Shards

Here's a game that splashes around in the deep end of the conundrum pool. Shards for the iPhone appears, at first glance, to fit the typical criteria for novelty puzzle games currently going down a storm with Apple's fancy handset. But it also lacks some intangible quality that gives the game purpose, coming across as rather confused about what its own point is.

That said, 'purpose' isn't generally a prominent feature when it comes to puzzle games. It may not bother some gamers that Shards's gameplay is rather aimless, but an aficionado of games like Tetris, Bejeweled or Sudoku is likely to suffer from the same sense of confusion that we have as to what the aim of Shards really is.

It does, at least, attempt to make specific and deliberate use of the iPhone's technical capabilities, which is an important factor in wringing the best from a particular platform. The accelerometer is used fully and with critical precision, imbuing Shards with a game of significant dexterity challenge, even if it's lacking in cerebral objectives.

A variety of playing fields are presented, made up of triangular sections. Various shapes, also made up of triangles, hover above the playing field and are moved around by carefully tipping the handset (as if playing one of those marble maze type games). Every few seconds, the shape changes to another formation of triangles, so there's a fair degree of alacrity required in moving them around. By flicking the sides of the shape, it can be rotated to match highlighted sections of the map below. Once the shape is above these designated areas, tapping it drops it into place, helping you to fill in the required sections before the timer runs out.

This part of the game, alone, would essentially be fine in terms of purpose. Highlighted areas of the map are empty, and learning delicate, physical control over the motion-sensing handset is what's required to fill the map. Not unlike a horizontal version of Tetris using triangles to make up the shapes rather than squares.

But the second phase of Shards's 'puzzle' solving requires destroying all the shapes you just painstakingly laid out on the map. Once all the highlighted areas are filled, the control switches to moving a ball around the map -bouncing it into the shapes you just put down and smashing them to pieces.

Again, were this game mechanic featured all on its own, it could probably make for a pretty decent and purposeful few minutes of amusement, but deliberately wreaking the map you just worked so hard to build leaves a strange and objectionable aftertaste. And, come the end of the level, everything's simply back how it started, with no inkling as to what you were supposed to have achieved.

On the plus side for someone who does manage to fathom some semblance of reason to Shards's gameplay, there's a huge number of very diverse levels included, so a fan of these obscure mechanics will have plenty to go at.

Perhaps it's not important - and in fact we're being given two games in one -but it doesn't feel that way during play. Shards has a distinct sensation of needless destruction in a game that begins by encouraging well-considered composition. It could easily be forgiven for the protracted loading times and slowing to a laboured frame rate when it struggles to draw the often large and elaborate maps, but the intrinsic lack of purpose means much of Shards simply isn't fun - it's like tying your shoelaces with your teeth simply so you can play an 'untying shoelaces' game afterwards.

Shrug.