I keep hearing about the boom in games on mobile phones and other non traditional platforms. I have a freind at work who loves his mobile games and spends quite some time researching the market before he spends £3 - £4 on his next game.  I have never understood why someone would waste their time gaming on their phone when there are a tonne of great, and hugely superior, games on handheld platforms.

I recently heard about a game developed by Harmonix (creators of such greats as Guitar Hero I & II, Amplitude and Frequency) called Phase. Phase is yet another rhythm game from them but this time it has been made for the ipod. I seriously love my ipod and I use my 6th generation 80 gb "classic" everyday to listen to music, podcasts, watch video podcast and store photos. Eveyone spoke very highly of Phase so I took it upon myself, a hardened Guitar Hero fan, to see what all the fuss was about. I logged onto itunes and under "ipod games" there it was, Phase - £3.99. Not a bad price and so accessible, just click and after a minute or so there is was on my itunes menu.

Even before I played the game I could see why my friend is into this sort of medium. It was easy, instant and cheap. Even if the game was rubish I had only spent £3.99 and a few minutes of my time. The game comes with 5 - 6 preloaded songs, which are fairly decent, but the masterstroke is being able to throw in any 20 of your own songs and the software will initialise it for the game. You can swap the songs around as often as you like and play each song on easy, medium or hard.

The way it works is simple, you have beats in the form of a cirlce approaching you in one of three possible spots on the screen. You have to time your button press to match the position and the time the notes pass a specific point on the screen, just like any rhythem based game really. The three buttons you have to your disposal are the left, centre and right buttons on the ipod wheel. Phase also puts the ipods wheel to good use by getting you to rotate the wheel and slide over certain notes in the track.

I found the game to be a quite easy even on the hard setting but for £3.99 and for anyone looking for something new and cheap in this crazy period of AAA console game releases then look no further than Phase!

Please bear in mind that Phase only works on the 6th Generation ipod (i.e the classic range). It will not work on the new Touch ipods either.