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Fruit Ninja: Puss in Boots

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Fruit Ninja: Puss in Boots

You know a smartphone game has done well when it gets some attention from Hollywood. It happened to Angry Birds, and now it's happened to Fruit Ninja.

Fruit Ninja: Puss in Boots is a tie-in with DreamWorks's Shrek spin-off, which adds feline tomfoolery and a few new skins to the already familiar fruit-destroying action.

But has it done enough to make fruit-slicing addicts want to shell out again, or should it have been left at the bottom of the tree to be digested by wasps and flies?

Knee deep in melon corpses

For those of you who haven't played Fruit Ninja before, the aim is simple. Fruit bounces around the screen, and you have to slice it into pieces using your finger. If it falls off the screen before you've hacked it you lose a life.

You get bonuses for slashing multiple pieces at once, as well as for randomly allocated critical hits. Those expecting to just wiggle a finger around the screen to achieve a high score won't last long, as the game throws bombs into the mix as well. Slash a bomb and it's an instant Game Over.

There are no real tactics to the game - it's more about concentration and precision. Magic beans also fly across the screen from time to time, and if you manage to slice one of those you'll get a slew of bonus points or a precious, precious extra life.

Fruit machine

In some respects, Fruit Ninja: Puss in Boots isn't as complete an experience as the original. For example, there are only two modes, and one of them is basically the same as the classic Fruit Ninja. There's no multiplayer, either, which is a shame.

However, it does introduce Bandito mode, which is a brilliant new addition to the Fruit Ninja canon, with more than a whiff of Namco's classic Point Blank lightgun games about it. Here, you face three levels of four randomly allocated challenges, and then an an epic finale.

The challenges all involve slicing fruit, but each has its own ingenious twist. With some you'll have to carefully slice lemons floating in rings of bombs, while others see you slashing at apples that are hidden behind shutters for most of the time. You even have to play keepy uppy with a coconut.

Hack and splash

There are new backdrops and weapons to unlock, as well as an extensive leaderboard that lets you show off to your friends, and plenty of achievements as well. But the game still feels like it's missing something.

Fruit Ninja: Puss in Boots is a mixed proposition. It's still incredibly enjoyable and addictive, and the inclusion of Bandito mode means that if you have any interest in fruit ninja-ing, you should think about picking it up.

But it can't quite shake off the shackles of its flimsy film connection. Had this been an update or an upgrade, then we'd have welcomed it with open arms, but there's not quite enough content here to fully justify another purchase.

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Fruit Ninja: Puss in Boots

While it adds a great new game mode, Fruit Ninja: Puss in Boots doesn't quite have enough extra content to make it essential
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Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.