Sexy Blocks: Cancun Vibes

At last, a game that's perfect for anyone who likes to spend their evenings manipulating their thumbs and giving their right hands a good workout. Playing mobile games, we mean. Tsk.

Gameloft could easily be accused of taking the 'sex sells' route with Sexy Blocks: Cancun Vibes, given that it's basically just Breakout with added babes.

However, the basic game of bat-and-ball at the heart of this title is in fine fettle, which gives the publisher a robust defence to accusations that it's simply bolted a half-hearted clone game onto a collection of naked ladies in the hope of generating more downloads.

As ever, the idea is to destroy blocks laid out above by directing a ball at them via a movable platform, with the ball bouncing off the sides or indestructible obstacles. Control is simplicity itself: with the use of the thumbstick or, if you prefer, the '4', '5' and '6' buttons, you move the thruster-powered platform from left to right along the bottom of the screen.

Some blocks need more than one hit to disappear, while others relinquish a number of different power-ups, such as multi-balls, boosts that increase the size of your bat (no pun intended), magnetic balls, and a shield that fires a laser stream behind you that acts as a temporary safety net.

The game is split between four locations, Hotel Paradiso, Ruinas Del Rey, Downtown Disco and El Debarcadero – all divided into ten levels.

Finally, to put the 'sexy' into Sexy Blocks, each location has a specific hottie who spurs you on with words of encouragement as you try to impress her.

Your inital task is to expose the girl (at first you can see only her silhouette) by collecting a falling question mark.

From then on, each vixen sets you challenges such as completing a section by collecting a set amount of money that falls from the blocks, or without losing a life, or within a set timeframe, or by managing to grab all the available power-ups that fall your way. Fail to do any of these challenges and the girl will be unimpressed, which means you won't see her next seductive pose, even if you clear all the blocks on the level.

There are also levels that require you to catch items of clothing; grabbing these means the girls will strip off. Collecting all the falling apparel over the 10-levels will reward you with a naked lady. (It's never worked for us in real-life, but then developer Gameloft is French. They have a way with women.)

When you've completed a location, you've a chance to buy each of five images of the girl to add to the gallery, which you can ogle at whenever it takes your fancy.

Sexy Blocks also boasts a well-tuned difficulty level, with the third and penultimate locations really separating the men from the boys in terms of the jump in difficulty. At the end of each world there are bosses to battle too, who are well designed and fairly challenging. Positioning and timing become essential.

The graphics are what you would expect from this type of game: nothing groundbreaking, but smooth, clear and colourful enough. The all-important images of the girls are impressive, and the audio is of a good standard, with quality sound effects and music.

Look, we're all fully grown men at Pocket Gamer (just look at our high-flying careers playing games! Erm...). Yet, somewhat embarrassingly, we found the incentive of undressing virtual girls pretty hard to resist. Truth is, it does add ramp up the addictiveness of what's already a well-made (if by-the-numbers) bat-and-ball game.

Sexy Blocks is an addictive and good looking (quite literally) effort that will be a welcome addition to your phone's game menu. You may want to check it out before little Tommy gets his hands on it, however. Or your other half, for that matter.