Cover Fire: Gun Shooting games

Most mobile shooters assume a connection; Cover Fire doesn't, and that single fact is why it stands out. It's a third-person cover shooter with a story campaign, a squad of mercenaries with distinct roles, and environments that break apart under fire, all of which runs after the initial download without a signal.

The squad grows strange as it grows larger. Early recruits are the hacker, sniper and assault types you'd expect; later ones include a bazooka man, a gunslinger and, improbably, an inflatable dinosaur. There's a timed sniper mode, a zombie event and online tournaments for anyone who does want to compete.

You're behind cover, enemies are in front, and the loop is lean out, shoot, duck back. Swapping squad members mid-fight is the tactical layer: pull in the sniper for a distant turret, switch to assault when they close in. Levels are built as set pieces across cities, deserts and guerrilla country, and a campaign chapter is a sequence of them.

The sniper mode runs on a clock where each hit adds time, which turns it into a score-attack game. Sessions can be as short as one mission or as long as a chapter, and since it's offline, nothing is interrupted by a dropped signal.

Offline shooters are the search term, plainly. Travellers, commuters on underground lines and anyone with a patchy connection want a shooter that doesn't stall at the loading screen, and the genre rarely obliges. The story mode and the squad roster give it more substance than a target-gallery game, which keeps people playing after the first flight is over.

Realistic military action with a sense of humour creeping in via the roster. Expect the five screenshots to show third-person cover positions, explosions, crumbling walls and at least one of the odder squad members. The interface will be a cover-shooter standard: fire button, a reload indicator, squad portraits for swapping, and an objective readout. Destructible scenery means the levels look different by the end of a fight.