Heavy Mach 2

When reviewing the first Heavy Mach, I joked how the title really ought to have been Heavy Mech, so there's no need to reiterate that point here in the sequel.

I'm going to anyway.

Just to be clear, this is a game about driving a ridiculously (read: 'splendidly') over-armoured futuristic tank, so don't let the strange name confuse you if you're looking for a red hot mech game.

And this is red hot. It definitely has its faults, but there's no denying that Heavy Mach 2 is just what a good sequel should be: reminiscent of the original, but with a whole new arsenal waiting to blow your iPhone out of your hands.

Ditching the side-scrolling gameplay of the original, the explosive action is now viewed from a top-down perspective. It's initially hard to fathom why the developer decided this tank battle game would be any different from a bird's-eye-view, but once you're out there on the battlefield it's clear that this plane offers a lot more scope for conflict.

Your mech is commanded by a line-drawing mechanic not unlike that used in Flight Control. Touching a spot on the ground sets your vehicle stamping in a straight line toward that point, while holding a finger down and drawing a path causes your war machine to follow a pre-set course.

The benefit here is that you can send it driving and then concentrate on shooting down your many enemies without having to steer at the same time. The targeting system keeps shooting at whichever vehicle you've locked onto, regardless of the route you're following.

This works supremely well, allowing you to set a winding course through a host of enemy tanks, keeping you one step ahead of return fire (mostly) while pounding missiles into your adversaries.

Unusually for an iPhone game, Heavy Mech 2 isn't lacking in the control department - far from it. Where the game struggles is in the objectives.

The menu screen (which isn't very well laid out, with most of its option being quite unclear in their purpose) offers you a selection of missions from the command HQ. Once accepted, it's out to the battlefield: collect five metal plates from destroyed enemies or take out a selection of turrets, that sort of thing.

Curiously, no reason is given for why you're actually doing these tasks. Similarly, you trek through the same environments again and again.

This gets tedious as you improve, since the game gets progressively more difficult the further from base you get - and therefore an experienced mech driver will find it immensely easy to work through those screens nearest to your garage.

If you can forget about purpose and just enjoy roaming the landscape blowing things up, Heavy Mach 2 has a lot to offer. The action is great, the weapons plentiful (though, again, the menu and inventory system are frustratingly vague in their operation) and the visuals are stunning.

The user interface on the menus needs a lot of work, but that's the kind of superficial damage that an update can take care of easily. The core game is rock solid, and for a slightly brainless, missile-laden action-fest, you can do little better.