Angry Birds Star Wars
As brutishly mercenary as a Force-enabled version of Angry Birds might seem, the newest variant of Rovio's mobile juggernaut is actually pretty good. The standard Birds
gameplay gets bolted onto iconic sequences from the Star Wars saga and
players will be able to deflect lasers with a lightsaber and use Force
Push on the franchise's rickety environments.
A Good Match for: Iteration addicts. We've reached the point where each new AB
release shows interesting tweaks to a core formula. The smash-it-all
gameplay has moved from a see-what-happens model to one where various
abilities exist to help you force the outcome you want. The Star Wars-centric skills in ABSW
aren't going to replace careful aiming and application of momentum but
they make it so you won't need as much luck as in the past.
Not for Those Who Want: Their childhood memories unsullied. If you break out in hives at the mere mention of Episodes I through III, then you should probably act like this game doesn't exist. Your younglings, though, may not give you a choice.
Here's how it looks in action. Purchase from the App Store.
Bad Hotel
Bad Hotel
is a comedy. And a tower-defense game. And the most stylish game about
building a hotel that shoots ice at monsters that we've ever seen. It's
an unusually well-rounded iPhone game that looks, sounds and plays
superbly. You stack rooms upon rooms to build a hotel while enemies
attack. Some of your rooms can shoot them, others repair damaged rooms
and others collect money from guests. None of this is played straight,
as levels are packed with absurd monsters and narrated by the kind of
people one might occupy Wall Street to protest against.
Oh, and
this is also a music game, because, as you build your hotel, it pulses
with music that is shaped to match your tower. Each room you add
contorts the soundtrack. Yes, this is for real. The creators of the game
explained it all to us.
A Good Match for: Those looking for something more artsy and musically-interesting, as well as those looking for a game with jokes written for
grown-ups.
grown-ups.
Not for Those Who Want: The world's most precise controls, though a recent update did improve them a bit.
Here's how it looks in action. Purchase from the App Store.
Drop 7
AreaCode's
numerical puzzle game may be the most perfect short-session game ever
created. As falling numbers land on a 7×7 grid, you need to make them
disappear by matching the number of vertical or horizontal spaces match
the digit. Yes, it sounds tedious but when the rules finally click in
your head, it's a lifetime addiction.
A Good Match for:
Anyone who spends a lot of time waiting for things or people. Whether
it's stuck in traffic or waiting on a queue at the bank, a few quick
levels of Drop7 will make any kind of stationary drudgery more bearable.
Not for Those Who Want: Productivity. It take superhuman willpower to resist the siren call of Drop7 and if you want to get anything done after installing it, make sure your iPhone's out of reach.
Here's how it looks in action. Purchase from the App Store.
Ghost Trick
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
was a triumph on the DS, a super-cool story/puzzle game drowning in
great style, cool animation, and a funny, truly touching story. It makes
the transition to iOS even better than you'd think, and many of the
Rube Goldbergian puzzles work even better with the iPhone or iPad's
touch-screen.
A Good Match for: People who like jokes, animation fans, music buffs, pomeranian owners.
Not for Those Who Want: A lot of gameplay, a non-linear story, a game without any pomeranians.
Here's how it looks in action. Purchase from the App Store.
Hero Academy
The developers at Robot Entertainment must know that friends don't always get along. That might be a reason that they made Hero Academy,
a turn-based competitive strategy game that pits two people's virtual
squads of fantasy adventurers against each other. The grid-based
battlefield tempts you with loot that can power up characters and you'll
find yourself . Much of Hero Academy's appeal comes from its
asynchronous game design, which gives you time to plot out the perfect
turn. And the waiting to see what your opponent sends back? That's
almost as good as making your own move.
A Good Match for:
Tolkien-loving chess players. Like the classic board-game simulation of
war, specific units have different abilities. So, the a Dark Elves can
leech energy and other warriors can force enemies back a square. And it
all unfolds in a milieu that owes much to the Lord of the Rings mythology, which means you'll shout out "You shall not pass!" a lot.
Not for Those Who Want: No microtransactions. Hero Academy
isn't the worst kind of pay-to-win game but the temptation to plunk
down some cash for deeper and more varied reserve of troops is strong.
Here's how it looks in action. Purchase from the App Store.
Horn
An Unreal Engine 3-powered adventure, Horn
is the closest thing the iPhone has to a ‘triple A' console title. A
young boy awakens to find the land overrun by gigantic stone
creatures—creatures that were once human. Discovering the means to forge
magical weapons to break the crystal curse, the boy embarks on a quest
to restore fleshiness to humanity.
A Good Match for: Action role-players. This is the iPhone's The Legend of Zelda, only without the Zelda.
Not for Those Who Want:
Bite-sized game sessions. Though a good portion of Horn is broken up
into shorter, easy-to-digest levels, your digestive system would need to
be in trouble for you to get much done in the game during a bathroom
break at work.
Here's how it looks in action. Purchase from the App Store.
Infinity Blade
Players
who enter Chair Entertainment's medieval epic get embroiled in an
endless skein of mano-a-mano duels with giant ogres and demonic knights.
The combination of treasure grabbing, loot acquisition and
slash-&-dodge combat will keep players glued to their tablet for
hours.
A Good Match for: Console game players. Infinity Blade
raised the bar on the level of persistent visual detail developers
could accomplish on iOS and its swipe-and-tap controls make each
swordfight immersive in way that button-pressing on a gamepad can't
match.
Not for Those Who Want: Variety. Infinity Blade
doesn't over-reach in terms of what it offers. It does what it does
well, but you'll get the entire gist of the game in about 15 minutes.
Here's how it looks in action. Purchase from the App Store.
Letterpress
Most word games feel polite, don't they? Sure, you may gnash your teeth when you lose in Scrabble but you never feel like throttling your opponent. When you play Letterpress,
you'll feel like punching the person you're playing against. That's
because Letterpress is actually a ground war in word-game form. Each
word you spell is a daring grab for letter-filled real estate and every
advance can get repulsed by an opponent's clever coinage.
A Good Match for: Risk players who love to read. The strategy at work in Letterpress
is of a more rapid-fire nature than in other digital word games. You'll
need to figure out how to secure and hold territory while figuring out
which words you can make form the jumbled-up letters on the board.
Not for Those Who Want: Quick games. Though Letterpress
can be fast-paced, some games can see-saw back and forth for a while,
even with a clear end in sight. A good fight is its own reward but
sometimes you just want the other guy to fall over.
Purchase from the App Store.
Here's how it looks in action.
Need for Speed Most Wanted
The
folks who already make the best racing games for the iPhone get their
hands on EA's premier racing franchise and knock it out the park.
A Good Match for: Speed demons. Need for Speed Most Wanted
feels fast in a way that you can't pull your eyes away from. The
experience is smooth and shiny, putting every other iDevice racing title
to shame.
Not for Those Who Want: Customization. The cars you get in Need for Speed
pretty much stay the same. It's great that the simulated physics make
various classes of cars feel different from each other, but can't do
anything visually to make them feel like your own.
Here's how it looks in action. Purchase from the App Store.
Plants vs. Zombies
The
cartoony garden-defense blockbuster soars on iPhone thanks to touch
inputs and a port that sacrifices very little from other versions of the
game.
A Good Match for: Urban gardeners. PvZ's
all about cultivating flora to stave off hordes of the undead,
something that anyone trying to grow tomatoes in a windowsill planter
can probably relate to. Those would-be farmers probably need a bit of
digital payback.
Not for Those Who Want: Top-down tower defense. PvZ doesn't deliver the general's-eye view of the battlefield that you get in games like Fieldrunners, so you may not feel quite as god-like when killing zombies.
Here's how it looks in action. Purchase from the App Store.
Super Hexagon
Super Hexagon
is a game that will kill you in seconds. A pattern of geometric shapes
flow towards the center of the screen to the beat of the music, and your
task is to dodge them. You won't. You'll die in seconds. If you get
really good, you'll die in minutes. And you'll love every minute.
A Good Match for:
Eye-hand coordination masters. Seeing the path your little dot needs to
be in is one thing. Getting there is another thing entirely.
Not for Those Who Want: Lengthy gameplay sessions.
Temple Run 2
Maybe you were a Temple Run
skeptic, someone who thinks that a game as obscenely popular as this
one can't be any good. But chances are that once you started swiping
through the infinite escape of the runaway hit's , you'd find it hard to
stop playing.
Temple Run 2 keeps the first game's simple
control scheme and eminently approachable premise and layers on improved
graphics that make idol theft look a lot prettier.
A Good Match for: Travel magazine subscribers. The additions of zipline, minecart and more fantastic locations make Temple Run 2 feel like more of a globe-trotting adventure than its predecessor.
Not for Those Who Want:
Huge iterative leaps between sequels. The core experience remains the
same in this follow-up, so if you were hoping for fancy new ideas in Temple Run 2, you're out of luck.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from the App Store.
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