Chicks'n'Vixens

You can play it on iPhone. You can have a crack at it on Android.

It's made an appearance on Mac, Symbian, Chrome, PSP, PS3, and - if you're one for intentionally spurious and decidedly dodgy rumours - there are even plans to install it on several hundred HSBC cash points up and down the land.

The one place where you can't yet play Angry Birds, however, is on Windows Phone 7.

That's about to change, but the imminent port didn't stop one developer working on a physics flinger when discussions to bring Angry Birds across to WP7 reportedly stalled.

The result is Chicks'n'Vixens.

It's worth acknowledging from the off that from its menu screens right through to the animations that depict the chick carnage, Chicks'n'Vixens is every bit the amateur production.

Squint your eyes and you could mistake some of the levels for Angry Birds cast-offs. A searing slight, you might think, but Chicks'n'Vixens is happy to play the role of an Angry Birds substitute.

Birds – albeit bright yellow chickens, in this case – are, yet again, the weapons of choice, though this time you fire them out of a cannon rather than flinging them from a catapult.

Your input, however, remains the same. Pulling your finger back from the cannon increases the force behind your effort, while moving up and down changes the angle of your shot.

It's in the design of the supposedly flimsy fox-built fortresses and the way in which they react to the chicks pelted at them that the cracks begin to show.

It's hard to pin down just what's askew, but the physics in Chicks'n'Vixens don't always appear to be authentic.

Sometimes what appear to be perfectly good shots simply bounce straight back off some of the more durable surfaces in a way that verges on the unfair.

Things are further complicated by level design that strays too far - for noble reasons no doubt - from the Angry Birds formula, with the vixens themselves often bounding around rather than standing still and waiting for your attack, making a lottery of proceedings.

But Chicks'n'Vixens isn't Angry Birds, and anyone expecting an identical experience will feel more than a little short changed.

If you're not after an Angry Birds clone - if you've never played or even heard of Angry Birds, you couldn't care less what games do or do not resemble it, and you frankly wish we'd stop bringing it up - then you can download Chicks'n'Vixens with some confidence. As a dip-in casual experience, it's perfectly fine.

It's just no Angry Birds.