Five Stars - Jetpack Joyride, Muffin Knight, Crimson Steam Pirates, and more

I seem to have inadvertently stumbled onto something of a theme in this week's Five Stars, our weekly look at the best iPhone and iPad games of the past seven days.

A handful of this week's picks are iPhone games made by ex-console gaming titans

Itsy bitsy disease-ridden puzzler Tiny Invaders comes to us via the death of Project Gotham creator Bizarre Creations, while the mastermind behind Crimson Steam Pirates has an illustrious history of strategy games on PC and console.

But that counts for little in the grand scheme of things, as Halfbrick Studios - an indie studio that exploded on mobile and download services after little success on Game Boy Advance - beats them all with its must-have, utterly obsessive arcade romp Jetpack Joyride.

Jetpack Joyride
Universal - 69p/99c - Halfbrick Studios

The Fruit Ninja masterminds at Aussie studio Halfbrick certainly know how to craft an addictive experience. And their latest release - the one-touch arcade timesink Jetpack Joyride - is no exception.

You pilot office-worker-cum-jetpack-thief Barry Steakfries through an endless series of secret corridors, narrowly dodging missiles and darting into the path of floating coins. Seems simple enough.

But Halfbrick unleashes a suite of devious extras to keep you coming back for more. There are Game Center achievements and leaderboards, pointless doodads to spend coins on, and endless extra-curricular objectives to aim for.

All in all, Joyride is one tough app to put down, and its beckoning call will have you loading it up for one-more-go in every situation imaginable.

Crimson Steam Pirates
iPad - Free - Bungie Aerospace

This high seas strategy romp is the first game to come out of Bungie's indie publishing arm Aerospace. Thankfully, it has little in common with the Halo-maker's spate of cliched sci-fi romps.

Instead, CSP is a thoughtful affair, turning swashbuckling ocean battles into strategic, turn-based clashes.

As you work though the tales of Captain Blood (or try the pass-and-play multiplayer) you'll sink enemy frigates, storm opponents' ports, and do battle with rival pirates. And soon, as the pirate-theme is ditched entirely, submarines, and bomb-dropping zeppelins enter the fray.

It all happens through a touchscreen-savvy interface, as you literally drag out the proposed pathways for your fleet. Then, both yours and your opponent's moves are played out at once, meaning you'd better hope you're not sailing into a trap or taking on an enemy with a much stronger force.

Crimson Steam Pirates soon gets very complicated, but with its smart interface and the strategy street-cred of FASA's Jordan Weisman aboard, it's always fair.

DrawRace 2
iPhone - 69p / iPad - £1.99 - Chillingo

The iPhone represents some unique challenges for game designers. Without traditional buttons and controllers, developers have to either plump for virtual representations or try something completely different - something that befits the touch-only interface.

That's the story behind RedLynx's original DrawRace, which turned top-down driving into a Flight Control-styled line-drawing finger race. It was intuitive and perfectly suited to the platform.

Now the developer is back, with a fully-evolved edition in DrawRace 2. But while the winning control scheme is much the same, the Texan developer has overhauled pretty much everything else.

For one, there's the all-new visual style, where DrawRace's flat scribbles are replaced with lumpy 3D roadways and full-on rally courses. The app now features 180 missions - including stylish Gymkhana diversions - and loads of cars.

There's multiplayer too, both in pass-and-play and online. If you liked the original DrawRace's control scheme but wished it had the visuals, challenges, and content of a full-fat racer, this exhaustive sequel will certainly suffice.

Tiny Invaders
iPhone - £2.49 - Hogrocket

It's a story that's becoming rather common in the games industry. Harsh economic times leave titanic console developers bankrupt, so its staff hit out on thir own, going indie, self-published, and, sometimes, way more successful than before.

That's likely the ambition of Hogrocket, a new British developer that emerged from the charred remains of Project Gotham creator Bizarre Creations. Now, the studio has finally revealed its first effort: the disease-ridden puzzler Tiny Invaders.

The game follows a band of intergalactic micro-aliens with world-domination ambitions. The plan is to infect some hapless sap, and then spread - all viral like - through the American population and right up to the President.

To do so you'll have to take over individual cells, piloting your germ-like critters to pick up the tasty white capsules in your victim's bloodstream. You'll need to alter pathways and administer speed boosts - on the fly - to get your infectious friends to their goal.

I wasn't enamoured with the game's twisted take on difficulty - it's impossible to fail a level, so you'll have to aim for prestigious two- and three-star awards for any sense of challenge - but it's still a creative premise, with smart ideas and wicked presentation.

Muffin Knight
Universal - 69p - Angry Mob Games

Whoops. Since publishing this story, we found out that Muffin Knight is a pretty scummy rip-off of Vlambeer's epic indie classic, Super Crate Box. You should keep that in mind before you spend your cash.

In the cutesy fairytale world of Muffin Knight, fluffy choc-chip cakes are a far richer currency than gems and gold coins, it seems. That's probably because these baked goods are more than a little magical, instantly transforming our stout hero into any number of mediaeval archetypes.

So as you scramble about the game's mini-battlefields, duking it out with rabid animals and leaping from platform to platform, each muffin you scoop up will turn you into a knight, a blunderbuss-toting gnome, or even a unicorn with magic rainbow turds.

Muffin Knight reminds me of those single-screened arcade brawls like Mario Bros (before the portly plumber went all 'Super') and Bubble Bobble. It's a fondly remembered genre, but not one that's been cloned and remade and recreated to death - a rare treat to see it back on iOS.

Best of all, Muffin Knight's visual style is utterly gorgeous. Presented within the pages of a pop-up book, each stage explodes into view with scrumptious colours and thick black outlines, nailing the fairytale artstyle.

The game is fun, frantic, and there's multiplayer to boot - an easy recommendation at 69p.