Mastermind

Before you start sharpening up your knowledge of your all-time favourite geeky obsessions, we should make it clear that this game is not, in fact, a mobile version of the classic television show of the same name, but rather the equally classic boardgame. So, put away any hopes of hearing a digitised version of John Humphrys's sarky tones piping out of your handset.

However, Mastermind does offer a faithful recreation of the boardgame. It sees you trying to decode a specific series of four objects, starting off with different coloured balls.

This begins as pure trial and error, but once you get one of the objects right – even if it's not in the right position – a white chip appears to the right of the screen, while a red chip means that you've both the colour and position right for one of the objects.

This may seem simple, but when you're dealing with a number of different colours ranging into the double figures, it's anything but. You can review your previous attempts at cracking the series, so doing well in Mastermind is more about careful and considered extrapolation than one-thumb button-mashing.

You'll soon tire of coloured balls, though, and the main Tournament game mode enables you to unlock different families of objects to match, including the no-brainer choice of some cute animal heads. Obviously, switching objects doesn't affect the gameplay in any dramatic way, but it at least ushers away the visual stagnancy that may otherwise have crept in.

It's tough to comment much further on the gameplay, because there are no particularly significant deviations from the classic formula of the boardgame. Just as one person's passion is another's pest, you'll either find Mastermind an intriguing challenge or an exercise in frustration.

For our part, we skittered between the two, cursing the game's sheer bloody mindedness and revelling in the genius that success in Mastermind suggests within the space of a button fiddle or two.

However, more could have been done to make the game accessible for the average gamer not used to whiling away the hours with code-breaking manuals. Apart from the various object themes, there aren't any unlockable elements or achievements to will you onwards. Even if it was just the occasional pop-up telling you that you'd just broken into new levels of intellectual awesomeness (or something similarly ego-friendly), they'd certainly come in handy for boosting motivation.

They'd fit in well with the game's overall quality, too. Although visually fairly simple, Mastermind is constructed with a solidity that suggests hands that know well the various sensual curves of a mobile game. Paring things down to their essentials often demonstrates an assured confidence, but Mastermind could do with a few flimsy and fluffy additions to lighten the load of the mental anguish the gameplay induces.

Fans already familiar with the style of game on offer here shouldn't hesitate: Mastermind is well made and occasionally very rewarding. For the casual crowd, though, the sheer mental vigour it demands will be a turn off, and we can't help but feel this could have been helped without insulting the IQ crowd gagging for a title like this – the John Humphrys and Magnus Magnussons of the world.