Lava Ball 3D

Imagine playing an action-shooter where you had to stop, kneel, take into account the direction of the wind and distance of an enemy and control your breathing before squeezing off a shot.

Not only would it be immensely difficult, but it simply wouldn't be much fun to act out virtually. Video games often approximate real world mechanisms, but they seldom attempt to replicate them exactly.

Lava Ball 3D falls into this trap in the most unlikely of sub-genres – the ball-rolling platformer.

It’s one of those familiar games where you have to tilt your device to control the movement of a ball. The goal here is to collect a certain amount of gems before the timer ticks down.

Each level takes place in a dank, rocky environment that could have been lifted from Quake 2, or some other muddy 3D game from the ‘90s. Any spills off the edge of the game’s precarious walkways and platforms is met by a fiery end in the pool of lava below.

Despite the uninspiring locale, Lava Ball 3D at least (as the name suggests) takes advantage of the 3D hardware found in high-end Android handsets. On our Motorola Milestone it ran smoothly and looked fairly crisp, although there’s no getting away from the somewhat ugly art style.

But Lava Ball 3D’s key problem is one of control. It seems intent on mapping ball movement realistically, with a sense of weight and inertia. It manages this just fine, but at the expense of most of the fun.

It’s just too difficult to control your ball, with any corrective measures taking an age to take effect as your ball trundles on – usually over the edge and into the lava. Even the ability to roll up walls is opaquely realised.

These woolly controls aren’t helped by the fact that you can’t calibrate them, either for sensitivity or the default level position. That means that you have to play sat hunched over your handset, which doesn’t help the general mood of discomfort.