What's this all about? Why it's the weekly Quality Index (Qi) roundup. Quality Index is one of Pocket Gamer’s many, many sister sites.

In many respects, Qi is a lot like Metacritic for iPhone games, collating everybody's opinions in one handy resource. And it’s managed to accumulate over 110,000 of these opinions already.

Every Friday, this column takes a look at the games that have made the biggest critical splash in iPhone gaming over the past week.

In the line of fire

Following in the proud naming tradition of video game classics Super Mario World, Super Scribblenauts, and Super Street Fighter IV is Super Crossfire, a high-energy shmup whose Qi rating of 8.6 definitely warrants the ‘Super’ prefix.

In Chillingo’s latest retro-futuristic iPhone space shooter - the publisher’s Infinity Field powered onto these pages a mere six weeks ago - aspiring fighter pilots employ tilt, slider, or button controls to weave through enemy ordnance across five distinct chapters.

Rather uniquely for a game in this genre, you can warp your ship to the opposite end of the screen at any stage. According to Tapscape, "this makes for an interesting strategical advantage as if there are too many bullets coming at you from above, you can quickly flip to the top of the screen."

Trail of success

With more exposure than Lindsay Lohan and greater industry interest than Grand Theft Auto V (in ustwo’s opinion, anyway), semi-psychedelic endless-flyer Whale Trail is well on the way to notching up the 300,000 sales needed for the title to break even.

Press and hold on the iPhone’s 3.5-inch touchscreen to swoop up; release your digit to dive down. And if you’re feeling particularly daring this morning you can execute a loop-de-loop to evade the attention of the nefarious Baron Von Barry.

In the words of ustwo CHIEF WONKA mills: "We chose a whale since the idea of a huge blubbery mammal flying gracefully through the air seemed so wrong in the real world, yet so wonderfully right in the virtual world. We named him Willow in homage to our favourite film of the same name and the general fighting spirit the lead character emits whilst in battle."

Comic timing

A spin-off from Steven Spielberg’s motion-captured 3D film starring Jamie Bell and Simon Pegg, Gameloft’s The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn - The Game thrillingly marries swordplay with puzzle-solving.

The diligent titular newshound can’t uncover the mystery of the Unicorn alone, though, in this high Qi scoring tale, so must rely on his canine companion Snowy and human helpmate Captain Haddock throughout this epic adventure.

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