from set positions and, true to the sport, the more that go in the net, the better.

Let's get two things clear: Basketball Dunkadelic looks good and feels right. Powered by the Unity graphics engine, it boasts physics that accurately replicate the way balls bounce around the hoop, and its three game environments are well drawn and sharp.

There are three modes of play: Timed mode, which gives you 45 seconds to sink as many shots as possible (with power-ups to help), 25 Shots mode, which is self-explanatory, and Has Bins, which is not.

Has Bins task you with knocking over litter bins before they mysteriously explode. I suspect the developer dreamed up the mode's title, then tried to figure out what it might involve.

Whichever mode you choose, the basic mechanic remains the same: you shoot the ball by swiping your finger up the touchscreen. The point at which you release controls the height and power, whilst the direction of the swipe determines the trajectory of your attempt.

On the easier levels, a meter appears on the left-hand side of the screen to help you find the sweet spot, but this vanishes if you ramp up the difficulty.

Despite Basketball Dunkadelic being simple and fun, there's only so long any player can throw a leather sphere at a net - no matter how good looking a game is - before he inevitably hits the home button in search of a fresh diversion.

With just three pretty similar modes to get to grips with, you'd hope for some online high-score competition to keep you coming back.

Bafflingly, high scores are only saved locally, meaning there's no incentive to step away from home court and beat complete strangers over the air.

Basketball Dunkadelic is an okay game as far as it goes, which, unfortunately, just isn't very far. Without an online leaderboard to shoot up, you’ll have seen everything the game has to offer within minutes.