Mobile Games Roundup

SuperRope

• iPhone: Free. Funkystars in-app: 1000 for £0.69. 110,000 for £24.49.

There's always room at the mobile inn for another 'climb as high as you can' game. Craneball Studios knows this, and evidently so does Apple, who didn't waste the opportunity to confidently thrust it forward as the Game of the Week.

If you've played Ninjump and its score-chasing ilk, you'll know what to expect, and SuperRope does very little to deviate from this annoyingly addictive, insidious formula.

In this instance, you have to swipe your ever-climbing 'cute' animal from one rope to the next, while avoiding the inevitable hazards and the inevitable falling debris. To add to the inevitable fun, you'll be able to collect power-ups that, inevitably, launch you into the sky for a brief period, or magnetise you so that all the nearby coins are drawn to you.

Sadly, all things must pass, and some hatefully inconsiderate obstacle will stall your progress and send you plummeting to your doom. You'll repeat the process far too often, never quite sure why you're wasting your time. Still, it's free.

But if the prospect of four more unlockable stages and four new characters is the sort of thing that has you praying for rush hour signal failure at Swiss Cottage, then SuperRope is positively rife with micro-transactions to sate this peculiar appetite.

For the manically obsessed, you can buy up to 110,000 'Funkystars' in one go, and buy everything from checkpoints, to cheats that remove the falling enemies, and even score modifiers that multiply the value of specific collectibles. You can even earn 19750 Funkystars for subscribing to SpeedDate.com so you can share your OCD tendencies with a mate.

Even as a freebie, SuperRope is the kind of throwaway guff that reinforces prejudices about mobile gaming, but at least it's a fair reflection of its worth. Imagine how stupid you'd feel if you actually ended up paying for more of it?

3/10

Magnetic Billiards: Blueprint

• iPhone/iPad: Free. Serious table key: £1.49. Skeleton key £2.49.

Legend has it that the hairy Pickford brothers discovered a mysterious bundle of papers hidden in the family attic while arguing about Manchester City.

But the subject soon turned from the worth of Tevez and Ballotelli when it emerged that the papers contained a blue(moon)print for a strategic puzzle game involving the removal of magnetic balls.

With no pockets on the 'table' to aim for, the primary objective is to remove all the balls off the table by uniting all the balls of the same colour.

Taking a shot is performed via an intuitive pool-style drag-and-slide system, but it's not enough to simply hit your target. In Magnetic Billiards, the scoring system demands that you ricochet the ball around the table as many times as possible before the ball hits its target. The more bounces you can manage, the greater the risk, and the more you score as a result.

As a puzzle formula, it's incredibly simple but alarmingly addictive once you get going. 20 so-called 'casual' tables set the tone, but beyond that you can get your teeth into various other modes for a few pennies, including the time-pressured Countdown mode, as well as more taxing 'Serious' tables. For a mere £2.49, you can unlock all current and future content, which is pretty generous for a game with ludicrous amounts of replay value.

And on top of all that, you get to have your dreams tormented for all eternity by the sight of the Pickford's scary Zzap 64-esque cartoon avatars.

8/10