In a genre plagued with shameless ripoffs and uninspiring clones, Call of Atlantis is like an iced glass of water; quenching, refreshing and revitalising. Indeed, the gameplay focuses less on the matching tiles formula and instead scatters in pieces of objects that you have to drop to the bottom of the board. This addition makes the game far more interesting and dynamic as each piece combines to form a rare artifact; that is then slotted into place in a hidden object sort of mini-game before the beginning of the next area.

Thus, games feel like more of a puzzle challenge than simply accumulating large amounts of points for a high score. Certainly, the game’s array of obstacles would seem to suggest that this is the case, with locked tiles that need to be matched several times before they can be removed, and ice tiles that behave the same but don’t drop down when a match is made underneath. Additionally, wall tiles appear later in the game, blocking items and artifact shards falling off the board; you have to move the piece into another column which is not as easy as it seems. Many of the board layouts include tiny, separate areas that house a small number of pieces that can only be accessed with power ups. Happily, the time that you are given is perfectly adequate for most of the challenges, and if it isn’t there is a power up that extends the clock for you.

Power ups also include bombs; a simple area bomb that explodes a small area, and a smart bomb that removes all of the tiles that you selected from the field. There’s a swap tile power up that can switch the positions of two game tiles excluding items and the obligatory heart to give you an extra life. More interesting is the amulet of Poseidon that is charged by making matches of four or more tiles. Tapping it unleashes a burst of projectiles onto the board, destroying many random tiles and generally inching one of the items to the bottom. Use of this amulet is necessary on the later levels to prize out artifacts and drives home the message that the game isn’t just about swapping tiles for points.

All of these enhancements transform Call of Atlantis into a puzzler that is a cut above simple derivatives. It’s rewarding for such a simple game, and that’s why it’s fun to play. Plus, it has a fantastic presentation that you can see for yourself in our video; you can play the game in both portrait and landscape orientations and it saves your game for later should you become interrupted. Graphically it excels too; rotating tiles, ambient glows and light flashes all look great. It is clear however that the iPhone is working up a sweat playing this game and extended play sessions will cause the device to get very warm on the backside; both on the 3GS and iPod touch 2G. As you would expect this kind of behaviour drains the battery so we hope the developer can issue an update to make the title run cooler. We’ve also experienced sporadic crashing whilst playing Call of Atlantis, usually after a long session; only one time was any progress lost, but stability isn’t one of the game’s strongest suits.

Overall, Call of Atlantis is a supremely fun arcade puzzle game that is marred somewhat by heat and stability issues. We’d like to be able to play our own music and the game is fairly short but the gameplay outweighs that small gripe. At 59p it’s not the most original game or the longest but for the match 3 skeptic this is the perfect game to get.

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