Bulldozer Inc

If Bob the Builder had his way, we'd all live in a happy world of talking lorries and have meaningful relationships with our cement mixers. Bob certainly has a good reason to have a fixed smile on his face: with the housing market more buoyant than a skinny-dipping balloon, the work of a builder is never done.

Even Bob though – despite his boost that he can fix just about anything from a leaking roof to Pilchard's tantrums – would be hard pushed to put right the chaos left by his colleagues in the bulldozing division, judging by the destruction on show here.

Bulldozer Inc takes wanton vandalism to a new level. In contrast to a game like Sim City, where you seek to build up a city, Bulldozer Inc is all about knocking things down in your titular vehicle – for points, glory, or just to let off some steam.

For those with a destructive persuasion, the constant stream of challenges can be pretty gratifying, in particular the Rampage mode where you annihilate as many buildings as possible within a time limit, whilst avoiding people whose sole purpose is to wander around for no apparent reason other than to get splattered by a bulldozer. (Ghosts start rising from beneath your tracks with disturbing frequency!)

As well as driving your industrial building-squasher with the zest of a monkey banging a miniature symbol, planting dynamite and collecting cash is all part of the action, too.

Back and forth, over building upon building, your only guide is a builder with the jaw of an Adonis, a Buzz Lightyear lookalike who is without question the star of the show. He'll aid your progress through the more difficult stages, and give you useful advice and tactical suggestions worth adhering to.

The levels themselves are simple but effective, and each will give you a few minutes of fun at the very least. The challenges keep on coming with a good amount of variety and innovation, and a rising difficulty level to boot.

Controlling the bulldozer is simple enough, thanks to the basic controls – the complexity comes with determining how fast you knock over each building. Too slow and it won't budge. Too fast and it's game over. That's where the challenge lies.

There are a few practical problems to Bulldozer Inc, such as not being able to see behind buildings thanks to the overhead, angled perspective, which is a pain when you can't see what – or more unfortunately who – is blocking you. But the main flaw rears its ugly head after far too little play, when the gameplay becomes as repetitive as a nagging housewife. (Er, or house husband – P.C. Ed).

The incessant nature of running over buildings that look like an IKEA shanty-town soon grates. It wouldn't keep a Duracell bunny satisfied, although it could be enough to keep an eight-year-old occupied. Unless they've had their E-numbers.

Like previous games of its ilk (the long lost and superior N64 title Blast Corp springs to mind), the developer of Bulldozer Inc has been caught napping. Ultimately, getting repeatedly smashed just leaves you with a headache.