Hands on with InfoSpace's mobile games

InfoSpace was madly busy at E3 last week, announcing eight new games that you may have already read about on Pocket Gamer. Time pressures stopped me from playing all of them, but I managed to get my hands on four for starters.

Sexy Soccer is an interesting idea – it's a football game coming out for this summer's World Cup, but it isn't trying to be a realistic simulation a la FIFA or Real Football. Rather, it's a soccer skills title with three mini-games accompanied by, well, three scantily-clad women. Exactly how scanty depends on how good your skills are.

The mini-games all seemed fairly simple – there's a 'shoot the ball in the hole' game, a slalom-dribbling game, and a kick-ups game – emphasising that this is a bit of fun rather than something that's supposed to last you beyond England's exit from the World Cup (i.e. mid-June).

Sexy Soccer's in-game dialogue appears to have been written by the Carry On team, and the models look like... well, the kind of models who'd get their kit off for a mobile game. (Sorry if that sounds a little harsh. I hope their mums aren't reading!)

AquaStax looked really good though. It's a puzzle game that's a cross between Tetris and Lemmings, with some central characters who look like the Doozers from Fraggle Rock. It involves dropping blocks to form towers that the Dooz.. I mean, Gumblers can climb up. Oh, and there's water rising too, to complicate things.

At first sight I couldn't get my head round it, but soon the gameplay mechanics became second nature. This could be one of the more original puzzle games available when it comes out later this year.

Next up, the marvellously named Take Yer Meds! is a doctor-themed affair where you have to assign patients to bed while giving them their medication, keeping them happy, then checking them out and changing the sheets.

If this sounds like Diner Dash: Hospital Edition, well, that's because it's basically Diner Dash: Hospital Edition. But it's none the worse for it.

Finally, Back Attack is the world's first rugby-themed casual game. It's hard to explain, but basically you have to plan your rugby players' route to the try-line, telling them where to run and when to pass. Then you hit play to watch the moves pan out, to see if it worked.

In a way it's a bit like Chu Chu Rocket, except with large cauliflower-eared men instead of mice. So not much like Chu Chu Rocket then.

I wanted to play Back Attack more, despite being unsure of how widely it would appeal. According to InfoSpace, the game has had input from professional rugby boffins, so it may attract dedicated fans of the sport as well as casual mobile gamers.

You certainly can't say they haven't tried. (Hmm, but that's more than we can say for you Stu – Ed).