Fruit Ninja

Given that I spend most of my spare time casually stroking the screen of my beloved HTC HD7, Fruit Ninja's transition to Windows Phone 7 is something of a godsend.

For the first time, it gives me a legitimate reason for those tender moments and, if I'm lucky, might just stop me getting chucked off the bus every time I whip the big boy out of my pocket.

Of course, Fruit Ninja's appearance here – this time under the stewardship of Microsoft – follows two already successful runs in the forms of Fruit Ninja Android and Fruit Ninja iPhone.

Fruit for all

As such – and, indeed, as with any multi-platform release – comparisons between the latest version and those already on the market are inevitable.

On this score it's hard to find any sense of individuality within Fruit Ninja on Windows Phone 7. However, by the same token, no great slips up have been made, meaning those already familiar with Halfbrick's aim to make sure we all get considerably more than five a day will be just as happy with its latest outing.

Even for those who have never encountered Fruit Ninja before, the basics behind play really don't take all too much explaining.

The idea, as the name suggests, is to take your sword and slice open as many different pieces of fruit as you can. The game tosses them onto the screen, with your only input being to use your finger to cut them in two.

It's a high score chase. Each fruit you successfully split in two adds one point to your total, though slicing multiple pieces at once adds bonus points to your tally.

You can also pick up critical hits – sliced fruits worth ten points each – as the game progresses, though, somewhat frustratingly, these only pop up at random.

Bombs away

What makes Fruit Ninja largely a question of skill rather than luck, however, is the addition of bombs.

Chucked into play in the same manner as fruit, managing to avoid slicing these open – and bringing the game to close with an almighty bang – is what separates the wheat from the chaff.

It's an art made even trickier thanks to the fact that play is also brought to a close should you let three pieces of fruit slip through the net without being sliced in the process.

If the pressure of such a setup proves too much, Fruit Ninja also comes with an additional Zen mode, which does away with all semblance of bombs and lives, simply offering you the chance to slice as much fruit as you can in 90 seconds.

Arcade mode also mixes things up a bit, throwing everything the game has at you all at once for 60 seconds. Bombs here are reduced to tools designed to sap away at your points total, rather than end the game completely.

What Fruit Ninja on Windows Phone 7 lacks in some areas it makes up for in others. This is particularly true of two key features: the absence of any form of multiplayer, as is the case with all Xbox Live releases so far, and the brilliance of the achievements system.

The addition of Game Center and OpenFeint was always a big draw on iPhone, but picking up achievements comes with the added edge of bolstering your Gamerscore – something Fruit Ninja's score chasing setup is perfect for.

Still, the lack of online play is, in review, a step back, and until Microsoft can bring it to the table Fruit Ninja's splash on Windows Phone 7 won't be worthy of quite as many strokes as I'd like.