Spare Parts

7 cert, EA/ Bright Light, Xbox Live (also Playstation Network) **

Certain puzzles will always be a bone of contention for gamers. For example, this gamer finds in-game searching about as enchanting as looking for lost keys or a wayward remote control. This brings us to Spare Parts, an adventure game with moments of charm but many more of frustration. Playing a robot (or two co-operating ones) on an alien planet,

your task is to accumulate spare parts both for yourself and your ship. The former will give you power-ups. This involves searching for parts and fending off enemies in a third-person platform adventure. Think of Ratchet and Clank, only not as good. The concept is sound and the graphics (melding the organic world with the cutesy futurism) are nice. But thanks to its user- unfriendly gameplay, it doesn't add up to the sum of its (ahem) parts.