Namco owns a plethora of retro/arcade games. They’re not exactly my first choice to create a great puzzle game, but this one’s just pure evil… GREAT evil!

Despicable Me: Minion Mania (iPhone: $4.99; FREE; iPad: $6.99)

Isaac Newton’s Gravity was a pretty cool puzzle game, but it lacked charm and heart. Despicable Me’s puzzle challenges are similar, and the game in general carries more charm. Think Babylonian Twins with annoying but funny yellow monsters!

Presentation

Most of the events here in Despicable Me takes place inside a factory much like The Package only this time, there are more colors and the levels are well lit. The animation and level design are both worthy of praise as well. This may in face be Namco’s best designed game so far.

Controls

Mostly everything is tap control. You can tap your minions to select them then tap to the place you want them to move. Switching through your minions can be done either by panning and zooming to your minions OR by simply clicking the minion buttons on the top center of the screen.

The other controls like how to interact with the machines and guns are presented through little unobtrusive pop up balloons.

Gameplay

The goal in Despicable Me is to go to the end point on each level. You initially start off with a simple level with two minions. Switching minions is important in a way that you need one to step on a button to open a wall while the other runs for cover or to the finish line.

The game picks up quite fast in a good way when you start seeing guns, hooks, catapults and the use of other machinery. If you’re not a puzzle person, don’t feel frightened. Despicable Me somehow manages to introduce and elevate the difficulty without getting its players flustered.

Despicable Me is a challenging game with the right amount of cuteness factor to it to cover it up and keep you playing. You are scored per level through the number of coins you collected, the number of times your minion got squashed and with the number of coins you collected.

Suggestion

Where is Unite SDK? Throw in some leaderboards to compare to the bests of the world. The game has achievements, but where are the leaderboards?

Conclusion

Namco seems to be finally hitting its stride with non-retro games, and Despicable Me proves that and then some. It’s great to see them move to more casual and more mass appealing to the kids of this generation that otherwise wouldn’t recognize their retro titles.

If Namco continues this streak, they’re going to be one force to be reckon with in all AppStore genres and outside of their “retro gaming” comfort zone.