Birzzle Fever

There's a creeping inevitability about the direction Birzzle Fever's heading in from the moment you first load it up.

At first glance it's a fun, intuitive, simple, addictive game. It's all about rapidly prodding groups of three or more wide-eyed birds, building chains, and barreling towards an explosive finale. What's not to like?

But in reality, Birzzle Fever does almost everything it can to shoot itself in the claw, beak, and wing. A mixture of obnoxious decisions designed to feather the developer's nest drag it back down to earth with a bang.

The game begins with you picking a bird from a selection of three. All of them have some basic power-ups. One sometimes blows up when you tap it, another earns you XP quicker.

The main game involves rapidly scouring an eight-by-eight bird grid, tapping groups of three or more. When birds are popped, new ones fill any empty spaces.

But the bird allocation sometimes leaves you stranded in a corner, slowly picking away at the only available moves.

If you're fast, and lucky, a combo builds. Tapping larger groups of birds creates special avians that explode when poked.

As you play, you earn XP. This unlocks higher multipliers and a bunch of bonus items that can be selected prior to your next attempt. These include paint bombs, which on exploding immediately create huge groups of birds to pop.

With some bonuses activated and your combo building, you get a glimpse of the brilliant game Birzzle Fever could have been.

When things are going right it's a glorious, crazed, Whac-A-Mole riff that's short on brains but big on fun. The breakneck pace can be exhilarating, especially on a larger display.

The snag is Birzzle Fever is all too eager to slam on the brakes. After about half the games you play you're politely encouraged to buy things.

You're offered everything from special items to boost your score, to a device that helps you find groups of birds to tap.

This soft-sell is relentless, and it's twinned with rather more hateful fare. The game won't work without a network connection, which is an infuriating and stupid decision for a title that's fundamentally a quick-fire arcade game.

If you're online, you can buy things. And you might finally give in the 50th time the game nags you to sign into Facebook.

Sooner or later, you see through the glossy, cute veneer, and recognise this is pay-to-win.

Coins are earned so slowly that bird upgrades appear incredibly expensive. Bonuses can only be kept active by a constant infusion of coins or, in some cases, gems.

If you like paint bombs, get used to paying for them. Or you could decide to save money by splashing out an inordinate sum on several hundred IAP gems.

One of the levelling-up missions even demands you bug two friends about the game. Naturally, you can skip it for the bargain price of four gems.

There's an energy system, too. Fortunately this isn't too problematic. The five-game meter refills fairly quickly, and it's replenished when you level up. Presumably this is because if you're not playing, there's less chance you'll be paying.

This is all hugely frustrating, because there's the core of a great game lurking here.

But the demented, madcap nature that it keeps teasing you with is always out of reach. And you can never shake the feeling that all Birzzle Fever really wants you to do is take the plunge and buy some gems.