Big Top THD

If you thought becoming a hit circus act was an impossibly dangerous dream, then think again.

According to Big Top THD's tutorial, even the most life-threatening circus activity is conceivable as a simple tapping, swiping, or (typically yawnsome) shape-matching exercise.

Pitbull Studio’s Tegra-exclusive title might look the part, with sharp and shiny characters that ooze big top pizazz, but its repetitive gameplay makes even Tiger Training seem about as scintillating as sweeping out the elephant cages.

Although Big Top THD is free to download, this only gives you one of the six mini-games (Clowning Around) to play. This flawed custard pie-throwing contest, in which you aim to knock over as many clowns as possible within a strict time limit, uses one of the most inaccurate swipe-to-aim systems we’ve ever encountered.

You swipe the screen just in front of your red-nosed victim and a circle shows where your shot should land. Frustratingly, your pie then flies wide either to the right or the left of your target, and you’re stuck with only a fleeting hope that it’ll hit a stray clown instead.

There are 30 increasingly challenging levels to unlock in Clowning Around, with a three-star rating for each, but given that luck plays a far bigger role than skill it’s unlikely you’ll grind through them all.

Instead, you’ll be left with the choice of whether to fork out nearly £3 to pay for the full game and unlock the remaining five circus acts. It’s a decision we’d suggest you don't take lightly.

Each act comes with its own tutorial to guide you through the simplistic mechanics, which is normally where you’ll realise how oddly divorced they are from their real-life counterparts.

Juggling, for example, involves (Ouendan-style) circle-tapping with occasional geometric shapes appearing on the screen for you to trace with your finger. The cat-suited performer will then carry out a simple crowd-pleasing trick, and if you can do this a few times you’ll earn enough stars to move onto the next skill level.

The problem is, with the tapping not even following the musical rhythm, it’s hard to shake the feeling that you’re playing a different game from the one on the screen.

This unsettling sensation will continue through the High Dive and Tiger Training acts, which - despite some quite appealing visuals (the swaggering tigers are a real highlight) - rely on little more than repetitive tapping and shape-drawing.

Only Plate Spinning (which requires regular hopping between plates to keep them moving) and Knife Throwing (in which you use the accelerometer to aim at balloons on rotating targets) require any actual skill and, as such, are the ones you’re likely to stick with.

While steadily making your way through the three difficulty levels for each act, picking up OpenFeint Achievements and high scores, will give you a few hours of a value, it’s unlikely that your interest will hold out that long.

The better games do get a lot more challenging, and modestly addictive, on harder difficulties (Plate Spinning is a frantic balancing act, for example). But despite these and the charming presentation Big Top THD’s gameplay feels like a test of patience over skill that’s barely worth the price of admission.