Mobile Games Roundup

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Shadow Vanguard

• Android/Xperia Play: £3.00
• Also available on iPhone - £4.99, and iPad - £4.99. Free iPhone trial version also available.

For an entire decade, Rainbow Six was easily the most prolific gaming franchise around, with new iterations hoving into view on a near-annual basis with remarkable consistency.

But three long years have elapsed since Vegas 2, leaving fans of the counter-terrorist shooter series wondering when Ubi will get around to the reboot. To fill the void, sister company Gameloft has elected to revisit the first game in the series in this rather casual interpretation of the 1998 title.

At its core, Shadow Vanguard features the hostage rescue scenarios that you expect from the series, but with a notably stripped-down approach.

The majority of your time is spent creeping from one small section to the next, ordering your men to take up new positions via simple context-sensitive icons that pop up on the left of the screen when you aim towards cover points. And as long as you're patient enough to do so, your two squad-mates will diligently take down any enemies that stumble into view.

Take the initiative yourself, though, and you're more likely to get jumped on the moment you walk through a door, but with the tactile controls of the Xperia Play it's all rather straightforward - as Gameloft shooters tend to be.

Played with gyroscopic controls on iOS platforms, it's surprisingly good fun if you've got a spinny chair in the vicinity, but not much of a challenge for most of the 11-chapter campaign mode. Local or online campaign co-op is an unexpected bonus, and five-on-five online deathmatch is surprisingly enjoyable even with crazy controls.

Like every Gameloft shooter, there's the stench of cheap knock-off about it, but that doesn't stop it from being mildly enjoyable for a few hours.

5/10

DARK

• Xperia Play: Free. Available via the handset.
• Also available on iPhone - £1.99.

"Earth has Marines, space has DARK Squadron." It's time to break out the chunky power armour suits and big guns and reel off the sci-fi clichés like the fate of the universe depends upon it.

As you might have already gathered, Gamelab wants you to take DARK very seriously. It wants to be thought of as a gritty sci-fi action RPG steeped in the mystery of lost contact. Because no-one's used that idea before.

But with crushing predictability, what starts off as a vaguely promising top-down shooter very quickly descends into an unremittingly dull procession down darkened corridors, punctuated by waves of unremarkable twin-stick combat.

Occasionally you get to dash through areas where you're running out of oxygen, or face off against a mini-boss, but before long you're back to fighting off another few waves before being allowed to continue your linear trudge.

To add a semblance of purpose and reward, you'll be able to level up as well as buy new weapons and armour, but in the absence of remotely interesting mechanics, you'll quickly wish you were doing something more interesting with your free time. Like working out how much you've spend on household detergent in the last decade.

4/10