House of Shadows

Stealth games and touchscreens devices aren't the happiest of bedfellows. You need to be sure of the precision of your movements when you're trying to sneak past someone, and that's not something touch controls can consistently offer.

It's a problem that House of Shadows attempts to bypass with leniency. For the most part it's successful, too, although die-hard stealth fans are going to find a game that's a little too easy for their taste.

Set on Halloween, the game sees you playing as a young boy who needs to rescue his sister from a series of spooky mansions. Each of these crumbling abodes is split into a number of different rooms, and each of the rooms is patrolled by ghosts.

Along with the ghoulish guardians, the different rooms are filled with glittering treasures and a glowing key. You'll need to grab the key to make it out of the maze-like rooms, but collecting all of the bits of treasure will get you the best scores.

You control your plucky hero with a single finger, tracing a line on the screen for him to follow or dragging him to the place in the room where you want him to go. It's not the most accurate of methods, but it serves its purpose reasonably well.

When you're spotted by a ghost, an empty question mark appears over the spectre's head. If you're still in sight when the question mark fills in, the ghost will chase after you with murderous intent. One touch and you have to start all over again.

The fact that a curious ghost won't chase you straight away just about makes up for the clumsy controls, but it also means you'll get an awful lot of chances if you're quick enough with your fingers when you make an honest mistake.

There's plenty of content in House of Shadows, with two huge habitats to explore and the added replay value of trying to grab all of the treasure.

This is an enjoyable, straightforward stealth-'em-up that works well on your iOS device's touchscreen, but if you're a dyed-in-the-wool stealth expert you're probably going to come away disappointed.