Quality Index's top-reviewed iPhone games of the week: NinJump Deluxe and Broken Sword - The Smoking Mirror

Welcome to the weekly iPhone Quality Index (Qi) games round-up, giving you the LOWdown on the HIGH scorers every Friday on these illustrious pages.

As you may already know, Qi trawls the web for iPhone game reviews from the world’s most respected online and print sources.

Qi then applies its own magic formula to each site (such as 148Apps, IGN, and Gamezebo) to establish a single definitive Qi score for each iPhone game.

Springing up the Qi ladder this week all the way to the #9 rung comes Backflip Studios’s yet swankier follow-up to its wildly successful and fast-paced NinJump, which leapt onto the scene in August 2010.

By adopting the old adage of ‘if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it’, NinJump Deluxe’s tried and tested combination of perpetual climbing and awesome bonuses has earned the skipping shaolin a trio of memorable reviews for an 8.5 Qi rating.

This time around, though, your fleet of foot shinobi must contend with more dangerous enemies - including witch doctors, snakes, beetles, and hornets - in his mission to reach the summit of the wall.

New pirate and jungle backdrops bring welcome variety to NinJump Deluxe’s frenzied tapping, while 148Apps updates us on its social networking status: “NinJump Deluxe includes Game Center integration for leaderboards...You can also share your scores via Facebook, Twitter, or email.”

Mirror, mirror on the wall

Another sequel to a universally lauded App Store title has taken huge strides up the Qi chart, as Revolution’s point-and-click successor to the highly rated Broken Sword: Director’s Cut engrossed all manner of iPhone judges.

Journalist Nico Collard and her companion George return to our touchscreens in Broken Sword – the Smoking Mirror: Remastered, whereupon they stumble across an ancient artefact that inevitably proves more trouble than it’s worth.

Gorgeous hand-drawn graphics allied to a mysterious plotline and sweat-inducing puzzles have resulted in Nico’s latest adventure collecting a wonderful 8.6 Qi score along its terrifying travels.

AppGamer reflected on The Smoking Mirror’s virtues in its perfect 10 appraisal, suggesting that it will “last you hours, having all the playability of a full-priced PC game. It is the kind of game that could convert people who wouldn't look twice at adventure games.”

You can get up-to-date information about which games are reviewing best over at the Quality Index.