Penguins of Madagascar is the new film featuring possibly the most memorable characters from the Madagascar movies. The irreverent Kowalski, Private, Rico and Skipper made enough impact to branch out on their own and with a new film comes with the inevitable tie-in game for the 3DS.

Penguins of Madagascar sees our heroes planning a raid on Fort Knox in order to purloin all of the Cheezy Dibbles contained in the vending machines. This act of larceny is by way of celebration for Private's tenth birthday, but as so often happens things do not go as planned. On their arrival they are dismayed to discover that octopuses have taken over the facility and trapped their fellow penguins in the very machines they intended to rob.

The game is a basic platform puzzler which allows you to play as any of the four characters. There is one notable difference to the game compared to contemporary offerings. The penguins cannot engage in combat, even Skipper's slap only stuns opponents, which means this is a game where stealth is the order of the day. It’s a bold move by the game's creators in an age where nearly every game seems to require a minimum level of violence. This does mean that the game is very family friendly.

The encounter at Fort Knox leads the penguins to other locations in an attempt to discover who is behind the attack. Although the game is of a good length it is not without its problems. Firstly you never seem to meet any other adversaries apart from the octopuses, which gets a bit samey after a while, and for a game aimed at a younger audience there is a distinct lack of checkpoints. There is also a problem with some of the platforms. The game is a port from the Wii and some actions which were easy have become more difficult when shrunk down the size of the 3DS.

That said, it does capture the humour and character of the penguins well, but overall the low level of the puzzles aims this game at a younger audience.

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Charles Packer