Construction Simulator 2014

Your instant reaction to a game called Construction Simulator 2014 will probably be to either scoff or yawn, but then, some of the best iOS games of recent years have been play dressed up as work.

Football Manager is little more than a glossy interactive spreadsheet, and what is Game Dev Story but a jazzed up office job simulator?

Don't even get me started on freemium city-builders.

So yes, Construction Simulator is exactly what you might expect. It puts you in the driving seat of a number of recognisable construction vehicles and tasks you with contributing to various building projects.

You might be asked to shunt palettes of timber around with a forklift truck, or to transport goods to a building site on the back of a flat-bed truck. Then there's the excavator, which can be used to dig up dirt and deposit it into a skip.

The best missions incorporate multiple vehicles, all coming into play as the previous one finishes its task. You simply switch between them on the fly in Construction Simulator's semi-open world.

This is a very simple, clockwork world that lacks excitement in and of itself. There'll be no cement truck rampages here, as you'll discover when you first run into a lamp post or a small hatchback and find that your ten-ton vehicle stops dead in its tracks.

Yet this world is just about solid and convincing enough, and there is a simple joy to going about your business in this blandly attractive European region. There are even subtle emergent possibilities that pop up.

Don't get too excited - it's nothing amazing - but the moment when I decided (completely unprompted) to make life easier on myself by switching to a skip truck and moving a container to a more accessible area for my excavator was unexpectedly gratifying.

Most of the game's joy, though, rests on the simple manipulation of its vehicles. There's the relative zippiness of the flatbed truck, the quirkiness of the forklift truck with its nimble rear-wheel steering and simultaneous fork operation, and the delicate two-thumbed operation of the excavator's digging arm.

There are irritations to Construction Simulator 2014 that take the shine off its simple charms. As noted, the wider world you drive around in is a little dry and sterile. We're not expecting GTA here, but an injection of real-world physics would have added a bit of danger and life into proceedings.

Some of the mission parameters are a little vague, too, leaving you unsure exactly how exactly to proceed. This is a combination of some occasionally inadequate signposting and visual feedback, and the game's frequently poor English translation.

Finally, the game is an absolute nightmare to play on iPhone. The virtual control sticks that sit in the bottom-left and right-hand corners are extremely tricky to activate reliably, and the text is woefully small. This is clearly an iPad game that's been clumsily crammed into a 4-inch form factor.

But played on an iPad, Construction Simulator 2014 is an unexpected delight. Like a well-used dumper truck, it's utilitarian, a little rough around the edges, and perhaps not immediately appealing. But once you're in the driving seat there's plenty of fun to be had.