The Maw

Rumour has it this was actually codenamed ‘The Nom’, such is the internet’s desire to reduce English to a sea of consonants as easily typed as possible. Bstrds, the lot of them! Putting language destruction to one side for the moment, what we have here is an accessible, simplified platformer that actually bears more relation to the likes of opposition stalwarts Lemmings and Katamari Damacy than it does to, say, Mario. Those comparisons alone should tell you this isn’t the sort of game we’d usually see on the 360 – a fact that earns it praise alone, especially among the glut of spot the difference and jigsaw titles currently plaguing Live Arcade.

Its story sees generic alien Frank and his gluttonous accomplice the Maw, played by a purple space hopper with a face drawn on it, try to survive disaster. After crash-landing, the two must work together to survive by using thought and shovelling things down the gullet respectively. Each of its eight levels plays out like a mildly mind-bending checklist, through which players must utilise various skills to result in a necessary Maw girth. Predictably, the nuts and bolts of its challenge lie in working out how to trap various meals; a process that is as ingenious as it is ever so slightly cruel.

Problems are few and far between but include that puzzle mainstay: an ability to inescapably stymie oneself every so often. More often than not it’s only for the want of a glowing item, knowingly placed. A mark is also removed for the fact that DLC is to appear almost immediately, which convinces us that it was all planned in the first place. After all, what’s there in the initial 800-point download will only entertain, however joyously, for a weekday evening or two.

Still, a little throwaway fun never hurt anyone… except for the time we spent tossing javelins off that tower block. Actually, we’d better retract that – it probably wouldn’t sound as funny when read out in court…