Stolen in 60 seconds is very unusual. It is completely different from any other Windows Mobile game I've played. In this game you are a criminal mastermind tasked with organizing your gang to commit various robberies.

The game is split into several clear stages:

1. Gathering intelligence
2. Recruiting and equipping of your criminal gang
3. Planning the robbery
4. Committing the crime
5. Splitting the booty

Each mission starts with an outline of the job's goal which could be to steal antiques, money, diamonds or any other valuables.

At this stage you will be told how much time you have to commit the crime before the police arrive and you might get the option of paying an informer some money for extra information. This could highlight where the valuables are in the property or to show you where the alarm systems are.

If you have the money it's a good idea to pay the informant for his services as without it you'll often end up repeating the mission.

Once you've digested the information it's time to recruit your gang. For each mission you'll be offered the services of a number of criminals: sometimes you'll only be offered one or two, but if it's a big job you'll be offered more.

It's up to you who goes on the job - you could take everyone or just do the crime all by yourself. When you select any of the criminals you'll get to see their biography.

This will tell you what percentage of the ill-gotten gains they'll get and how much weight they can carry. More weight means they can carry more tools and steal more goods. If you choose to recruit the gang member you'll have to select what tools you'll buy for them to use.

Different tools often do the same job, but the lighter the tool or the quicker it does the task the more expensive it will be. When you have selected everyone for the job and have equipped them with their tools it is time to start planning the job.

The planning stage provides you with an accurate map of the building you have targeted.

If you've paid for the information the alarm systems will be highlighted in red, blue or green. This allows you to clearly see what to avoid until you have disabled the matching alarm control box. The locations of the most expensive targets will also be highlighted, allowing you to prioritize which items to target first.

You now have to enter every move for your criminals. There are different containers you can break into including safes, display cases, cupboards, desks. The different containers take different lengths of time to break into and require different tools.

If you have more than one gang member selected for the crime, the paths of each member will be highlighted in a different color allowing you to identify where each member is going. The clock in the bottom right shows how many seconds you have used. Each action, such as smashing a door or cracking a safe, takes a predefined length of time so watching the clock allows you to maximise what each member does whilst ensuring they make it back out of the building to the safety of the getaway car.

When you commit the crime you only have control of the boss character. All the other gang members will act as automatons obeying every command from the planning stage and only doing as they have been programmed.

You have to ensure you've memorised what you want the boss to do from the planning screen because when you are performing the crime the locations of alarms and the valuables are no longer highlighted.

Assuming you successfully commit the crime without being caught by the police, the valuables get divided out amongst the gang members and you get the option of progressing to the next mission or trying the level again. The number of times you repeat the level depends on the difficulty level you have selected. If anyone does get caught by the cops you can 'buy' them back into the game by paying their bail.

I really enjoyed this unique game. The sound effects are good and the graphics reminded me of the original Grand theft auto. However, unlike GTA, this game completely lacks violence: all the missions I encountered involved robbing empty properties. You can often find yourself spending 30-60 minutes playing one mission, so it's not the kind of game you want to start when you only have a few minutes to kill.

The game has some great tutorial levels at the start to show you how to control the various features. Unfortunately, the instructions tell you how to control the game using the numbers 0-9 which don't work on the Treo. The game is played using the D-pad and hard keys or stylus. I suspect this error is because the game is a port from a different device and the instruction haven't been updated yet for the Treo.

After a while I found the game devolved into a time management exercise reminiscent of the kind of thing you'd find in a project management textbook. It was all too predictable: every task takes a predefined length of time that never varies and you start the mission knowing exactly when the police will arrive. It would be better if the containers took more random lengths of time to enter, and safes took 30-50 seconds enter so that you wouldn't know exactly how long you had to do a crime. This would give you stress when committing the crime - you'd be watching the clock wondering if you'll be able to break into the safe or would have to press the button to get your guys to drop everything and run seconds before the police arrive.

Overall, this is a great game whose awards include the Gold winner of Samsung Game Development Contest 2007. If you like strategy games and want something a bit different to play this is well worth a go. The game will certainly provide you with several hours of head scratching entertainment and the game is a steal at only $11.75.

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