Demolicious

Digital destruction can often be a cathartic experience -especially at the end of a particularly fiendish stretch of gameplay, or at the culmination of an intricate and well-worked strategy.

Strange Games, the team behind Demolicious, certainly has pedigree when it comes to chaos - it can include Gears of War and FEAR on its collective CV. But if you're expecting the same level of brutish, visceral action here you're going to be a tad disappointed.

This is a game about cannons and crates, a cheeky circus-themed swipe at one of gaming's most ubiquitous objects. It's a first-person Angry Birds with a penchant for showing you the havoc you've wrought over and over again.

Demolicious puts you in charge of a number of cannons around the edge of a garishly coloured arena. Crates are placed in the centre of the arena, and it's your job to use the limited number of cannonballs you're given on each level to destroy them.

You stare down the barrel of the cannon, and aim it by dragging your finger around the screen. Once you think you've got the best shot, you let go, and the archaic weapon blasts out a bright red projectile in the desired direction.

You can zoom by tapping an on-screen icon on the left of the screen and switch between cannons by tapping one on the right. Double-tapping the screen takes you into a spectator mode, which lets you circle the crate stack and consider your best shot.

A star-based rating system is in operation, and the more ammo you use the worse your final score. Picking your shots is important, and quite often you'll be presented with far more cannons than you need, leaving you to decide which offers the optimal angle of attack.

As the game progresses, the crate stacks become more and more fiendish, introducing pillars, rocks, explosives, wheels, and indestructible fences. You'll need to learn to bounce your shots and chain your destruction if you want to succeed.

There are 60 levels on offer, split into three different stages, with mini-games thrown in at the end of each stage to let you accrue more points. The music is suitably bombastic, the physics just right, and the graphics quaint, if a little rough around the edges.

Where Demolicious falls down is its level design. Some of the towers and contraptions you need to get rid of are just too simple, whereas others are frustratingly oblique. A few get the balance just right, but the game rarely chains together its successes.

There are niggles with the controls, too, and you'll sometimes find yourself blasting off a shot when all you wanted to do was swap to a different cannon.

This is a game that revels in destruction, showering you with replays, but it's undone by a lack of focus in the construction. There's certainly promise here, and the central foundations are enjoyable - it's just the buildings themselves that need work.

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