It'd be pretty unreasonable to expect something breathtakingly radical from an age old pen and paper game, and most people's expectations will be quite modest after reading the title of Celebrity Hangman. The majority of gamers will already know whether or not this is something they fancy adding to their mobile collection.
But for the sake of completeness, we're more than happy to examine the finer details of the classic puzzle game on the micro-screen.
One potential issue with any such interpretation of hangman is vocabulary. What happens when the game runs out of words and phrases to confound you with? Well, fortunately Vivendi has not only addressed this potential problem, but appears to have built the entire game on the foundations of its solution.
Each game begins by selecting a category of puzzles. Celebrity couples, British music, female singers, Big Brother, Pepsi spokespersons – a substantial list of categorised celebrity-based challenges to choose from are included.
But to ensure this list stays fresh, new 'packs' can be downloaded over the WAP service so, assuming support and user interaction are suitably maintained, there'll be no shortage of posers upon which to hang yourself.
This interesting development of the mobile hangman concept is further expanded by allowing gamers to upload their own packs for other users to play, and each can be categorised in whatever celebrity grouping you see fit. Creator credits are applied, along with amusing line drawings (where available) of the pack designer's home town to provide background colour to the game.
We say colour, but Celebrity Hangman's visuals are actually fairly monochrome. Not that this is a criticism, as the 'paper and pencil' line drawings are perfectly in keeping with the expected style of hangman, and serve their purpose quite admirably.
When all online content and amusing visuals are stripped away, however, this is still a pretty basic hangman type game without the option to take a guess at the whole thing, and making it decidedly easy to figure out which letters you've already tried. It's a well laboured concept, and very difficult to get excited about.
The extreme casual gamers who just want a bit of something to help them ignore a boring train journey could do a lot worse, but those looking for something cerebrally inventive are likely to lose interest pretty quickly.
Celebrity Hangman
The online content makes Celebrity Hangman a noble effort, but it's still a game that works better the old fashioned way - with pen and paper
Spanner Spencer
Yes. Spanner's his real name, and he's already heard that joke you just thought of. Although Spanner's not very good, he's quite fast, and that seems to be enough to keep him in a regular supply of free games and away from the depressing world of real work.