The puffy, white ball drags a trail, slicing apart the game board.

Here's a prescription for a good iPhone game: clear, simple controls; interesting gameplay mechanics; and a polished presentation. Dr. Awesome delivers in its initial dose. However, the game lacks long-term substance, growing repetitive and dull after only a few hours.

Dr. Awesome lifts classic arcade (and Mac) rules and re-skins them with a medical theme. Blobs representing viruses float around the game board, and you have to carve up the space, cutting down their habitat until they can't survive. Tilts drive your surgical tool, drawing lines across the virus' territory. Viruses break your incomplete line segments in a collision, forcing you to try again and also penalizing you by reducing the count-down clock. When the clock ends, the patient often dies.

Don't tell anyone, but we never paid attention in fake medical school.

These core rules are fun because of their simplicity. The game grows deeper with multiple virus types that shoot spores at you, baddies that climb along the walls, and various power-ups to fight the diseases. Splashy cut-scenes introduce patients from your contact list and great in-surgery graphics also immediately appeal.

But Dr. Awesome becomes repetitive and even a chore. Levels increase in difficulty, but not enough changes to hold interest. And those clever-at-first cut-scenes quickly repeat, swapping names of new patients, but duplicating the same lines.

Fun at first, Dr. Awesome lacks an obsession-inducing puzzle core that might stave off boredom.

Dr. Awesome 1.0
COMPANY: ngmoco
CONTACT: www.ngmoco.com
PRICE: $1.99
REQUIREMENTS: iPhone or iPod touch with 2.1 software update.
Simple, entertaining game core. Motion controls suit the play. Gives patients names from your address book. Fun art and cut-scene banter.
Can't calibrate motion controls or play in widescreen. Cut-scenes and game grow repetitive. Can't listen to your own music.