Gyro

While I'll be the first to argue that a mobile game doesn't need fancy pants, Unreal Engine-powered graphics to be a hit, in today's overcrowded market you at least need an interesting mechanic to stand out.

Gyro might nail the minimalist retro chic feel thanks to its chilled soundtrack and gently bleeping FX, but its main concept - fending off incoming blobs by matching colours with the sides of a spinning circle - may be too simple to hold your interest for long.

As in vintage arcade shmup Asteroids, you control a sole defender against a ceaseless, ever-growing number of attackers.

Blobs of varying size and colour attack in waves, and the only way to protect yourself is to spin your circle and correctly match the invading shade against green, white, or blue from its trio of sides.

You turn the Gyro either by using a digit to twirl it into place or by sliding a finger across a bar at the bottom of the screen.

The first system supposedly offers tighter control, as opposed to the sharp turns of the slider, but it means you end up blocking your view with your chunky paws.

The slight inertia of the wheel means you'll often over-spin it by a fraction or more, and the controls are sporadically sticky - which is fatal when the blobs are coming thick, fast, and from three directions at once.

Sometimes the Gyro seems to misread your finger completely, with often fatal consequences. It's a problem that could probably be easily avoided by having a pause between waves to let the wheel, the screen, and your digit get a quick breather.

A smattering of power-ups, from health recharges to temporary shields, do ease the burden of the slightly unreliable controls a bit, but soon you'll start to wonder if the elusive 15,000 points needed to unlock the bonus 8-bit mode - or make a dent on the Swarm-powered online leaderboards - are worth the bother.

Lack of variety and sometimes wobbly controls aside, Gyro is a reasonable enough highscore attack game. What's more, it's free, so there no reason not to give it a shot.