Hutch Games set out to create a ‘natural and fun’ control scheme for their first game Smash Cops. What they accomplish certainly feels natural, but falters on the fun.

The iPhone/iPad game gives players top-down control of a police vehicle and tasks them with performing a variety of tasks. These include simple races and passing through a number of checkpoints, but the main thrust of the game is running offending vehicles off the round by ‘smashing’ into them.

The game certainly achieves the high production values the developers aimed for, with the environments and physics objects all looking very impressive on the little device. Boxes and bins fall and burst as you plough the police cruiser through them, and the cars crash into each other with satisfying pirouettes into the air.

Sadly Smash Cops is hampered at almost every turn by small faults which consistently step between the player and the enjoyment.

The driving mechanic effectively allows the player push the car from behind and feels reminiscent of playing with Micro Machine toys as a child. You slide your finger to the left of the back bumper to have the car head to the right. It feels natural and very precise.

However, as you push from the left to make the on-screen car go right, you are constantly forced to readjust as the camera slowly pans back around behind the car. Given the glossy feel of iPhone screens, and the fact that if you slide your finger in front of the car you do a complete 180 degree turn, navigation is always a problem.

Most driving games on the Apple device feel sluggish and inaccurate, but completely functional. Smash Cops feels sharp and responsive, and extremely difficult to master. It can be done, and should not be seen as a barrier to buying the game, but there is a learning curve to surmount.

Progression through the game is dictated by the collection of stars which are earned by completely missions quickly and efficiently. Every four levels you are obliged to have collected a certain number of starts in order to unlock the next four missions, forcing you to replay the same missions over again, no matter how much you may detest aspects of them, until you have enough. Once completed there is little reason to go back unless you want to get all the stars for each level.

The set missions often task the player with traversing down narrow side streets, holding the iPhone in one hand while pushing the car with your finger. When called upon to perform a smash move, however, you must then touch on screen again to propel your car forward in the direction of your choosing.

To pull this off successfully every time you I would recommend having the device flat on the table in front of you, otherwise failure is a strong possibility. There is a joystick control option, however, it simply replaces having your finger pressed to bumper of the car with it pressed to the virtual pad, and it is just as tricky to use in the tight spots.

Your fellow police cars hurtle in to you at great speed while they try to ‘assist’ in stopping the enemy vehicles, at best knocking you off course and at worst destroying themselves which incurs you, the player, a points penalty. Enemy vehicles disappear when pinned and reappear in free space – often just off screen so you cannot tell which direction to head in, losing valuable seconds.

Even simple things such as the game automatically readjusting depending on the phones orientation are absent for no obvious reason. On their own not a single one of these problems is enough to make you stop playing, but combined they make the entire experience and exercise in frustration.

Many of these problems are overcome with the bigger screen space provided by the iPad, but only because it is more natural to have the larger device sat flat all the time.

Buried amid some curious design choices is an excellent little game. Everything about it feels ‘almost there’, but not quite having grasped the full potential which it has bubbling under the surface. If you own both an iPhone/iPod Touch and an iPad, and love the driving/stunt driver genre, you will enjoy what Smash Cops has to offer.

If you do not though, this may not be for you.