Dig!

Dig! wants you to think it's a game about digging when it's actually a game about drawing lines. It's dressed in the exciting shorts and gloves of an archaeologist, but it's holding the dull ruler of a harried town planner.

And on top of that it's a game you've played before in a hundred different guises, beginning with Qix – cut out chunks of a rectangle while being chased by enemies to progress onto the next shape.

The only twist on the formula is that you dig up items of treasure. These give you extra cash to spend on various power-ups that'll help you dig even deeper and get more expensive treasure.

You cut your slices from the dig site with a few swipes. Once you're digging you'll only stop if you reach an edge or get caught by one of the monsters that inhabit the patch of land you're excavating. These mummies and gnomes are annoying but easy enough to bypass.

You can see the treasures glittering above the surface, but you only need to clear 75 per cent of the mud to move on to the next level. That means you need to balance finishing the level quickly with making sure you've grabbed all the loot you can.

There are special hats to buy that let you take extra damage, but even when you've paid the cash for them they're only dropped into the game at random. Different upgrades become available as you fill up a museum, but they don't do much to change the nature of the game.

The controls occasionally get confused, and the presentation lacks any real spark to keep your eyes interested, adding up to a pretty bland experience. There's nothing frustrating about Dig! but there's nothing memorable about it either.

In other words, it's destined to end up buried deep in the scrap heap of App Store history.