Game review: Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs - iPhone / iPod Touch

They tend to be cheap and tacky, hastily thrown together affairs which are horrible to play.

Usually the best they offer is vaguely recognisable characters engaging in badly conceived activities based loosely on popular films.

Video games spawned from movies are nearly always huge let-downs.

Fortunately, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is one of the few exceptions to the rule.

OK, so it doesn’t quite completely thaw my contempt for movie-based games but it does go some way towards melting my frosty outlook.

Ice Age is actually a decent and very playable puzzle platformer for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

In the game you play as the sabre-toothed squirrel Scrat.

The nutty little fella is on a mission to get his paws on a prize acorn and he needs your help to guide him to it.

To do this you must work through 36 challenging platform levels spread across the four distinctive environments of ice caves, snow, caverns and jungle.

Along the way there are loads of obstacles to overcome, little acorns to collect, dinosaurs to avoid and puzzles to solve.

Solving puzzling generally involves manipulating and interacting with items near to Scrat. He can climb ladders and hang from ceilings. He can push and pull blocks to fill in gaps or squash enemies. He can move stalactites out of the way and stomp his feet to send them falling. He can even float in the air inside a bubble.

Helpful pointers introduce these and other gameplay mechanics but after that the challenge comes from working out which actions Scrat should do and when as you navigate him around the perilous levels. Timing and dexterity are important skills.

The levels are quite long and feature some complex designs, often requiring you to move in various directions to reach the end.

The difficulty is set to testing from an early stage and finding some solutions involves trial and error. You may find yourself repeating a particular chunk of a level as you fail to spot where you need to send Scrat next.

It can get a little frustrating and repetitive but luckily there are frequent checkpoints so if Scrat gets killed you won’t need to go back very far. There is no limit on how many times you can attempt a puzzle and you’ll eventually have that moment of enlightenment.

One thing I don’t like is that Scrat can get stuck in certain places, and you have to hit ‘try again’ to release him.

Moving your squirrel around couldn’t be easier using the touch-and-go controls.

All you do is simply tap on the screen where you want Scrat to go.

If he can’t get to a particular place you’ll see a red glow and will need to figure out an alternative path. If Scrat is able to reach your desired destination then your finger will release a green glow and he will scurry to that point via the shortest route available.

You can actually have him do quite a few things with just one touch of the screen.

I’ve found it slightly imprecise sometimes when Scrat goes either too far or not quite far enough compared to where I think I’ve touched the screen. For instance, when I want him to stop halfway up a ladder he'll often scurry further than I intended, bumping into a nearby dinosaur. It’s a problem of big fingers trying to control often intricate movements, but overall the controls work well.

One major factor in this game’s favour which helps it rise above the usual movie tie-in mire is that it’s developed by Two Tribes, which previously did another very good iPhone/iPod platformer called Toki Tori.

The same clever design and high production values seen in Toki Tori are evident in Ice Age too. Graphics and animations are very nice. Music and sounds are light and pleasant. The overall presentation is very cute, in keeping with the film it’s based on.

Another thing in the game’s favour is that it doesn’t directly mirror the third Ice Age movie instalment. Games that try to be movie clones always fall short of expectations.

Instead, an ‘alternative’ storyline has been created for the iPhone/iPod which focuses on Scrat’s acorn quest, although other characters such as Manny, Ellie, Diego, Sid and Scratte do provide a supporting cast.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, published by Chillingo, should provide hours of playing time.

There is good replay value from being able to work through levels again to collect all the acorns. And there is good reward for completing the levels in the form of an unlockable expert mode.

Even though I’m not personally a big fan of the Ice Age movie franchise, I’ve still found this game offers a lot of tough puzzle fun.

It’s been well put together and the developers deserve credit for creating a movie link-up which is well above average.

Verdict: 8 out of 10 – In both genres of movie-based games and puzzle platformers, this is definitely one of the better ones available for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Go nuts and join furry hero Scrat in his acorn adventure.

Watch a trailer of Ice Age: Dawon of the Dinosaurs: