4. At Play
Photo: Emery Way
Best Apps at Play
Even a quick peek at the App Store’s numbers reveals that Apple’s online emporium is more arcade than office. Games dominate, accounting for three quarters of the most popular paid downloads since the store opened. And it’s no wonder: the iPhone is a fun, quirky, and genuinely delightful gaming device. Its limited but intuitive controls—the touch screen and motion detector—make iPhone games accessible to everyone, but fresh enough to grab seasoned gamers. A phone’s never been so much fun.
While iPhone can’t compare to the gameplay (or battery life) of portable game devices from the likes of Nintendo and Sony, it has a far larger library than its console counterparts, with most titles available for less than five bucks. That means there’s no shortage of fun, casual games to enjoy in bites of a few minutes at a time. But with so many choices, it’s tough to find the best games.
That’s where this chapter comes in. You’ll start off with action-packed arcade games before cooling down with some mind-bending puzzles. Settle into a high-stakes seat at the gambling tables... or control a person, a city, or the whole galaxy with a strategy game. Tackle some sports, pick a fight in a combat game, then finish on a high note, taking wing with a flight simulation. Turn the page: It’s game on.
Arcade Games
Best Arcade Adventure
Rolando
Free demo / $5.99 full version
Version: 1.6
ngmocoz
It’s up to you to save the cartoon world of Rolandoland and its rolypoly residents. Tilt to roll rolandos through obstacles and avoid menacing shadow creatures. Rolando drips with adorability, from the personable rolandos to the groovy breakbeat soundtrack. Just don’t let the high cuteness rating lull you; the game starts gently, but each level (36 in all) presents ever more complex puzzles to test your phone-tilting dexterity.
THAT’S HOW I ROLL: Rolando’s controls are easy to master, and the game’s a natural for the iPhone’s motion detector. Tilt to roll one or more rolandos, and swipe to jump. Many levels require you to escort the kingdom’s royalty to safety, pushing the sleeping king or corralling the hyperactive prince.
GIZMOS GALORE: Addressing you as “Finger,” rolandos politely ask you to trigger springs, push buttons, spin windmills, or set bombs to help them on their way. Success means getting a minimum of rolandos to the finish, but be careful: Just brushing a shadow creature means curtains for your friends.
Toy Bot Diaries
Free demo / $3.99 full version
Version: 1.6
IUGO Mobile Entertainment
Shepherd a can-do robot through the innards of a vending machine, solving puzzles and navigating obstacles with the help of a grappling hook and a nifty pair of magnet boots. Tilt your phone to navigate the game’s four obstacle-packed mazes, restoring your robot’s missing memory to finish the game, a feat you’ll likely accomplish within several hours. Never fear, though, more diary entries await. The two Toy Bot sequel games (also available for $3.99) each reveal a bit more of the story behind your lovable robot hero.
HOOKED: The robot’s grappling hook grabs stuff, letting you drop coins into slots, for example, to unlock doors. Much of the game consists of solving this kind of lock-and-key puzzle, and some of them are real stumpers. Magnetic boots meanwhile let you roam the ceilings or pick up metal objects.
SWINGER: Tilt your iPhone or iPod Touch not only to make the robot walk left or right, but also to swing. Grab hold with the grappling hook and tilt back and forth to get momentum. Before long, you’re swinging Tarzan-like from surface to surface.
Best Wacky Save-the-Galaxy Game
i Love Katamari
Free demo / $7.99 full version
Version: 1.0.2
Namco Networks America
The fabulous if spacey King of All Cosmos knocked out the stars in an all-night bender, and it’s up to you to gather enough stuff to replace them. The katamari is your instrument: a sticky ball that you roll through living rooms, streets, or entire landscapes, picking up jetsam as you go. Start by rolling up little things, and the katamari snowballs as you go, letting you pick up bigger and bigger objects, like pets, cars, buildings, you name it.
STICKY BALL: Tilt your iPhone or iPod Touch to roll your katamari to a soundtrack of Japanese pop music. Start small, picking up caramels or squid sushi (yes, squid sushi). At first, you bounce off larger objects, but as your katamari grows, you can absorb the big stuff, too.
BIG ROLLER: Before long you’re rolling up cars and cities. The game offers four types of play: “Story mode” asks you to pick up certain objects; “time attack” challenges you to grow as big as you can in the time limit; “exact size” requires you to roll to a precise diameter; and “eternal mode” lets you roll as you wish.
Otto Matic: Alien Invasion!
$3.99
Version: 1.2
Pangea Software
It’s robot versus giant-brain aliens and their radioactive vegetable henchmen! In this fifties-style sci-fi yarn, you control Otto Matic, a heroic robot saving the world from invading aliens. They might have big brains, but you’re the one with the rocket boots and ray gun. Save the humans before they’re abducted, and travel to alien worlds to rescue captive earthlings. Ten packed levels, a fun retro soundtrack, and a sharp sense of humor make for an engaging, often hilarious adventure.
ROBOT HERO: Steer Otto with the control pad at left and use the action buttons to punch, shoot, fly, or switch weapons. The indicators at the top of the screen monitor your progress. This pile of controls feels a tad busy at first, but once you get the hang of it, the game moves fluidly.
ON THE FARM: The game starts on Earth, where Otto tries to grab humans before UFOs abduct them. Along the way, mutant corn cobs give chase (they pop corn when you shoot them), tomatoes jump you, and sprouts thrash. Escape to your rocket to seek alien planets and take the fight to The Giant Brain.
Best App for Innovative Gameplay
Blue Defense!
Free demo / $1.99 full version
Version: 2.0
John Kooistra
Blue Defense! puts your iPhone’s motion detector to novel use with a simple but stylishly challenging game of space invaders: Shoot the aliens before they reach your planet. Hold your iPhone or iPod Touch upright, and tilt to aim. Your bullets always shoot straight up, so as invaders pour in from all directions, you’re soon spinning your phone sideways and upside down to keep up with the onslaught. Great, frantic fun.
RED RAIN: The controls are deceptively simple (“That’s it? Tilt to aim?”), but the game is wonderfully exacting as hordes of crimson aliens descend to destroy (or, um, impregnate?) your blue planet. The game’s retro vector graphics are paired perfectly with a down-tempo electronic soundtrack, which helps keep your pulse low even as the pace of the game quickens. The result is a game that is at once engaging and atmospheric.
HONORABLE MENTION
Eliss
$2.99
Version: 1.1
Steph Thirion
Eliss doesn’t look like much at first, but beyond its primitive graphics lies a new and abstract multitouch gameplay. Fit colored planets into “squeesars” by dropping solid circles into empty ones of the same color. Pinch planets together or pull them apart to fit. But be careful: The screen fills up fast, and your power drains when different colored planets collide. The chunky visuals, touch controls, and wholesome electronic music combine for a charming, soothing game universe.
Best Tower-Defense Game
Fieldrunners
$2.99
Version: 1.2.3
Subatomic Studios
Tower-defense games are a wildly popular genre that started on the Web and has since stormed handheld devices. You build weaponized obstacle courses to prevent enemies from reaching your “tower,” or home base. The App Store has many variations, but Fieldrunners is the best, with cartoony graphics, sound, and music that lighten the mayhem. With three game modes and three difficulty settings, it’s a deep game offering weeks of play.
TAKE THE FIELD: Stop your enemies from crossing the battlefield by building a carefully placed maze of weapons. This gauntlet of cartoon artillery includes machine guns, rockets, lightning towers, and, of course, goo blasters.
UPGRADE: You earn money as you defeat enemies, and you can plow that cash back into your defenses. Tap a weapon to upgrade it and make it more powerful, or sell it to remove it from the field. You’ll need those upgrades: More and tougher raiders appear with every wave of attack.
Best Music Game
Guitar Rock Tour
$4.99
Version: 1.2.0
Gameloft
Fans of Guitar Hero, squeeze into your spandex and prepare to rock your iPhone. Guitar Rock Tour brings the Guitar Hero recipe to the small screen, including 17 familiar guitar anthems (or at least good-quality cover versions). Just like the original uberpopular game, you tap the strings of your guitar in time with colored notes falling toward you, or switch to drums to bang your way through the game’s classic and contemporary tracks.
FOCUS ON THE FRETS: The band rocks the background as you play—the game has great animation—but keep your eyes on the bottom of the screen, where you play the strings in time with the falling notes. The audience shows its love while you stay in sync, but they’re fickle. Hit a sour note or lose your timing, and the crowd turns against you. When things really go bad, the show’s canceled.
CLASSIC TUNES: Guitar Rock Tour offers 17 familiar—and occasionally campy—tunes to play in one of three difficulty levels. Tracks include “Heart Shaped Box” (Nirvana), “Message in a Bottle” (Police), “Smoke on the Water” (Deep Purple), “Walk Idiot Walk” (The Hives), and “Banquet” (Bloc Party). The one false note is a sketchy cover of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It!”
Saturday Night Fever: Dance!
$0.99
Version: 1.2.1
Paramount Digital Entertainment
Studio 54, eat your heart out; the best disco in town is now inside your iPhone or iPod Touch. Saturday Night Fever puts you on the dance floor, tapping the screen to the rhythm of four disco classics: “YMCA,” “Love Machine,” “Shake Your Groove Thing,” and “Car Wash.” As you play, a dancer grinds and gyrates on your screen with inspired steps and a healthy dose of irony. The game could benefit from more songs, but you do get the original tracks and easily a buck’s worth of grins.
DO THE HUSTLE: Your disco alter ego is either Tony (below) or Tyrus, a svelte dance machine with a giant afro. Numbered circles appear with the music; tap them to the beat, following the cue of larger circles that fall into the screen. The game mixes in other steps, too, making you double-tap or drag along a path, and a good streak triggers the sensational disco ball. Challenge friends to a dance-off, either on the same device or over WiFi.
HONORABLE MENTION
Tap Tap Revenge 2
Free
Version: 2.6.1
Tapulous
Like other music games, Tap Tap Revenge 2 is all about tapping and shaking your phone to the rhythm of the orbs and icons falling at you, but the game adds a few new wrinkles. Not least of these is a big music library; the app comes loaded with a small selection, but lets you download from a library of 150 free songs. Most tracks are no-name bands, but the library does include Coldplay, Nine Inch Nails, Mötley Crüe, and others. You can also step up to head-to-head challenges online, or play against a friend on the same device.
Best Retro Arcade Revival
Galaga REMIX
$5.99
Version: 1.0.1
Namco Networks America
Put on your Kim Carnes cassette, and grab your Charles and Di wedding scrapbook; you’re going on a nostalgic arcade trip to 1981. Fans of the early-80s Galaga classic get a twofer in this tidy rerelease. Galaga REMIX includes an exact clone of the original game with its circling bumblebees and tractor-beam thunderbirds, but it also comes with a next-generation update. This “remix” version maintains the fundamental spirit of the original but gives the game a fashion makeover for modern tastes.
NEW LOOK: The remix gives Galaga a facelift with new graphics, weapon power-ups, and boss battles. The right side of the screen shows your progress across a five-screen galactic battlefield. After every fifth screen, you fight a giant boss insect which floods the screen with lasers, bullets and other calamities. This effective update improves on the original while preserving the basics.
IF IT AIN’T BROKE: The game’s Galaga Classic version is a pixel-for-pixel, bleep-for-bloop copy of the 1981 game. Both the classic and remix versions offer three options for moving your ship left and right. The best option—and the one used in the app’s standard settings—are the simple left and right buttons shown here. You can switch, however, to using a slider or using your phone’s motion detector, tilting back and forth to move.
Best Pinball Game
Monster Pinball
$3.99
Version: 1.0
Matmi
You’ve never played pinball like this before. This charming, eccentric, and altogether inspired game makes inventive use of its virtual environment, morphing into one of six tables as you play. Blast the ball off an edge and into a new layout with its own quirky features. Beyond Monster Pinball’s cute visuals and whimsical sound effects, it nails all the basics, too, with realistic physics (tilt!), smooth animation, and great gameplay.
SURE PLAYS A MEAN PINBALL: The game consists of six pinball tables tiled in two rows—three on top, three on bottom. Shoot the ball off the edge to travel to the next table. You lose a ball only when it falls down the gutter of one of the bottom-row tables; on the top row, it simply slips down to the table below. It makes for fast, varied play to keep any pinball wizard on his toes.
HOT BALL: The game’s hot-ball feature turns the ball into a glowing orb of plasma, good for double points for the rest of its play. Other tables include features like an electromagnetic vortex which sucks the ball into the center, and an alien-electrocuting mutation chamber. Every table has four flippers, and the game lets you tilt, too: Give your iPhone a shove to change the ball’s direction.
Puzzles
Best Action Puzzler
Peggle
$4.99
Version: 1.0
PopCap Games
Cross pachinko with unicorns and rainbows, and you get... Peggle! In this simple but wildly addictive game, you fire a ball into a field of pegs where it ricochets like a pinball, earning points for each peg hit and removing them after each round. The goal is to clear all orange pegs. When you do, Peggle plays a fanfare so over the top, so deliciously triumphant, that even the most jaded gamer will squeal and giggle. No kidding, it’s that good.
GOT YOU PEGGED: Take aim with the cannon at the top of the screen and tap Fire to launch a shot. Planning shots pays off, earning “style points” for long shots by ricocheting an orange peg off another across the screen. Hit green pegs for power-ups, and land the ball in the kettle at the bottom for an extra turn.
BIG REWARD: As you hit the last orange peg, the game zooms in and throws itself into slow motion as an orchestra plays a rapturous “Ode to Joy.” Now that’s winning! It’s one of many eccentric touches, including the oddball personalities of the ten “mentors” who lead you through 55 levels and 40 challenges.
StoneLoops! of Jurassica
Free demo / $0.99 full version
Version: 1.0
PlayCreek
This prehistoric puzzler combines arcade action with color-matching strategy. Boulders roll along a winding track; you must destroy them before they reach the end. To do that, you launch boulders into the snaking field, adding them to the lineup. Connect three or more of the same color and they blow up. It sounds simple, but it takes strategy and quick thinking to match the right boulders at the right time. The game’s offbeat reward system gives “house upgrades” as you clear levels, showing a jungle tree-house getting home improvements. Hey, even cavemen love real estate.
MATCH THREE: You control a cannon at the bottom of the screen that fires boulders into the winding string. When you add the boulder to two or more others of the same color, those boulders disintegrate. The controls are easy: drag the cannon where you want it to shoot, and lift your finger to fire.
POWER-UPS: The game keeps things lively by adding power-ups to the mix, giving your cannon a boost with lightning bolts, meteors, and other effects.
Best Tile-Matching Game
Trism
$2.99
Version: 1.4
Demiforce
Trism is a subtle, mind-bending game of sliding tiles (er, trisms). You play by sliding three or more of the same color together. Move rows up, down, sideways, or diagonally. Matched trisms evaporate, and tiles above fall into the gap, yielding even more matches with a little planning. Here’s the fun bit: “Above” is relative. Tilting the phone makes trisms fall in a new direction, so thinking ahead pays off in this brain-busting spatial challenge.
LOVE TRIANGLES: The basics are easy, but the game is addictively complex. Group at least three trisms of the same color to make a match. Mind how surrounding pieces will fall in order to plan chain reactions for big scores. Certain combinations create special trisms that fill empty spaces or let you move anywhere on the board. The game throws in troublemakers, too, adding bombs or locked pieces which you have to undo.
THREE MODES: As if the basic gameplay didn’t already make for endless possibilities, Trism offers three modes of play. “Infinism” is the standard game, where you play as long as you like in the quest for a high score. “Terminism” is timed play: Earn as many points as you can as quickly as possible. “Syllogism” is a completely different game, where you solve puzzles to assemble tiles just so, sliding them by tilting your phone.
Best Stacking Game
Topple 2
$2.99
Version: 1.3
ngmoco
Move over Tetris, there’s a new kid on the block (on top of another block, on top of another). In Topple, you stack a skyscraper of cartoon shapes as high as you can. Rotate and place shapes for a sturdy tower, but be careful: Put a block down too abruptly or off center, and you’ll throw the whole thing off kilter. Your blocks aren’t shy about feedback: Stable blocks smile contentedly, but grins give way to anxiety and even panic as the tower wobbles.
BLOCK PARTY: Topple’s blocks are vaguely Grinchy, their snide smirks letting you know how you’re doing. The fifties cartoon style is matched by peppy period music and fun sound effects, lightening the game’s madcap pace. With tough time challenges, you have to move fast but carefully to meet target heights. Shapes rock when you set them down and sway with gravity, but you can tilt your iPhone or iPod Touch to stay balanced.
MORE CHALLENGES: The game moves through six stages, 30 levels in all, and new challenges emerge. Some levels require you to balance two towers on a scale; in others, gravity flips and you have to build your tower from the top of the screen down. As you get the hang of it, you can try to out-Topple your friends in a head-to-head challenge over WiFi or over the Internet via Twitter, Facebook, or email.
Best Word Game
WordJong
Free demo / $2.99 full version
Version: 1.2
Gameblend Studios
Mahjong meets Scrabble in this absorbing, low-key word game. WordJong presents a pile of letter tiles to work into words. The goal is to use every tile, but you can’t just take tiles willy-nilly. You may draw only top tiles from the end of a row, and you have to plan ahead to unearth the tiles you’ll need later. Earn points for longer words, and try to beat the challenge score set by the game’s cartoon WordJong masters.
DAILY CHALLENGE: In a quirky twist, WordJong offers only one tile layout per day. Play it as much as you like (every game has lots of possible outcomes), or go back to play any of hundreds of puzzles from previous days. Earn a flower icon by beating the score set by the game’s WordJong master for the day.
TILE WORK: Draw tiles to spell words at the bottom of the screen. The game highlights tiles available to draw. Long words buy extra points or bombs that can blow up a tile on the board when you’re blocked. Solve the puzzle by using all tiles, and try to beat the master’s score or keep playing to improve your own.
Quordy
$2.99
Version: 1.3
Lonely Star Software
Trace as many words as you can in this beat-the-clock word search, perfect for quick, bite-sized diversions. Quordy gives you a jumbled grid of letters, and you identify words by sliding a finger across adjacent letters, including diagonals. The standard game gives you three minutes to find as many words as you can, earning extra points for longer words, but you can also play one-minute, five-minute, or unlimited games. Find out who’s got the sharpest eye by challenging a friend to the same puzzle, either online or back-to-back on your iPhone.
EVERY WHICH WAY: Trace as many words as you can. Letters have to be adjacent, but words work in any direction—up, down, sideways, and diagonally. Here, “agate” is traced upward from the bottom of the screen. Earn extra points for words of five letters or more, but be quick. The green timer at lower right counts down your remaining time.
HOW’D I DO? After you finish a game, check how many of the puzzle’s words you found. Quordy tells you the maximum possible score and lists every word that was in your puzzle—great for beating yourself over the head. When you challenge a friend to a puzzle, you can do a similar comparison of the words you both found.
Best App for Crossword Puzzles
2 Across
Free demo / $5.99 full version
Version: 1.2.2
Eliza Block
Disciples of the squares, look no further. With 2 Across, you can pluck any of thousands of crossword puzzles from the archives of major papers and work them over on your iPhone or iPod. The app’s efficient navigation and flexible puzzle views make it an ideal companion for crossword fans. It’s forgiving, too: If you’re not sure of an answer, pencil in your letters (instead of using darker “ink”) or add multiple letters to a square.
PREP YOUR PUZZLE: Get started by downloading a puzzle from one of the app’s many sources, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and others. Once downloaded, puzzles are stored in the game itself, so you don’t need a network connection to work on them. (The app can download the daily New York Times puzzles only if you’re a subscriber to the paper’s premium crossword service.)
GRIDSKIPPING: Swipe the screen to move around the puzzle, or pinch to zoom in or out. Tap a square to select it, and tap again to toggle between down and across. In the “split” view shown here, the bottom panel highlights the clue for the selected square. Tap the pencil to summon the keyboard and type an answer. Not sure? Tap the check-mark icon to see if an answer is correct or to reveal a letter, word, or the entire grid.
Best App for Sudoku
Sudoku Unlimited
$0.99
Version: 1.05
Phase2 Media
The App Store is thick with Sudoku games, reflecting the popularity of these number-crunching logic puzzles. Among several strong contenders, Sudoku Unlimited is the best entry, with a functionally limitless supply of randomly generated puzzles, five difficulty levels, and four “skins” for changing the look of your puzzles. The interface is easy and efficient with simple note entry and hints when you’re stumped.
81 DIGITS: Soduku can be tough, but its rules are simple. Fill a nine-by-nine grid with digits, making sure no column or row has the same number twice. The grid is subdivided into three-by-three blocks, and these also can’t repeat a number. The game starts you with a few prefilled squares, and the rest is up to you. In Sudoku Unlimited, tap a square to select it, and the app highlights its row and column for easy scanning.
SKIN IN THE GAME: The game includes four skins, including this notepad design. All work the same: Tap a square to conjure the number pad. Tap the pencil icon to switch to “notes” mode and jot down tiny numbers to note the square’s possible answers. (Here, 4 and 5 are noted as possibilities.) Tap the Auto-Fill icon, and the app does the dirty work for you, filling every empty square with notes of its possible numbers.
Best Maze Game
Wooden Labyrinth 3D
Free demo / $3.99 full version
Version: 1.3
Elias Pietilä
Tilt your phone to guide a metal ball through a wooden maze, dodging holes and jumping obstacles to a soothing classical-guitar soundtrack. This virtual take on the classic tilting-table labyrinth is beautifully rendered with textures, sounds, and physics so natural that you’ll be forgiven if you forget you’re holding a phone instead of a handcrafted wooden toy.
A-MAZE-ING: The game works just as you’d expect, with the ball moving through the maze as you tilt your iPhone or iPod Touch to and fro. But many of the mazes add a new twist by letting you leap obstacles or hop onto platforms. Tapping the screen triggers the jump.
LABYRINTHS: The game comes with 180 hand-designed mazes, organized into series like the one shown here. You can also choose “endless” mode to play an unlimited string of randomly generated mazes, or download user-designed mazes from the app’s website, where you can design your own mazes, too.
Best 3D Puzzle
Zen Bound
Free demo / $4.99 full version
Version: 1.2.1
Chillingo
This gorgeous, atmospheric puzzle asks you to paint rough-hewn wooden sculptures by wrapping them in string. The string is nailed taut to each figure, and you wrap it by turning the sculpture with your finger. The challenge is to do it with a minimum of string, but really, the appeal is less about challenge than ambiance. Phenomenal graphics and a soothing soundtrack combine for an immersive, remarkable game environment.
BOUND BUNNY: Zen Bound’s wooden figures come in all shapes and sizes, from animals to robots, but the object is the same for all of them. Rotate the figure with your finger to bind it evenly with string, as paint spreads out to cover the wood. The game offers three levels of target coverage, and you can stop after the first, or continue along to see how far you can get using as little string as possible.
TREE CLIMBER: The game offers 76 figures to wrap, each arrayed along the branches of a tree in stages. As you climb the tree and complete the levels, paper lanterns light up and give access to the branches above. Tap a figure’s wooden tablet to play its level. Even this menu portion of the game is beautiful, the tree swaying with your motions in the lantern light. Amazing.
Gambling
Best Poker Game
Texas Hold ’Em
$4.99
Version: 1.1
Apple
Sidle up to the table to play the world’s most popular poker game against lifelike computer players, complete with twitches and tells, or against your real-life poker buddies over your local WiFi network. Start at the garage location and take your winnings to more luxe tables with higher buy-ins and savvier players. Locations include Istanbul, Vegas, and finally, Dubai. Ante up your five bucks for Texas Hold ’Em: The game pays of in a fun, smart poker game with graphics that go all in.
AROUND THE TABLE: Flip the screen on its side for a top-down view, the game’s most efficient interface and the best view for putting strategy into play. Follow all players’ bets at once, along with their reserves and the pot value. The game offers nearly 150 icons to represent you at the table, including five dogs playing poker, of course.
FACE TO FACE: Eye the virtual players for tells showing the strength of their cards as they bet or fold in each hand’s four rounds of betting. Tap players to see where they’re from, how old they are, their stats, and a quote (Scarlet: “I won again?! Oh my, it’s so nice of y’all to give me all your money”). Your hole cards are tucked in the corner, community cards at center. Bet by tapping your chips, or fold by flicking your cards away.
MotionX Poker
$2.99
Version: 2.0
MotionX
Throw those dice, high roller. This game pits you against the house to assemble the best poker hand from three rolls of five dice. Each die has values for three face cards, an ace, and two sixes which, oddly, represent nine and ten. Hang onto any or all dice between rolls to build your hand; if you roll three aces, for example, hold those to go for five of a kind or a full house in your next two rolls. Shake your iPhone or iPod to throw the dice at a variety of tables you unlock as your winnings grow. It’s a simple but addictive game with superb graphics.
ROLL THE DICE: The game pays impressive, mesmerizing, attention to the dice-rolling experience, even changing sounds for new table surfaces. Moving from table to table is one of the main rewards, since there’s no big-picture strategy to the game outside of choosing which dice to keep for each hand. Bets are always the same amount, and because they’re dice rolls, one hand’s “cards” have no relation to the hands that follow.
CHOOSE YOUR WEAPON: MotionX Poker gives you a wide, wide variety of dice to use, adding a new set to your collection every time you roll five of a kind. Many of these sets fit with the game’s Orient theme, which plays out in the table designs, music, and sound effects.
Strategy
Best Game for a God Complex
The Sims 3
$9.99
Version: 1.0.85
Electronic Arts
Take over the life of a “sim,” managing his or her dreams, needs, social life, and career in this iPhone version of the popular computer game. Be a jerk by kicking over neighbor s trash cans, become the village Casanova by wooing your neighbors, or brush up on your cooking and gardening skills. Fulfill your sim’s whims (buy stuff, slap another sim, get a job, catch a trout) while you keep your charge fed, rested, clean, and uh, toilet-trained.
PERSONALITY: Build your sim by choosing its gender, clothes, hairstyle, and most important, its persona. Is your sim a nice guy, a power-monger, a libido-charged sleaze? Your choices determine your sim’s personal goals, the actions you can take during the game, and the way other sims respond to you.
GET TO WORK: Much of the game involves tending to the stuff you do in real life: Eating, cooking, bathing, sleeping, working. Take a job at the local lab, town hall, supermarket, or bistro. Your earnings let you expand your house and buy new furniture. Spend your weekends fishing or hanging out with other sims.
HELPLESS: Your sim isn’t so bright. It tells you when it has needs, but can’t satisfy them without you. Here, a red bathtub icon indicates a hygiene crisis; make your sim hit the shower. You also send it to the toilet, make it food, put it to bed, and entertain it with TV. Take the job seriously: Your sim dies if basic needs aren’t met.
MAKE FRIENDS: Interact with other sims, using small talk, insults, or romantic gestures to develop relationships. Creep out sims by barging into their houses to take a shower, court them with tender embraces, or slap them to make enemies. Brown-nosing pays of, too. Job promotions come faster by bonding with the boss.
HONORABLE MENTION
Pocket God
$0.99
Version: 1.18
Bolt Creative
If The Sims is about making your sim happy, Pocket God is about making others miserable. You control a tiny desert island of cartoon inhabitants. There’s no particular goal or point system; you simply come up with new ways to attack the locals. Flick them into a volcano, feed them to the shark, summon a tidal wave, zap them with lightning, drop meteors on them, attack them with dinosaurs, knock them with coconuts. Let the game’s evil cartoon genius inspire you. The game updates regularly, coming up with new forms of spite.
Best App for Galactic Domination
Galcon
Free demo / $2.99 full version
Version: 1.5
Galcon.com
Galcon is a nitro-charged version of the board game Risk, launched into space. Take over an enemy’s planets by sending waves of ships to overwhelm its forces. The rules are simple—as are the graphics—but the game is endlessly engaging, with ten difficulty settings. Unlike Risk, this fast-paced game delivers cosmic conquest in less than five minutes, ideal for the casual pick-up play that works so well on iPhone and iPod Touch.
GAME OF NUMBERS: Planets are color-coded by player and numbered to show how many ships they hold. Launch an attack by tapping the planets from which you want to send ships, then tap the enemy planet. Here, all the green planets are prepped to attack a single orange planet. When you trigger the attack, ships swarm to their destination and, if your numbers are strong enough, you take it over.
MULTIPLAYER: The game gets more complex as three-front battles develop with multiple enemies. Those enemies can also include human players, thanks to the game’s online play, which lets you play against three other players over the Internet. The game offers five other variations, too, including “stealth,” where you can’t see enemy ships, and “vacuum” where you play timed games.
Best App for Urban Domination
SimCity
$4.99
Version: 1.5.0
Electronic Arts
Earn the glory—and headaches—of a city’s master planner as you build a thriving metropolis. You’re a one-person zoning commission, creating the city’s residential, industrial, and commercial areas. Build a power grid, and pave roads to make commerce flow, watching as property values (and tax revenue) soar and dive along with pollution, gridlock, and crime. Your actions decide if your shining city rises or disintegrates into slums.
MUCH TO BE DONE: The game’s many buttons show just how much you can do with your miniature city. Build city infrastructure like transportation systems, water towers, police stations, or sports stadiums. Then put on your policy hat to decide whether to raise taxes or change ordinances.
DISASTER STRIKES: SimCity gives you lots of power, but not everything is under your control. Tornadoes, alien attacks, fires, toxic clouds, and earthquakes all conspire to shake your city’s foundations.
Best Chess Game
Deep Green Chess
$7.99
Version: 1.1
Cocoa Stuff
Fans of the game of kings will find a worthy opponent in Deep Green, which pits you against a cerebral chess machine or lets you use your screen as a chess board to play a friend. Choose from ten difficulty levels, rewind and watch entire games, or start from any board setup (to match scenarios from chess books, for example). It’s pretty, too: The game’s elegantly designed board and restrained sound effects offer a pleasant place to play.
THE FIELD: Play unfolds on a love-worn board, where you can play the computer or a friend, or watch the game play itself. Drag a piece to move, and the game highlights the row and column where the piece will land, a nice detail to make sure you’re pointing to the right place. You can take back your last move or review your opponent’s previous move, or tap the gear icon for a hint when you’re not sure what to do.
INSTANT REPLAY: Review a game to watch the action all over again with Deep Green’s “playback” mode. Play it straight quickly, step through slowly, or drag the slider to scan for a specific point in the game. Stop the game anywhere along the way, and start playing from there to try a different strategy. A “setup” mode lets you manually lay the pieces, too, to pick up a game started elsewhere or to try a scenario from a book or newspaper.
Best Checkers Game
American Checkers
$0.99
Version: 1.13
Igor Diakov
Brits call it “draughts,” Americans call it “checkers,” but you’ll just call it fun when you play the game on your iPhone or iPod Touch. This app faithfully reproduces the game on your choice of two boards. Play against a friend, or challenge the computer at any of five difficulty levels to give you an easy win or a brutal spanking. Need to brush up on the rules? The app offers a review and, if you ask for them, hints for your next move.
REFRESHER: The app’s help screen offers a quick primer on the basic rules of play. Shown here: the green and white board favored by the American Checkers Federation; you can choose to play on it or opt for a woodgrain checkerboard instead.
WHERE TO? Tap a checker to select it, and the game enlarges the piece, animating its available moves. Here, the selected checker is obliged to jump two white pieces, and a small red checker shows its path upward; tap to make the move. The game enforces the rules of American checkers and lets you move only allowed pieces (if a checker can make a jump, for example, it must make it, meaning you can’t move any other checker).
Sports
Best Soccer Game
Real Soccer 2009
$2.99
Version: 1.4.5
Gameloft
Goooooaaaaallllll! This game nails all the details, right down to the familiar goal-time exclamation. Real Soccer 2009 is a vast, impressive game but stays fun and fast with intuitive controls. Any fan of sports video games will get their kicks here, but the game really comes to life for avid soccer fans: 3D versions of actual players from 198 international teams play in 12 stadiums, complete with weather effects, including rain and snow.
LOOK MA, NO HANDS: The basics are easy to master, with a directional controller and two buttons that shoot and pass on offense, or slide-tackle and steal on defense. Flashy combinations of double-taps conjure fancier moves. Your strengths depend on the real-world stats of your chosen team’s players.
VARIED PLAY: Real Soccer 2009 offers several modes: penalty kicks, a training mode for practice, five-minute exhibition games, league play, and cup tournaments for longer, more strategic play. It’s not just button mashing, either: As coach, you choose player formations, rosters, and substitutions.
Best Basketball Game
Streetball
Free demo / $1.99 full version
Version: 1.0.3
Battery Acid Games
How often do you get the chance to play midnight pickup hoops with the president? Streetball offers three game modes with a choice of cartoon players and, in a nod to Barack Obama’s favorite sport, he’s one of the options (not speedy, but aggressive and accurate), as is the first lady. The games cartoonish players are more Pinocchio than Shaq, but the look combines with the games simple controls for an easygoing, casual sports game.
YOUR BALL: Streetball offers two favors of two-on-two team play, timed or play to 21. Move by tilting the device, or easier, use an onscreen directional control. Buttons let you shoot or pass, and shooting accuracy depends on pressing the button just long enough to fill an accuracy meter to a target height.
H-O-R-S-E: Streetball also includes a game of horse, where you match shots with the computer until one of you misses five shots the other made. The controls here are quirky if not exactly riveting: The game gives you a squiggly line, and you trace it. The accuracy of the line determines the accuracy of your shot.
Best Golf Game
Let’s Golf
$0.99
Version: 1.0.7
Gameloft
Lets Golf hits the links with a pleasantly cartoonish game whose easy-touse controls make it fun for casual gamers and low-handicap pros alike. Play through four 18-hole courses: You can tee of right away in England or Fiji, but you have to earn the right to play in Scotland or America by playing tournament mode. Or go to “instant play” for a quick game of three holes. Fun play and sensational graphics make Let’s Golf a gimme.
DRIVING LESSONS: The game suggests a club, but you can choose another by swiping the icons at left. Tap the map to zoom in on your target and line up your shot. When you’re ready to drive, tap the green circle to reveal a meter for power and accuracy, and tap at just the right moment to launch the ball toward the green.
ON THE GREEN: When you putt, the game overlays a grid with pulsing white dots showing the the direction of the green’s slope. Adjust your aim appropriately and take your shot.
Best Handheld Football Revival
LED Football 2
$0.99
Version: 1.8.1
touchGrove
Kids today! When we were kids, we had to walk to school... 20 miles through the snow. Oh, and handheld video games were giant plastic bricks as big as your head, with tiny screens. Graphics?! How about a bunch of blinking red lights, hows that for graphics? Ah, glory days: Rediscover the marvelous Mattel Football with this loving ode to the must-have video game of the Carter administration. Don’t forget your 9-volt battery.
RETRO FUN: Run your bright quarterback blip down the field, or pass to your flickering receiver, dodging the defensive LED lights on your way to touchdown. The game offers two difficulty modes, plus two-player action (you pass the console back and forth on turnovers, just like the original).
BANGED UP: The more you play the game, the more the buttons start to show wear and tear, the virtual paint peeling of. Freshen up by fipping the game over (tap the “i” info button on the main screen), and tap the “wear-down” sticker.
Best Racing Game
Ferrari GT: Evolution
Free demo / $4.99 full version
Version: 1.2.5
Gameloft
Pack your iPhone with a garageful of no less than 33 Ferraris for this world tour of car racing. Burn through the game’s “quick race” mode for fast laps against virtual opponents—or friends over a WiFi connection. Then try “career mode” where you race through challenges to win virtual cash, unlock new courses, and earn access to more cars. It makes a difference: Each of the game’s Italian supercars handles differently, playing to varied strengths.
RACING THROUGH ROMA: Speed through seven international cities using one of three steering options: tilt the phone, use an onscreen steering wheel, or tap the screen. You can choose to control the gas, or let the game take care of that, leaving you just the brake pedal, as shown here.
DRIFTING: Tap the brake and turn the wheel to “drift,” skidding around tight turns. It’s a tricky maneuver that takes practice, but you can turn on some car options to help. The game lets you outfit your car with adaptive steering, electronic stability, anti-lock brakes, ceramic brakes, and traction control (handy when it rains).
Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D
$5.99
Version: 0.7.6
Vivendi Games Mobile
If Ferrari GT packs too much under the hood, give Crash a spin instead. This kart racer dispenses with all the high-falutin’ race-car details of more sophisticated racing games, and instead focuses strictly on goofy fun. Tilt your iPhone or iPod Touch like a steering wheel to careen through 12 cartoon race courses. Pick up weapons along the way to bomb, wipe-out, teleport, or rocket past the competition. Pluck fruit from the course, or collect letters to spell out C-R-A-S-H for bonuses along the way. Boppy music and great graphics go along for the ride.
AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION: It doesn’t take fancy training to drive your kart. No need to worry about brake or gas pedals; the game handles the speed for you, and you just take care of steering. Your car hops to jump obstacles, and you can also press and hold the screen to drift/skid around tough corners.
DRIVE OFFENSIVELY: Race courses are dotted with crates that you can pick up to grab one of eight dastardly weapons. Here, the oil-slick weapon is ready to go. Tap it to wipe out the car immediately behind you.
Combat
Best Fantasy Combat Game
Assassin’s Creed: Altair’s Chronicles
$5.99
Version: 1.1.5
Gameloft
Battle evil from the shadows of medieval cities in this sensational Middle Eastern adventure, featuring rich environments and sword fights aplenty. Altair is bent on avenging a slaughter by the Knights Templar, and you guide him to a chalice which may help end the crusades. The game’s much more than hack-n-slash, with mental and physical acrobatics to overcome.
SWORDPLAY: Altair frequently stumbles into fights with Templars, and combat controls are uncomplicated, with two buttons for sword actions (working them together makes some nifty moves). Along the way, you’ll also learn to use other gear, too, like grappling hooks and bombs.
KEEP QUIET: It’s not all fight, fight, fight. Altair prefers to avoid attention, sticking to the beams and rooftops above the street, and stealth challenges require you to keep a low profile. Even Altair’s weapon of choice is silent, a hidden dagger that dispatches enemies quietly without attracting guards.
Hero of Sparta
Free demo / $5.99 free version
Version: 1.0.1
Gameloft
Now this game is hack-n-slash. King Argos finds himself the lone ship-wreck survivor on an island, and wouldn’t you know it, the place just happens to be crawling with every mythical monster in the book—in every book, it seems. In order to get home, Argos has to take on minotaurs, demons, the cyclops, some creepy snake creatures, and oh, a side trip down to the underworld. It’s all in a day’s work for a hero of Sparta. Somehow, all this big-screen action manages to be completely marvelous on the iPhone and iPod Touch, with simple and effective touchscreen controls and impressive 3D graphics.
KING FOR A DAY: Like Assassin’s Creed, you move your hero by dragging your thumb across the circle at left, triggering attack and defense actions by pressing the buttons at right. Argus fights with sword, axe, bow, and twin blades, and along the way he finds weapon upgrades, making a tough cat even tougher.
NICE DOGGIE: Three-headed Cerberus gives King Argus a warm welcome at the gates of Hades. The game is full of movies and narrative to add some story between the non-stop battle scenes.
Best WWII Combat Game
Brothers in Arms: Hour of Heroes
$5.99
Version: 1.0.3
Gameloft
Accompany the soldiers of the 101st Airborne through 13 missions in Normandy, Ardennes, and North Africa in this 3D shooter. Running through villages of war-torn Europe under heavy Axis fire can make it tough to concentrate on admittedly challenging touchscreen controls, but the games sound and graphics are, well, dynamite. Worth the effort.
LINE OF FIRE: Fight tanks, soldiers, armored cars, and more in this loud, action-packed adventure. Move your soldier by dragging the joystick-like control at left, aim by touching the screen, and fire with the button at right. Aiming is awkward at first, but it’s worth the time (and patience) it takes to get the hang of it.
BEHIND THE WHEEL: Take command of a Sherman tank to liberate an occupied village. As you make your way through the game, you cycle through a whole arsenal of weapons, including Thompson machine guns, bazookas, and grenades.
iBomber
$1.99
Version: 1.0
Cobra Mobile
Patrol the South Pacific as a 1943 bomber pilot tasked to hit a quota of specific targets. Your view of the world is a crosshair, and you tap the Bombs Away button to drop your payload. You have to aim carefully with enough lead time to account for airspeed, direction, and the type of bomb you’re carrying. Turn your phone to steer, and tilt it forward or back to speed up or slow down. Slowing makes it easier to hit targets, but it also makes it easier for anti-aircraft guns to hit you. Take too much fire, and you’re going down. The game is colorful and well-crafted with music straight out of a Fifties war flick.
YOUR ORDERS: iBomber offers 12 missions with a set of specific targets to hit. Each mission is set against a new terrain pitting you against new challenges and defenses. Start at Pearl Harbor and go on to target airstrips, island fortresses, and submarines, among other targets.
IN YOUR SIGHTS: Dodge enemy fire as you fly over your target area. The radar helps you find targets, or you can check your list of objectives by flipping on the menu toggle switch. When you’ve got a target in your crosshair, pound the Bombs Away button to take it out.
Taking Flight
Best Flight Simulator
X-Plane 9
$9.99
Version: 9.10
Laminar Research
Categorizing a flight simulator as a game is typically a stretch, since the genre is less an escape than a technical recreation of piloting. X-Plane for iPhone comes from a family of just that type of serious sim, the venerable X-Plane desktop software, but it’s been leavened to fit the iPhone. The result is a game that provides a “real enough” experience that’s forgiving and fun as you soar over your choice of six beautiful locales.
PICK YOUR RIDE: The app gives you a choice of six small planes to fly. (There are also separate X-Plane apps for fighter jets, airliners, helicopters, and, yes, giant fighting robots.) You can also set the time of day, weather conditions, visibility, and region.
HEADS-UP DISPLAY: The app imposes basic gauge info: Flight speed on the left, altitude on the right, bearing at center. Steer by turning your phone, climb by tilting it back, and descend by tilting it forward. Throttle and flap controls are at the side edges but appear only when you tap there.
HOW’S MY DRIVING? Step outside the plane to see how you’re doing. X-Plane offers three camera angles, including one that lets you zoom and pan around the plane. In this shot, the Beech King-Air is cruising over Hawaii. Other locations include Austria, Alaska, and three California landscapes.
ON THE MAP: X-Plane gives you a map of the region. Pinch to zoom in and out, or rotate the map to match your current bearing. Tap a button to teleport your plane to a new location.
HONORABLE MENTION
Glyder
Free demo / $1.99 full version
Version: 1.1
Glu Mobile
Unlike X-Plane, Glyder is purely a flight of fancy. This casual flying game gives you a pair of da Vinci-style wings to soar over a fantasy landscape. Nobody shoots at you, there are no monsters, there’s no timer in sight. Your only task is a low-key goal to help the games hero, Eryn, explore six worlds to find hidden gems. Fly by tilting your phone, catching updrafts to go higher. Glyder s worlds make a colorful universe of artfully designed castles, sky-ways, tunnels, and floating machines to fly around and through for a calm, escapist adventure.
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