Assassin's Creed Utopia for iOS is a new take on the world of Assassin's Creed. As previously mentioned, you build a 17th century colony and watch it develop right up to the American Revolution. And best of all, it's pretty damn good.
At my hands on at the Tokyo Game Show, the city building elements weren't anything new to this type of game. You collect money, and then build new buildings and upgrade existing ones. To collect money, you tap on the coin bags as they appear above the buildings.
However, this isn't just a regular colony. It's a colony of assassins. So you can send your assassins out and have them fight. You select their formation during the battle, and then can choose "guard" or "attack". The combat, likewise, isn't anything groundbreaking—it's turn based combat. However, it was really well done, looked great, and was fun.
I liked the mix of city building with turn-based combat—not to mention the colonial setting. As ridiculous as a colony of assassins sounds, the game seems to make it work. While not utopian, all of those elements help make this Assassin's Creed spin-off worth checking out.