Cordy 2 is an extremely beautiful platform game that I’m playing on the iPad (there is an Android version as well). The game is fast/challenging at the right measure (at least for my taste) and does its best to offer decent controls on a touch screen.

Levels are managed in the Angry Birds style (you earn 1-3 stars according to your performance on each level), but “cost” mechanics ensures you put some effort in a few of them to move forward. Tutorials are very short and mostly skippable, and game dialogs are kept to a minimum. Overall, you just play the game and have fun (a hard-to-find concept in recent games, I guess.)

The fact that you don’t really “die” (at least I haven’t so far) initially made me afraid the game was too easy. But using other types of punishment (like sending you back a bit) works well, pretty much like the old LucasArts adventure games “no death/no dead end” policy gave them a playability edge over Sierra titles and other predecessors.

My only complaint is that I miss hardware controls for platform games (regardless of how beautiful they are on the Retina display). I bought a Nintendo 3DS precisely for that reason, but never found a great platformer for it (or any title that breaks the “ok, but not as shiny as the original” impression).

The only thing that keeps my Nintendo portable running are the Mii Plaza StreetPass-based mini-games, the ultra-polished Mario Kart 7 and the faithfully recreated Twin Bee. New SMB2 had everything to change that, but the “you-suck-let’s-make-you-Invincible-Mario” crushed the experience for me.

Back to Cordy 2: maybe it’s not for the hardcore gamer, but overall I find the $5 was money well spent. As usual in iOSland, you can try a few levels before making a decision – yet another thing that very few titles (and none from Nintendo, I believe) offer on the 3DS.