Clear Vision (17+) for iOS

Clear Vision (17+) offers an age-appropriate warning right in its name, but this sniper game based on a popular Flash game truly delivers with great playability, graphical style, and storyline.

Certainly not for kids, Clear Vision's storyline is about a guy whose patience gets pushed too far and resorts to the life of a sniper for hire. In the game you play as Tyler, a former clerk at a grocery store who begins to take sniping jobs for cash. Tyler is a cold-blooded killer who doesn't care who gives him the job or who he's hired to kill (you get no choice in assignments). The graphics are fairly simple with stick figure characters, but the age warning is definitely apt; your mission is to shoot to kill and the kills can be quite graphic -- even when shooting stick figure targets.

What makes this game stand out is the creative use of stick figures, music, and animated cutscenes to give the game an overall dreary feel and a storyline that drags you through the action. I don't want to spoil any of the story, but will say that the developer creates an amazing view into a dark underworld where our "hero" must face the consequences for his actions. It's done so well, in fact, that you grow attached to certain lesser characters in the game, but again, I don't want to ruin the story.

The interface for Clear Vision involves swiping to aim your rifle and a button on the left to fire. But aiming is not always cut and dry, as on some missions you'll need to account for both wind speed and distance before firing your rifle. The game offers some help here: while aiming at the target, your site will calculate the distance and wind speed, and you'll need to adjust your shot using targeting indicators in the scope. This will become much more important later in the game when your missions require perfect accuracy to hit your targets. It's also important to note that you'll not always use a gun for your kills, but that's another surprise I'll let you see for yourself.

Clear Vision comes with 20 missions, five weapons to unlock as you earn more money, and even a mini game that lets you bet on underground boxing (you won't be doing the boxing, but it's fun to watch). My only issues with this game are that you can probably finish it in one sitting and, once you know the missions, the game will play out exactly the same, leaving little in the way of replay value. With that said, this violent game is very well designed, and is probably worth the price just to see how well the stick figures are used to create a dark and bloody story.