Cubis 2

It's (hopefully) early days, but you can tell iPod is going to have its fair share of games involving destroying coloured bricks, blocks or balls by making three or more in a row. After all, every publisher and his dog has a casual game involving some spin on this basic gameplay.

The upside is that these games feel familiar, and usually rely on well-established concepts of what makes a good casual game. And in theory there's plenty of room for innovation within the basic parameters. The downside is that you can end up with an endless string of samey games where you're making endless strings of samey coloured objects.

So, to Cubis 2, which thankfully puts enough of a spin on the genre to not leave you feeling bored. For starters, it uses an isometric viewpoint, with a square board containing lots of coloured cubes. Your job is to launch cubes from the left and right bottom edges of the board to make chains of three or more of the same colour, which then disappear.

But the isometric view means you're not playing in 2D. Up to three cubes can be stacked on top of each other, which when you clear a chain at ground-level can lead to further combos as the ones above fall down.

And there's more. When you fire in a cube and it hits another, if there's a space behind it, it gets pushed back. You're not just firing plain coloured cubes either. There's Wedge Cubes (that lift up any cube they hit), Osmosis Cubes (they turn the cube they hit into the same colour as them), and even Bomb Cubes and Laser Cubes (both destroy others).

If we have a criticism of Cubis 2, it's that while the basic gameplay is fairly understandable – move left and right, and shoot – the complexity provided by all these different cubes and their effects is a bit too mind-bending. It's the sort of game you play, and enjoy, but for a long time don't know completely what you're doing, or why it's scoring you lots or little points.

The flipside of that is that it'll take a while to master, providing some lastability. There are four game modes to complete too. Arcade gets you to clear a certain number of cubes on each level before the time runs out, while Puzzle involves clearing a certain number of Star Cubes (yes, another different type of cube). Morph-Fun Arcade and Morph-Fun Puzzle are the same, except with Ghost Cubes that jump around the board to liven things up.

Since the game just involves moving left and right and firing, it's well-suited to the iPod's scroll-wheel. The sound effects are good, and the visuals are effective, without being jaw-dropping.

Overall, Cubis 2 is more than just another block-popping game. It puts a neat spin on an often-hackneyed genre, but its relative complexity makes it less appealing than the more instant thrills to be had from, say, Zuma.