Space Bunnies

To get an idea of what ShockPanda Games's Space Bunnies is like to play, think of one of those games where you tilt a box to guide a little metal ball around.

Now, imagine the maze inside that box is chock-full of pinball bumpers, the floor has been greased, and the whole thing is made of rubber.

There you go: perfect.

Space Bunnies is a bright puzzler with high production values and lots of things to do, but it's been graced with idiosyncratic controls so sensitive they will put a lot of people off.

Your little metal ball, in this case, is the space bunnies' ship.

The wee rabbits have set off on a journey towards their home planet, and every level sees you manoeuvring them through a maze of interstellar hazards to pick up more of their friends.

Space Bunnies is easy enough to start off with, and doesn't want for features. Your ship can fight or stealth its way past enemies and take a variety of paths through most maps.

This results in a far more open game than Defiant Development's similar Rocket Bunnies.

The trouble is Space Bunnies feels as though someone's layered too many ideas on top of the basic premise.

The accelerometer controls are so imprecise that landing on a power-up or a moving target can take forever, and combined with the way you bounce off every obstacle, navigating becomes a matter of picking a direction and hoping for the best.

Firing or cloaking requires you to stop tilting the phone and touch the screen, by which time you might well be dead.

Everything seems to have been purposefully designed to keep the player bewildered and disoriented, and it's hard to see why anyone would find that enjoyable.

Space Bunnies is appealingly cheery, but it's debatable whether its many features really compensate for wildly over-sensitive controls and an absurd emphasis on luck over skill.