Five Stars: This week's best iPhone and iPad games

Welcome to Five Stars, a weekly feature where Pocket Gamer's well-trained bloodhounds sniff out tiny morsels of goodness from the pungent dungheap that is the iTunes App Store.

This week, Wimbledon has kicked off and tennis giants from around the globe have descended upon London to fire balls at each other and, hopefully, whack those aforementioned balls back. Something like that.

It's also the 20th anniversary of gaming's number two mascot: the spiny Sonic The Hedgehog.

Check out our celebratory feature where we realise that handheld games on Neo Geo Pocket, GBA, DS, and iPhone were the perfect reprieve from Sonic's lame console offerings. More 2D platformers, fewer talking swords and annoying werehogs.

As always, feel free to mention your favourite new games in the comments section or let us know if you have a new game launching soon.

Tales of Monkey Island Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4 and Episode 5
iPad - £3.99 each - Telltale

It's nice to see adventure game specialist Telltale taking this whole iPad lark quite seriously, even if the release schedule is a little bonkers. Back to the Future 4 came a mere week after its third episode, while the new Monkey Island is late by a whopping five months.

To make up for that epic spell of lateness, Telltale has dropped all four episodes onto iTunes in one fell swoop. With the serialised story of Monkey Island taking place over five chapters, it's nice to know that you can pick up the next episode whenever you feel like it.

Tales of Monkey Island tells the story of mighty pirate Guybrush Threepwood as he thwarts LeChuck (once again), saves his wife Elaine (once again), and cures the pirates of the Caribbean from a voodoo pox (that one's new).

He'll be swallowed by a manatee, get into sword-fighting stand-offs, defend himself in court, sail the ocean, and say epically dumb things. It's your typical point-and-click fare as you collect objects, gab to townsfolk, and solve puzzles.

The Tales saga is funny, wicked smart, and manages - somehow - to just about stand shoulder to shoulder with the retro classics as part of that oh-so-prestigious Monkey Island canon.

It's a must-have on iPad 2, though it runs like crap on the original model.

1-bit Ninja
iPhone - £1.19 - kode80

If the iPhone's slippery touchscreen and complete lack of buttons make the smartphone an inhospitable place for platformers, how do you explain the preponderance of rock hard, masochistic jump 'n' runs?

After League of Evil and The Impossible Game comes 1-bit Ninja, a hair-wrenching platformer that confounds even the most veteran gamers with its relentless pace, tricky level architecture, and the fact that you're not allowed to run back. At all.

There's a twist, of course. While the game looks like an 8-bit, strictly two-dimensional platformer with a hefty dose of Game Boy-era graphics, 1-bit Ninja hides away an extra dimension. Swipe your thumb across the top of the screen and the camera pans around to show the level in 3D.

From this perspective, you can spot secret routes and helpful stashes of coins. And as the springy camera bounces back to its default two-dimensional set-up, you can use your ill-gotten knowledge to exploit those insights.

You'll need this info if you want to beat all 20 levels, nuke all 100 challenges, and collect the game's collection of Easter eggs and special modes (including anaglyph 3D).

Continuity 2: The Continuation
Universal - 59p - Ragtime Games

I rather like this growing trend of revered Flash games coming to the iPhone packed with more content and better graphics. I mean, it's already worked wonders for QWOP, League of Evil, and The Blocks Cometh.

And here we go again, with an awesome follow-up to award- winning puzzle-platformer Continuity. But unlike QWOP et al., this is a full sequel, rather than a port.

The game is a smart mix of tile-sliding puzzler and classic platformer. Each level is split up into a number of tiles, which you can move and reorder to mix up the rooms, connect hallways, and make paths for your stick figure hero.

You then jump in and navigate the world to grab the key and leave through the door. It has 50 great levels, but no leaderboards or achievements. Still, it's one of the most unique platformers on the App Store. And it's only 59p.

Tiny Tower
Universal - Free - NimbleBit

NimbleBit's skyscraper sim Tiny Tower is a freemium game. This means that it falls victim to the same tired template as a hundred other free-to-play apps on the iPhone.

1. Kick off with some menial and time-consuming labour (like growing crops in FarmVille). 2. Wait real-world minutes or hours for the task to complete. 3. Collect your profit. 4. Start again.

From Smurfs' Village to Lil’ Pirates, it's the same deal over and over again. Tiny Tower certainly employs that well-worn formula, but it manages to feel more enjoyable than those other freemium slogs.

Once your tower starts growing, you'll have so much to do - ferrying visitors in the elevator, micromanaging your bitizens' happiness, restocking shelves, and building extensions - that it rarely feels like you're treading water. In a lot of ways, it feels more like The Sims or Hotel Giant than FarmVille.

You'll also play host to special events to help speed up the process - VIP visitors, for example, will instantly restock your shelves, while veteran builders will speed up construction.

It encourages you to come back and play every few minutes, and there are moments where nothing's really happening, but it stands out as one of the best freemium titles on the App Store. Plus, those pixel-art visuals are delicious.

Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing
Universal - £1.19 - SEGA

Every handheld needs a lighthearted kart racer with ridiculous tracks, a cast of colourful characters, endless drifting, and a handful of power-ups. Mario has furnished every Nintendo platform with his Kart games, and PSP has DIY track-builder ModNation Racers.

For iPhone, you can now forget Shrek, Cocoto, and Crash Bandicoot. Just in time for his 20th birthday, Sonic and his band of Sega-related buddies have taken the crown for the best go-karting game on the iPhone.

All-Stars Racing controls well. Massive drifts turn into bumper boosts, meaning you'll need to learn the track layout and know exactly when to leap into a screeching oversteer for the best result. It also packs a smart collection of fun power-ups.

It's a must-have title for Sega fanatics as this racer is drenched in nostalgic fan service. Alongside Green Hill Zone characters like Sonic, Tails, and Dr Eggman, you can whizz around as a chimp from Super Monkey Ball, Shenmue's forklift-driving ass whooper Ryo Hazuki, and one-off GameCube star Billy Hatcher.