Governator-2

Clearly taking inspiration from classic Arnie flick The Terminator, mobile developer HeroCraft has cunningly taken the muscle-bound Austrian's current job description – Governor of California – and modified it slightly to create the title of a video game featuring a death-dealing cyborg as the lead character. Do you see what was done there?

Amusing monikers aside, Governator-2 (which, confusingly, actually represents the third entry in the series) is fairly formulaic 'run and gun' fare.

Tasked with ridding the world of terrorists, who just happen to be under the control of dastardly extra-terrestrials, your robotic avatar is expected to cut its way through a succession of enemy strongholds and deal with this combined terrorist and alien menace.

As you might imagine, this involves utilizing several different weapon types (single shot rifle, machine gun, missile launcher – you know the rub) and avoiding an assortment of devious booby-traps designed to scorch your prized metallic paintwork.

You also encounter a diverse array of enemies, ranging from the stereotypical Islamic terrorist (complete with head-dress and facial hair, naturally) to their repugnant alien overloads.

HeroCraft has something of a reputation for producing visually striking games and Governator II is certainly no exception. The graphical standard of the series has evolved over the past few years and here the characters are exceptionally detailed, with oodles of wonderfully expressive animations.

The main sprite possesses an especially slick and entertaining death sequence, which proves to be something of a blessing as you'll be seeing it quite a few times during the process of playing this title.

In fact, within the space of a few minutes it becomes clear that Governator-2 is a terribly frustrating game. The most pressing concern is the controls, which seem to have been designed by someone who enjoys watching gamers suffer.

In particular, jumping is an especially troublesome aspect — to jump diagonally, for instance, you have to push 'up' and then 'right' if you're using the phone's navi-pad, or press '1' or '3' on the keypad. Premature removal of your finger from the button results in your character dropping abruptly in mid-air. When you're in the process of vaulting over a lethal landmine, this proves to be a real headache.

The lack of diagonal aiming is also unforgivable – even more so when you consider your opponents aren't hindered in the same way. Combine all these factors with the game making no allowances for the collection of control problems – often calling for complex navigation of the landscape and split-second timing – and you've got a sure-fire recipe for red-faced annoyance.

To make matters worse, the disappointment of the dodgy controls is accentuated by the needlessly sluggish response time.

That's because the vast amount of silk-smooth animation actually works against the game. To duck down and avoid incoming enemy fire requires superhuman reactions, for instance. The ducking animation takes far too long to play out and you've usually taken a hit before your character achieves the desired stance.

The fact it's often difficult to see what is ahead, due to the thinness of the standard mobile phone display, only serves to amplify this dilemma – enemy units often commence hostilities almost before you've even seen them.

Aside from a few rather half-hearted attempts at humour (the chucklesome internet 'All Your Base' craze is mentioned in the game's tutorial, for example) and good use of sampled sound effects, there's very little here that will raise a smile.

HeroCraft has successfully created yet another gorgeous looking mobile game, but unresponsive controls and an unnecessarily steep difficultly curve ultimately ruin all its hard work.