Tom and Jerry Pinball Pursuit

It's open to question whether Tom and Jerry still attracts actual kids, or if it's rather a brand for adults remembering how ace cartoons were when they were children. There's a fine line there, and one that's important in influencing what kind of mobile games are released based on the duelling critters.

Publisher Glu has tended to take the first option with its previous Tom and Jerry games, pitching them as easy, accessible games that children will love. On one level it's a logical decision, but it's also one that rules out the possibility of a truly authentic (by which we mean violent) action-adventure featuring anvils, fire, giant mallets and so on. The original cartoons aren't that far removed from Itchy & Scratchy, y'know.

Anyway, Tom and Jerry Pinball Pursuit isn't that murderous game. As you may have guessed, it's a pinball game, with said cat and mouse shoehorned into the gameplay. Jerry comes off worse: he's the ball. We're not sure how Tom swung that one.

The action takes place on three colourful pinball tables, each based on a different room of Tom and Jerry's house. The Kitchen table is replete with fried eggs, bacon and cheese, for example, while the Dining Room table is all about the bagels and coffee. Meanwhile, the Garden table has plants, flowers and general greenery as the backdrop.

The variation is about their graphical style, more than the features on the table. However, each table has a mini-game that you can play to ramp up your score even further. They're nothing amazing, but offer a neat variation on the basic gameplay to keep your interest up.

As you'd expect, as you wang Jerry around the table using '4' and '6' to control left and right flippers there's an array of bonuses and multipliers to pick up, many of which are food-related. The cartoony graphics are just what you'd expect from a Tom and Jerry game, getting across the spirit of the original cartoons.

The problem with Tom and Jerry Pinball Pursuit, though, is that on the one hand the gameplay feels limited, and on the other it's a bit too hard.

Yes, we make the latter point with full knowledge that the kids who'll make up its predominant audience are probably four times more proficient with keypad-mashing than we are. Nevertheless, the ball disappears down between the two bottom flippers far more often than we'd like, making the game more frustrating than rival mobile pinball titles.

As for that limited gameplay, having three tables is good, compared to the single tables found in some rivals. But each doesn't play radically differently, so while it's fun to play through them and focus on your ever-mounting score, in the long-term the thrill quickly wears off.

Tom and Jerry Pinball Pursuit does a lot of things right in terms of looking the part. But even with three tables to play on, it's a bit too limited and a bit too tough to truly satisfy T&J fans, whatever their age.