Monster Soup

Mobile phone touchscreens have effectively revolutionised the way in which we interact with our handsets, but the technology has also given rise to a whole series of awesome finger-friendly puzzle games – with the distinctively-titled Monster Soup being the latest addition.

With gameplay built around the responsive capacitive display of the iPhone, this match-making puzzler will sorely test both your reaction time and your ability to think under pressure.

In Monster Soup, strange coloured creatures slowly glide up from the bottom of the screen. To remove these beings you have to link them together in groups of two or more.

To do this you need to draw a line from beast to beast – the only proviso is that each monster has to have a clear line of sight to the next link in the chain. If there's a different-coloured creature blocking the way, the chain will fail.

Failure to link the rapidly-advancing monsters results in them hitting the top of the screen, where they're slowly turned into ice by the game's antagonist, Plubert. As more monsters are frozen, a solid wall of ice begins to descend down the screen. Once it reaches the bottom, it's Game Over.

Initially, it's quite hard to fight back Plubert's fiendish ice flow as the monsters flood onto the screen with increasing speed. Thankfully, by linking larger groups, you can tip the scales back in your favour.

For example, if you successfully link five of the same creature together, a power-up is released. This varies depending on the colour of the monsters, but they're all eminently useful. For example, the frog-like green monster grants you a beach ball, which you can cunningly use to link monsters of different colours.

The blue beast releases a warp clock, which slows the flow of the game and grants you more time to react and plan out your chains. Possibly the most vital power-ups are the bomb and shine items – they assist you by pushing back the ice wall.

Once you're accustomed to the way in which the game plays, you'll slowly but surely become more adept at managing the monsters and spotting potential mega-chains.

It's at this point that Monster Soup becomes truly captivating and rewarding - there's a real joy in pushing your score further and further.

In-game achievements keep things challenging, and the ability to save your best scores – as well as compare them with your friends on Game Center – makes Monster Soup even more appealing.

In terms of graphics and sound, Monster Soup is just as pleasing. The cute creatures are distinctive and well-animated, and the playful music is perfect accompaniment for the on-screen action. All in all, there's little to fault in the game's hugely endearing presentation.

Like practically every puzzle title you could mention, Monster Soup does unfortunately suffer from repetition. There are no additional game modes to conquer, and the lack of a multiplayer option means you can't introduce friends to spice things up a little.

There's time for the developer to look at adding these features in updates, but even without them Monster Soup comes highly recommended.