Inspector Gadget (iPhone)

If the mere title of this review doesn’t have your internal monologue singing 'da dada dada In-spec-tor Gad-get, da dada dada woo-hooo,' you should think twice about buying this game. You need a healthy appreciation of the source material to overlook Inspector Gadget’s unfortunate shortcomings.

It’s your garden variety side-scrolling platformer in which you play the honourable Inspector himself, plus members of his crime-solving crew. Gadget’s nemesis Dr Claw has stolen the royal jewels from Buckingham Palace and as the resident crime-fighter you’re charged with getting them back.

A handful of levels take you though a forest, castle and mine in pursuit of the Queen's treasure, which have been strewn about each stage.

Every level admirably tries to do something a little different. The first is concerned with straightforward platforming, but the ones following see you tag-teaming with your canine pal, then you’re off in a mine kart and flying through a forest with the Gadget copter.

This all fits well into the Inspector Gadget mythos, but it’s a pity that this fidelity to the source material and general variety is consistently undermined by the game dynamics.

The worst offender is the controls. Platforming is exceptionally tricky on iPhone and while Inspector Gadget doesn’t fare too badly, it's far from a success. Pressing the top right or left hand side of the screen jumps in that direction, pressing below this makes your character walk, and pressing towards the centre of the screen uses your weapon.

The controls have a tendency to stick, though, as if you’re playing with a joystick that some errant toddler has dunked in jam. Sticking generally results in death, or at least frustrating injury.

This in turn compounds what is already a heartlessly uncompromising level of difficulty. We complained about this when reviewing the mobile version, but the situation has only worsened.

You still only have three lives to get you through the whole game. Lose them and you have start from the beginning. Well, actually you can play any completed levels in the Quick mode, but you can’t progress on from that point.

It’s not just the control sticking that makes the difficulty all the more pronounced in this version. The game hasn’t been softened at all for touchscreen control, which in this case is less responsive than the keypad. You need to get perilously close to enemies to bash them with your gadget mallet, and the mere fact that you have to move your thumb to do this makes you feel as useless as, well, Inspector Gadget.

The spirit of the series comes through well, yet it isn't enough to counter the poor adaptation from mobile to iPhone. Touchscreen controls don't work well enough here and the steep difficulty only highlights that even more. If the Inspector chooses to have another go, it'll have to be a markedly improved effort.