Clyde's a funny little chap, and he's unfortunately been cloned by nefarious scientists (for a measly twenty bucks), complete with bum crack revealing hospital gown! Enter Cloning Clyde (CC), a great little puzzler that does what every XBLA game should aspire to do: be damn fun.

Developed by NinjaBee, CC has no real story (there's a comic scene at the beginning and end), is not actually original (it borrows heavily from titles such as The Lost Vikings). It also doesn't have mind-blowing graphics, yet still manages to suck you in like a tornado and we can almost guarantee that you will keep coming back for more – just to get that last action figure!

There are 24 levels and 10 Challenge levels (which aren't particularly challenging) but CC's beauty lies in both its presentation and charming simplicity. The graphics are bright and colourful, almost cel-shaded in style, and Clyde himself swaggers around hilariously (gotta giggle when his bum shows on ladders – not to mention some of the cheats you can unlock which transform Clyde's appearance dramatically). In fact, the animation is all top notch – particularly when Clyde uses weird machines to mix his DNA with that of other animals and objects.

The main hook to the game is the fact that there is often a plethora of other Clydes in a level, whom you can actually control by pressing the Y button to disembody and zip around; pressing it again puts you in the body of another Clyde. All of the levels utilise this zipping ability – putting barriers and obstacles between groups of cloned Clydes and requiring you to stand on a certain amount of buttons or pull a series of levers to progress. Cloned Clydes pop out of crates and you can even make them yourself by standing on cloning machines and pressing B.

The real fun comes in getting inside the skin of other animals and objects. By mixing Clyde's DNA with a goat, frog, monkey, chicken – even a TNT barrel, each level manages to offer unique challenges. For example, if you pull a lever and a chicken pops out, allowing you to turn into Chicken Clyde, it will often mean the level is a vertical one – requiring much flapping around – similarly, become a TNT barrel and you can be guaranteed of plenty of explosive action.

Within each level, your main objectives are threefold: destroy all the security machines (which are themselves protected by kamikaze exploding chickens), collect all the action figures, and help all of the clones to escape (via escape chutes) – oh, and a fourth objective: to beat your best time for the level. In all of his incarnations, Clyde has some form of melee attack – his different animal forms give him some stronger attacks. For example, as a chicken he pecks security bots to death! Clyde also collects DNA strands in each level – get enough of these and you're given a certain amount of super attacks, which basically allow you to destroy security bots in one go.

There's also multiplayer, where your objective revolves around destroying the opposing team's security bots before they destroy yours.

If anything negative can be said of the game it's that it isn't particularly difficult – and many of the levels can get repetitive. There are perhaps just a few too many switches and buttons in the game – I would have liked to see more use of elements such as trampolines and it may have even been cool to introduce some kind of projectile weapon into the game. However, the game really does have a lot of broad-smile moments, as all of its elements converge in some exquisite gaming sequences. There are enough of these moments to please anyone with the opinion that, in games, sometimes less is definitely more.

I really hope that NinjaBee release more content for this game – as more levels and challenges will be quite welcome for this reviewer. Who knows, perhaps there's even room for DLC that introduces Cloning Claire!!