I have played the future of mobile gaming. It is called Shadow Cities.

If you have an iPhone, you simply must try this game. Shadow Cities isn’t just the future of mobile gaming. It may actually be the most interesting, innovative, provocative and far-reaching video game in the world right now, on any system.

That’s a strong, perhaps outrageous, statement. But it’s merited because Shadow Cities delivers a radically fresh sort of engagement. Shadow Cities fully employs the abilities of the modern smartphone in the service of an entertainment experience that feels almost impossibly exciting and new.

The game’s basic concept may sound familiar: you are trying to help your team take over the world. But we’re not talking about some fantasy realm or alien planet here. In Shadow Cities you’re trying to take over the real world.

When you log in to Shadow Cities, you see your actual location, as if you were using a satellite map program, which you are (using the iPhone’s GPS service). If you are in a reasonably populated area, you will also see nearby “gateways,” based on local landmarks. You then take control of those gateways and use them to power additional structures that allow you to grow in strength and stake a claim to control of your ’hood. When you log off, your empire remains, until some enemy players come along and raze it.

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Of course you’re not alone. Right there on the screen you will see other nearby players in real time, and not all will be friendly. When you start the game, you must choose between two factions, the Animators (nature lovers) and the Architects (technologists). These cabals are locked in an eternal struggle, and at any time you can zoom out and survey the surrounding area for miles to determine which side is winning around you. More broadly, the game is structured in a series of weeklong campaigns, with separate scoreboards for various countries and states.

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But why stay home when you have an entire planet to explore? The most far-reaching (literally!) aspect of Shadow Cities is that you can set up a beacon at your location for other players to visit from anywhere in the world. So you may be tending your little fiefdom in, say, Paramus, N.J., when you read an alert from another player that a big battle is brewing in, say, Paris. You jump to a friendly beacon and the next thing you know, you’re lobbing spells against enemy players from all over the world for control of the Champs-Élysées. Or you’re in Rome battling for control of the Vatican, or in Washington sniping over the Ellipse.