Dr Luigi

Luigi puts down his plumber’s gear and pulls on a white coat for this latest instalment in the Mario Brothers series. It’s the Year of Luigi after all – the 30th anniversary of the plumber’s appearance alongside his brother Mario.

We’ll leave aside the dramatic turnaround in Luigi’s career path, and the fact that his solution to everything is to lob giant pills at the problem. That’s just what you’re expected to do: fight the nasty viruses with an arsenal of pills, clearing line by line. To do so you have to match the viruses to a pill with the corresponding colour. Sounds easy, but in practice, it’s a little more difficult.

Quite how difficult depends on what mode you’re playing. Operation L is particularly challenging. That drops a combo L-shaped pill into the mix. Place it correctly and you’ve earned a reprieve for another few minutes; place it wrongly and the screen will fill up even quicker than you anticipated. This mode isn’t for everyone: you have to be a bit more creative with your placement due to the larger size of the pills, and it’s easy to make a mistake.

If you feel like a more old-school approach, you can go for the aptly named Retro remedy mode. And if you fancy some head to head gameplay, you can pit yourself against players online to test your skills.

Virus Buster is a bit more sedate than its fellow modes, and because you play on the Gamepad, turning it vertically, the experience is not unlike what you’d get on a handheld console. Drag and drop the pills using the touch screen, slotting them into place.

It's a perfectly pleasant way to pass a few hours, and it's surprisingly addictive. Like all good games in this style, there's that feeling of "just one more try" that keeps you playing Dr Luigi long after you should have put it down.