It's nice to see a company that sells games putting their money where their mouth is and developing a videogame of their own. Buck and the Coin of Destiny by GameStop is a horizontal platform runner that stars their advertising mascot as he searches for... well... a coin.

In each of five levels Buck will start sprinting his way across the screen and all you have to do is tap to jump, holding for a slightly higher jump and tapping again in mid-air will give you a second jump to bridge large gaps or avoid that extra enemy. As you traverse through forests, caves, ships and foreign lands you'll collect various other coins for extra points, while the occasional invincibility power-up gives you a chance to plow through the enemies with casual abandon.

So far so ordinary for a horizontal runner, but a lot of little gameplay design choices ruin what should be an easy slam-dunk title. Hitting enemies will slow you down, but hitting them while running bounces you back, often in to a pit and ending your run; the difficulty only increases by adding more projectiles to avoid, making some runs almost impossible complete without lucky health pickups; and the random level designs can result in situations where avoiding one trap throws you directly down a pit or in to enemies in another.

While I've always wanted to try a game with this mascot, Buck and the Coin of Destiny is too short and riddled with balance problems and not even the amusing cut scenes make this more than just an average title for the genre.