A quick look at some unmissable mobile titles for your iOS device...
January has seen some excellent iPhone and iPad game releases ? here are five of my favourites, most of which are doing interesting things within some densely populated mobile gaming genres. I'll be covering the latest Google Android and Windows Phone 7 titles soon.
Oh, and if you have downloaded any enjoyable mobile or smartphone games recently, please do add them in the comments section.
Mad Skills Motocross
(Turborilla, �1.19)
There's no shortage of physics-based motorbike games out there, thanks in part to the success of the excellent Trials HD on Xbox Live Arcade. This latest take on the genre gets you to race across a series of undulating dirt tracks against a computer rival, using touch screen controls to accelerate, brake or alter your rider's position backwards and forwards. As with Trials, it's all about getting those landings just right ? if the angle of entry is slightly wrong, your ragdoll character flies from his bike and makes bone-crunching contact with the ground. The tracks are challenging and unforgiving, but the rider physics are accurate and sensitive, allowing for a genuinely skilled, measured approach. With five leagues to race through and Open Feint support for global rankings and achievements, there's plenty here for dirt bike fans who prefer to keep their own limbs intact.
Grim Joggers
(10Tons, 59p)
In Canabalt the seminal office worker escape game, a teeny character runs unstoppably over a series of rooftops; the player's only control input is jumping which avoids obstacles and chasms. Adam Saltsman's browser-based classic has inspired a whole mini-genre of 'auto-run' games of which Grim Joggers is a hilarious example. Your aim is simply to help a group of 15 runners live as long as possible as they peg it over a series of three different and equally deadly environments. Tapping the screen once makes them all jump to avoid smaller obstacles such as spear traps, while a double tap gets you a longer leap to clear wider chasms. It's sort of a turbo-charged version of Lemmings, but with no special abilities; the skill is in timing your jumps and quickly planning the safest route through the deadly landscape. Grim Joggers sounds like throwaway stuff, but it's worth playing for the horrible squelching noises your joggers make as they fall into a pit of spiked sticks, or their yells when they plummet down a cliff. There's also masses of replay value as the levels change each time you play, and high score junkies will want to keep adding a few extra metres to their longest run.
Cover Orange
(FDG Entertainment, iPhone 59p, iPad �1.19)
We're only a month into 2011, but the unexcitingly named Cover Orange could already be this year's Angry Birds or Cut The Rope, attracting over two million downloads in its first week on the App Store. It's a 2D physics puzzler in which players must protect cute little oranges from evil acid rain. At the start of each stage you're given a series of objects that you can drop on to the environment to cover your fruit before the rain starts falling. Initially, this involves building little huts out of barrels and crates, but later you need to cause complex chain reactions to ensure the safety of your juicy friends. There are bombs to let off, deadly holes to plug, and various troughs and gates to knock over, and you're often required to accurately dink your orange with a falling wagon wheel in order to knock it to safety. As in Cut The Rope, timing becomes vitally important, especially when there are two or more oranges to tease through a moving obstacle like a windmill. It's an ingeniously designed game, certain to provide puzzle fans with many hours of engrossing trial-and-error fun.
Legendary Wars
(Liv Games, �1.79)
Yes, it's another game occupying a suffocatingly crowded market place ? this time the castle defence genre. But Legendary Wars, the debut title from indie studio Liv Games, is not just another Plants vs Zombies clone. Instead, it cleverly stirs RPG, real-time strategy and brawl-'em-up elements into its potent strategy mix. The aim is to protect your kingdom against incoming hoards of mythological monsters. Throughout each battle, miners are sent out to dig up gems, which can be used to buy soldiers, who then fight wave after wave of skeletons, zombies and other infernal beasts. After every victory it's also possible upgrade your army, miners and castle defences, spending gems you've earned n the game or bought via micro-transactions. The chunky comic book visuals and tongue-in-cheek humour recall XBLA hack-n-slasher Castle Crashers, and there are even levels where you control one super-powered warrior against your foe. But there's real micro-management depth to the action, especially as your soldiers can swap lanes (not possible in most tower defence titles), allowing them to avoid projectile attacks and gang up on enemy units. A seriously meaty challenge.
Peppa Pig: Polly Parrot
(Strawdog Studios, �1.79)
As a dad, I wanted to include at least one title aimed at children, and this is a nice example. There's already a very decent Peppa Pig game available for iPhone, but this follow-up, based around Grandma Pig's talkative bird, will be equally popular with fans of the animated series. Such as myself. There are three mini-games to play: in Talking Polly you re-arrange picture cards to get Polly to say silly sentances based on your selected images; in Feed Polly you must stuff the right number of correctly coloured crackers into its beak; and in Where's Polly you need to search Peppa's house for the escaped bird. Admittedly, they're variations on games already available via the Peppa Pig website, or in the Nintendo DS titles, but they've been carefully re-designed for iPhone and are perfect for quick diversions when you're on the road. Your kids can also collect virtual stickers as they play and these can be used to decorate a series of little Peppa Pig scenes.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2011/feb/02/five-best-new-iphone-games
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