Thanks to its great Xbox LIVE app, the Nokia Lumia 800 is the perfect smartphone for mobile gaming. We’ve been testing out the latest and greatest games and apps that you can try on the new Nokia Windows Phone and today we’ve been testing our nerves and reflexes with the super-addictive Burn The Rope.

As with all the best smartphone games, Burn The Rope is easy to pick up and incredibly difficult to put down. The aim of the game is simple; you set fire to a rope and then you use the Nokia Lumia 800’s built-in accelerometer to twist and turn the phone, to guide the flame along the rope until it is burnt away.

To burn the rope, you tap anywhere you like to set the flame alight. You then need to keep the flame alive by directing it upwards, which is where all the twisting and turning comes in. If you fail to angle the Lumia 800 in the right direction in time, the flame will burn out and you’ll lose the game.

While the premise is simple, the game is anything but. With some incredibly complex rope patterns to navigate, you can often find your flame heading off in multiple directions, forcing to make very quick decisions about which flame you’re better off sustaining and which you can afford to let die.

To burn through the rope faster and earn yourself a higher score – which in turn can win you bronze, silver and gold medals – you can tap and hold on the Nokia Lumia 800’s screen. Careful control is needed, however, as the faster flame gives you much less time to choose which is the right path to take.

Later levels introduce multi-coloured ropes that can only be burned by a flame of the same colour. To get the necessary flame, a colony of colourful ants walks along your rope and you must guide the flame to the ant that matches the colour you need, to burn it up and change your flame to the required hue.

And it is not just colour-changing insects that you have at your disposal. Some bugs explode, sending the flame careening off in several directions; spiders can be used to bridge gaps with their webs; and beetles let you do pretty much nothing other than earn extra points by burning them up.

While levels can often start off successfully, one wrong move is all it takes to snuff out your flame with a pathetic fizzle, leaving you to start all over again. And that’s the beauty of Burn The Rope; the great balance of success, followed by swift failure, is ridiculously addictive and keeps bringing you back for more.

While you may look a bit silly twisting and turning your phone on the train to work, you’ll be so involved in your game that you won’t care. With its near perfect pick-up-and-play gameplay, and the kind of addictiveness not seen since Angry Birds, Burn The Rope is an essential buy for the Lumia 800.

Burn The Rope is available now for the Nokia Lumia 800 via the Windows Phone Marketplace for just $2.99, which converts to roughly £1.80.

Take a closer look at Burn The Rope on the Nokia Lumia 800 in our photo gallery below: