BackStab
Pirates have had a rough deal in gaming — too often they’re used only for comedy purposes. BackStab, which is also available for the iPad and Android, aims to redress the balance. Set on a Caribbean island in the 18th century, it does for buccaneers what Assassin’s Creed did for the Renaissance: combines stealth, puzzles and combat against a historically accurate background. You play a disgraced Royal Navy officer in a quest for justice, a task that involves roaming the island, putting enemies to the sword and occasionally stopping to admire the excellent visuals. All in all it packs enough depth to justify its premium (for smartphones) pricing.
Tiny Tower
A trend in iPhone gaming is to make your titles look like they date from the 1980s by using pixelated graphics. Another is to offer them free to download, then make money by selling you virtual items contained within the game. Tiny Tower combines the two by getting you to build a block floor-by-floor, moving in people (or bitizens) as you go and setting up things for them to do. Your aim is to build an economically viable tower as high as possible. Adding new levels to your towers costs Bux. These can be earned in the game by running businesses and making your bitizens happy or, if you want to speed things up, by buying them for real money — prices start at 59p. This game has bags of character and originality but be prepared to start spending.
Shadow Cities
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Like Tiny Tower, Shadow Cities is another “freemium” game: it costs nothing to download but in-app purchases (starting at 59p) will speed up play. It’s substantially more ambitious, however — a fantasy game involving spirits and spells in which you battle other human players online, gaining extra powers for your character as you go. The hook is that all these confrontations tie in to the iPhone’s location features and take place on a map of the real world, meaning you can fight for familiar territory such as your home town or workplace. Once you grasp the complicated gameplay, Shadow Cities becomes gripping, although players prepared to splash the cash to increase their powers will have a big advantage over any cheapskates.