Zorbie

After you've played Zorbie for a little while, a heart icon appears in the bottom of the screen when you die inviting you to submit an App Store rating.

But when you tap on the icon the message reads, "Do you like eating birdz?" The choices are, "No, I prefer beef!" and, "I'm vegetarian." Under that, where the 'cancel' button would normally be, is the word, "ZorbYeah !!! :-D"

In other words, Zorbie is so utterly committed to its madcap aesthetic that it's willing to sabotage its own rating mechanism. You have to admire its cojones.

Let's get the gameplay out of the way first. You play as escaped convict Zorbie, and the aim of the game is to knock a variety of French-named birds out of the sky with an axe so that Zorbie can eat their corpses when they land.

You move by sliding your finger left and right, and to launch the axe skywards you hold your finger down on the screen and then let go. If it hits you when it lands, you die.

It's a fun premise, and the gameplay strikes the right balance between skill and luck. You can aim for gratifying, perfectly judged pinball-style ricochets as you hurl your axe at the circular birds that criss-cross the sky, but you have no control over where, when, and which birds will appear.

Sometimes you struggle to score more than a single hit per throw, and sometimes you manage to get your axe in among a flock, causing utter devastation, heralded by flashing lights and satisfying arcade noises.

You can choose which power-ups might appear, but the contents of each power-up chest remain hidden until you smash open it with your axe. And it may just as easily be a horrible witch that emerges from the chest as a hit-absorbing man (called, incidentally, Dickhead) on whose back you ride.

Other power-ups include a basketball that causes extra damage and doesn't kill you when it lands; a giant axe that carves through everything it touches and then rockets upwards out of the screen; a clown called Gonzague who launches a purple fireball at you and then vanishes; a telescopic toasting fork that kills every bird it meets in a vertical line; a helmet; a time-extend - because you only have a minute to frantically amass points - and so on.

Sometimes you'll get one of the letters of the word 'bonus', and if you collect them all a bonus round will promptly start. One of these sees you flying upwards using your moustache as a pair of wings. Another is like Breakout.

As you play you collect money to spend either in the shop between stages - the shop is a moustachioed fairy called Zorbette - or between games on permanent boosts to your defences, the amount of time you have, and the frequency with which chests appear.

These rise in cost by 1,000 coins every time you buy something, which prevents you from accelerating towards completion as your powers grow. Surprisingly, there's no way to speed-up your progress with IAPs.

Zorbie is packed, shrill, and zany to a degree that may or may not irritate you. However, underneath all that it's a solid, well-balanced casual game with just one significant flaw - the controls.

Sliding Zorbie around the bottom of the screen feels frustratingly imprecise, and it's difficult not to let your finger wander. The command for throwing an axe is similarly vague, and you'll frequently have to glance at Zorbie to see whether he's charging a throw, moving, or just standing there.

You soon learn to live with the controls, but they never feel as tight or responsive as they should in a quickfire casual game like this. Given Zorbie's eccentric nature you can almost believe that the controls were intentionally designed to be flaky - but, of course, that's no excuse.

If you're prepared to overlook this foible then there's a lot to like in Zorbie. It's an innovative, well-made, and authentically surreal casual game, shot through with Gallic humour and charm and well worth the £1.99 investment.