In a nutshell:

Standard issue brick obliteration, with a few novel quirks thrown in to keep things lively.

What’s it good for?

Smashing bricks to smithereens, loading up on power-ups, and guaranteed leaning left and right while playing.

Judgement time…

Brick Breaker Deluxe is one of our favourite Nok-compatible games. Since the original Java-based title first landed on our phones we’ve been hooked.

Only last month we got a fresh taste for its tile-bashing delights when it was re-made for Nokia’s sparkly new N-Gage platform (read the review here), and while this sequel doesn’t get the N-Gage treatment, it does claim to move the title on, albeit in Java form.

So what’s new? The basic premise of a story-driven block smashing game is the same. The graphics look eerily similar, and even some of the powerups left us with mental bells ringing.

That’s not to say this isn’t an all new title. Animation is improved somewhat, and levels now include moving bricks, spinning obstacles and one or two inventive power-ups to add variety.

Deep down, however, this is the same block bullying bounce-em-up we’ve seen before. Ordinarily you’d find that sentence followed by a criticism, a put down or a withering shake of the head. But here we’re willing to make an exception.

This is a sequel, make no mistake. It’s just a very subtle, well thought through and superbly crafted one. Gameloft’s coders are clearly adhering to the mantra of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” so they’ve left the guts of the game intact, and further smoothed its already slick edges.

It’s more of the same, that’s for sure. But when the gaming’s this good? We simply can’t get enough, and at half the price of the N-Gage remake, we know where our money’s headed.