Suspect in Sight!

When you play as a cop in a video game, you generally belong to the hard-bitten, gun-toting, shoot-first-and-ask-questions-tomorrow-morning tradition of law enforcement.

In Suspect in Sight!, you're cast instead as a fanatically dedicated helicopter officer, determined to chase down the scum of the city and have them arrested in the proper manner. Or at least have them driven into by other officers.

You control your helicopter either by titling your iOS device or by using a floating joystick. Both methods work reasonably well, with the extra precision of the joystick balanced out by the challenge presented by the tilt controls.

The chopper hovers at a set height, and you need to weave between buildings, following the blips on your radar to find the glowing red suspect cars. Once you've caught one in your spotlight, the chase is on.

You need to keep the car in the beam for long enough for a patrol car to ram it into submission. If the suspect slips away, even for a second, the cops in the car will lose track of it.

A timer ticks down at the top of the screen, and you need to clear all the blips on your radar before it finishes to unlock the next set of wrongdoers.

The arcade style of play makes for some pretty frantic chases, as you try desperately to snag one last criminal before the clock hits zero.

The problem is, the game can't quite sustain that level of intrigue over multiple plays. It drips you speed boosts and new helicopters too slowly, leaving you slogging around in the early levels for way too long.

New styles of play are unlocked, but none of them is likely to hold your attention for long, and grinding the same waves over and over again in the main game to gain the XP you need to unlock new levels just isn't that much fun.

It's a shame, because Suspect in Sight! shows some real promise, but the eventual rewards for your gargantuan effort just aren't worth it.