Pyramus

Despite what the vast majority of real-time strategy games would have you believe, space isn't a 2D plane traversed, like insects on a pond, by fleets of identically orientated spaceships.

And unfortunately for Pyramus, the flatness extends beyond the layout of your interstellar battles.

While the game might look like most of the other quick-bite RTS titles that the App Store plays home to, it only takes a few minutes to realise there's a lack fatal of depth here. While you're whisked from one mission to the next at breakneck speed, you never get the feeling you're really going anywhere.

Pyramus is split into a number of levels, each with a simple objective. You might have to destroy a set number of mines, or protect a larger ship as it makes its way through a hostile area of space. In order to achieve this you're given a small fleet of ships.

Some of these are nippy little fighters that can do a lot of damage, but explode quickly if they get pinned down. Others are larger, slower ships that pack a punch and act as support for your nippier fighters.

The levels only last for a handful of minutes, but they're pretty tough, and if you make one wrong move you're likely to see your ships wiped out before you've had a chance to even think about a tactical retreat.

You tap on a ship, then tap somewhere on the screen to move it. Ships automatically engage when enemies get too close, as long as they're facing in the right direction. Long-pressing on a ship shows you the arc of its guns and which way they're facing.

The problem is, the AI and pathfinding are both a little off. You'll set a waypoint and your ship will take an odd route to get there, or else get confused when it does and end up flying in circles. And when they do find the right place, the battles are just a bit dull.

You can rarely react fast enough to change tactics halfway through a fight, so more often than not you're just spamming your ship's special moves until either you die or the bad guys do.

Pyramus is a shallow experience, and while there's a decent chunk of content here, and some might enjoy the tough simplicity the game has to offer, everyone else should probably avoid it.