Sometimes, you need a break from the puzzles, the physics contraptions - even a good narrative. Sometimes, you just want to shoot things.

Meltdown certainly excels in this area. It harbours thirty missions of randomly generated terrain and enemies, which give you access to a whole host of class and weapon upgrades. Plus - and here's the real draw - up to four players can jump in on the carnage at any given time. As a result, Meltdown is as pure a cooperative shooting experience as one could ask for on the iOS platform.

It's got some pretty complex systems, too. You can tap behind cover to duck out of enemy fire. Shooting is automatic, though you can choose to turn autofire on or off to let you choose when you want to let rip. Double tapping on the screen causes your character to perform a diving roll, and enemies that run in for a close encounter can be dealt with via melee weapons. Destroying robots will earn you gold, data, and experience. Though the game works well using taps alone, you can change the control scheme to a gamepad setup in the options menu.

Interface aside, the real thrill of Meltdown lies in its co-operative destruction. Shooting is still enjoyable solo, but in this mode the game lacks the frenetic mayhem that comes with numerous autonomous bodies flying around the screen. You also lose the added experience and gold benefits of having other players around.

Before every new mission, we'd encourage all players to turn online mode on and search for a game to join, as the difference really is night and day. The multiplayer system isn't perfect, mind - there's no way to communicate with allies, and you have to arrange groups for each mission. Still, we hope that feedback and patches might iron out theses issues sometime in the future.

In the meantime, we reckon action junkies will more than get their money's worth out of Meltdown. While single player isn't as compelling, the game truly shines when played with others. If you've got a wi-fi connection and an itchy trigger finger, then this could be the social shooter for you.