X-Plane 9

There are some genres of game that are never going to work on a smartphone, no matter how powerful the portable communication devices get. Some games just need buttons and joysticks and more options that can feasibly be crammed onto a four-inch screen.

Flight simulators, for example. They take time, effort, and concentration, and thrive on the sort of details that are always going to get lost in the bite-sized gaming sessions that mobiles are perfect for.

If you want proof, look no further than X-Plane 9. For all of its good intentions and lofty goals, it ends up a dull, uninteresting flop.

The game is a fully 3D simulator that puts you in control of a light aircraft. Your job is to successfully fly the plane around for a bit, then land it safely back where you started.

You control your throttle and flaps with sliders at either side of the screen, and change the direction the plane is flying in by tilting your phone.

Getting airborne is no mean feat, owing to the lack of information the game gives you.

You have to work out for yourself that the accelerometer will get you into the sky, or you'll be tootling around on the ground in a roughly straight line for a very long time.

X-Plane's problems increase once you've managed to break the bonds of gravity.

Flying around is a singularly boring experience. There's nothing to see, nothing to do, and you can quite happily leave your phone alone for a while and come back to find yourself still flying.

You can change the camera angle you're using to fly, but you'll inevitably crash if you do. There's no progression, and no reason to stay in the sky other than to perfect flying as flat as you can. To do that, you just need to refrain from moving your phone.

There are several different planes and helicopters to fly, and several different places to fly them, but none of these really changes the core mechanics of the game.

You're still tilting into the air, flying around in a barren sky, and then trying to land. The pricing scheme means only the very rich will be able to afford them all, too.

Explosions on the ground

Even aviation buffs are going to find X-Plane 9 lacking. While there's a befuddling number of stats and dials for a casual gamer, there's not enough realistic flying meat for fans to get their teeth into.

Touchscreen controls will never be an adequate replacement for a joystick, some buttons, and a pilot's hat that you bought from a charity shop. You just don't feel connected to the plane you're supposed to be flying, and that's X-Plane 9's biggest sin.

After you've ploughed your plane into the ground, a mountain, a flat city, and a lake, the game doesn't really have much more to offer. It's caught in a cycle of take-off and landing, without ever managing to fill in the big gap between the two.