My Paper Plane 2 (3D)

It must be a typo, but Wavecade’s 3D flying game is listed on the Android Market as ‘Casual’.

Believe us, there's nothing ‘Casual’ about endlessly replaying the same level in a desperate bid to unlock the final course, or the crushing disappoint of snaring your vulnerable folded aircraft on a magically-appearing tree for the thousandth time.

Difficulty issues aside, where My Paper Plane 2 excels is in its smooth movement and refined motion controls. Playing the gentle tutorial is enough to convince you that Wavecade have nailed the feel of flying using accelerometer tilts with a rare accuracy and grace.

Then, imbued with unshakable confidence in your natural flying skills, you launch into the campaign and are brought down to earth with a cruel bump.

There are five distinct locales (ranging from a canyon town to the final, WipEout-esque, Neon Speedway), unlocked by meeting set criteria - such as beating the previous area on Hard.

Early on in My Paper Plane 2, progress is quick thanks to a reasonable difficulty curve, but this goes out of the window after the first pair of locales are unlocked.

Any pretence at casual play is jettisoned in favour of tense dashes between cluttered scenery to collect stars and, very rare, power-ups that give you a speed boost or - bizarrely - a brief chance to collect stacks of stars from space.

It’s when the game is at its toughest that the cracks really begin to show.

The collision detection is often unreliable, with the plane sometimes clipping through the edges of buildings or getting stuck on a tree you clearly sailed past.

The graphics, while functional and capable of creating a sense of momentum, are quite ugly up close (particularly buildings and trees) and the pop-up makes navigation at high speed a frantic guessing game.

My Paper Plane 2 by no means deserves to crash and burn, but its surprisingly punishing difficulty curve stops the gameplay from ever really lifting off.