Block'd

If EA's press materials are to be believed, Block'd is an 'innovative' puzzle game. As you can guess from the title, it's also a puzzle game involving brightly coloured bricks, meaning it joins perhaps the most overcrowded, innovation-starved genre of all time.

This time around, rather than dealing with squares falling in formation or tiles rising in lines, the latest contender for Tetris's tarnished old crown presents you with a rectangular grid already full to the brim with boldly colourful blocks. With a click of your numeric pad's Select button you can make highlighted groups of blocks of the same colour disappear, causing the ones above them to fall into new positions.

Working your way through the entire pile, doing your best to bring separated blocks of the same colour together until you've cleared as much of the playing area as possible, you repeat the same process over and over.

Two main modes are available, with the crueller of the two making for the better challenge. The Speed Trial, which is sometimes rather hard, gives you fairly tight time limits in which to achieve certain scores. Alternatively, Marathon mode deducts points from a given total for each block left uncleared at the end of the level – lose all of those points and it's game over.

While the presentation and gameplay in Block'd is perfectly respectable, the idea itself is so hackneyed it would, if we weren't so familiar with Tetris clones, defy belief. With regard to originality, scope and depth, this release is more like a flash game, or something you might find bundled in with a middling PC.

However, in Block'd's defence, it is very playable, particularly addictive, and hugely easy to get to grips with. It also juggles clear, functional design with a noticeably stylish visual flair, and features a relatively well-considered soundtrack. The controls, while basic, are utterly flawless on even the most fiddly handsets, and as a temporary distraction from the monotony of a waiting room this is ideal fodder.

Like any classic block puzzler, a deceptively simple rule book hides numerous strategies and tricks that the player can pull to maximise score, yet like so many before it, Block'd is repetitive. So, if you've had a long break from the genre or if you're a particularly ardent fan, there are far worse examples available, but be aware Block'd offers little new of any worth.