I got home last night and the first thing I did was try an “impossible” level my wife had got stuck on while I was at work. I flexed my manly gaming muscles and gave it a go. Turns out, it actually is impossible. Or as near as you can get to it. You have to protect four kittens from eighty-five attacking skeletons. I can only manage to kill about fifty, at best, before the kittens get killed. Ah well.

So I went through Explore mode on my profile instead. That unlock Expert Explore mode, where I managed to fail a long level. Boo.

And then it was time to play some co-op, because my wife’s arm had recovered enough from her afternoon with the game. Co-op is definitely the best part of the game that I’ve seen so far. We got through several levels very easily, but are now stuck trying to topple a very solid tower with bowling balls. I have some theories as to how best to go about it, but they don’t seem to be working.

It’s really a very good game. It’s not as polished as I’d like, though. The cross-hairs freeze for a second every now and again. It’s never been at an important time, but it’s annoying when you’re trying to line up a shot. And once it ended a level saying we’d failed when my last ball was still knocking things over. The game showed a gold medal winning score, but said we’d failed but made us retry. And once I managed to knock a gem into a wooden block – luckily a bit was sticking out and hitting it freed it. I’ve seen some incredible slow down in co-op, too, but it’s never been a gameplay issue.

Anyway, they’re just minor niggles that reviewers don’t seem to be reporting. Not enough to knock any points off the score, but worth mentioning in passing.