In a nutshell:

Super hero action, without any of the fun.

What’s it good for?

Demonstrating why good TV shows don’t always make great games.

Judgement time…

Heroes is a fantastic TV show. Its mix of drama, intrigue and kick-ass superpowers puts it head and shoulders above the rest of the dross on the box, so jumping into the skin of one of its characters should make a mobile game of the finest calibre, right? Wrong.

Heroes: The official mobile game couldn’t be more different to the TV show. Where the on-screen series is slick, polished and contemporary, the mobile game feels two years old already.

Its cartoony graphics and awkward animation hide what’s actually a good design. Yes, it’s a basic scrolling beat-em-up. Yes, it reminds us far too often of Streets of Rage. And yes, the dialogue stringing the whole title together is stilted and pointless, but there are good points.

Each character has special powers, for instance. Our favourite is Nikki, who flies into a murderous rage at the push of a button, killing everyone on screen and providing some much needed relief from the frantic button-pushing of, err, manual murder.

Then there’s the ability to smash the surroundings or use them as weapons. If your character can feasibly pick something up, they can also hurl it at an opponent.

But what Heroes ultimately is, is an off the shelf beat-em up skinned to look a little like a popular TV show. There’s no real effort to tie it into the premise of its TV-dwelling parent. In the show, for example, there’re no hordes of marauding baddies, no bazooka guns, and no cartoony environments.

As basic beat em ups go, it’s not bad. As an attempt at a TV tie in, it’s a dismally missed opportunity.