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After posting a review roundup the other month, I thought I’d go back through all the iPhone games I’ve played since owning the machine and produce a decent top 10 of games I think everyone should own.
10. Fly Kiwi Fly
Little Kiwi sits with his father watching the space shuttle take off on TV. As any normal Kiwi would he decides then and there to try and fly to see the shuttle.
The problem is that Kiwi’s can’t fly (as his father points out) and the shuttle is a long way away on the other side of the world. Cue your attempt to get little Kiwi to the shuttle. You start off with a kite and the ability to lift and dive, using basic aerodynamics to keep him in the air. As you can imagine, this doesn’t last for long.
Luckily you will earn money as you fly further and also by performing stunts in the air and unlocking medals. These can be used in the shop to buy better modes of flight and rockets for propulsion as well as trampolines and better fuel efficiency among other things.
The aim, of course, is to get all the equipment and upgrades in order to get to the rocket, but you’ll also need a bit of skill and strategy to get there.
Ultimately, Fly Kiwi Fly is a great little game while it lasts but when you get to the rocket it just ends, dead. With a longer game and more to do this would be a 10 but as it stands, and for the 59p asking price, this still comes recommended.
Score: 8/10
9.Fieldrunners
Although the app store is overrun with Tower Defence games, Fieldrunners is certainly one of the nicer looking defence games and also provides some variety in that the enemies don't just come along a set path, you actually have to guide them away from the exit by placing the towers to make a path. Most other games in this genre have the paths already set. It adds a new element of strategy to what is fast becoming an already over-stretched genre.
Graphically, Fieldrunners is one of the nicer looking apps, it’s very futuristic looking which sets it apart from most of the other Tower Defence games out there. The elements all come together to make it look quite polished.
Fieldrunners is certainly one of the best Tower Defence games for the iPhone. If you love these sort of games Fieldrunners is well worth a download.
Score: 9/10
8. Raging Thunder 2
Probably one of the most surprising genres to take off on the iPhone (other than the FPS) is the racing game. We gamers are lucky to have a smattering of both arcade and realistic games to choose from.
The first Raging Thunder game was a fairly good arcade game with some odd bugs and fairly generic, so when the sequel was announced it wasn’t met with a great deal of enthusiasm.
Pixelbite Games seem to have listened to the critics, though, because this sequel is far better than the original, adding flair and features to the game and making it an essential driving game app.
The first thing that hits you is the attention put in to the graphics, it really shows what the iPhone is capable of and even moving at high speeds there is very little in the way of slowdown. As with other arcade racers you get boost power and skids/certain driving conditions will fill the boost bar for you to use at the right moment.
There are 5 different single player modes on offer; Time Attack, Career, Arcade, Survival and Single Race, plus local and online multiplayer, putting this game in the same class as a full home console release. Indeed, the game feels a lot like one of the early Burnout games or one of the better Need for Speed titles.
The only fly in the ointment is that it only uses accelerometer controls, which is fine if you’re used to it (I actually prefer this) but some option for a virtual joypad would be a nice addition. However, it does have adjustable levels for this scheme and a little bit of messing around with these will create the perfect control setup.
For me, though, the wealth of options and fun factor make this the must have arcade racer on the iPhone.
9/10
7. Avatar
Avatar is based on the film of the same name, you know, the one famous for big blue people and 3D being all the rage at the moment. You’d think, therefore, that the iPhone was the last place a game based on a film all about looks would turn up. But it has. However, just as surprising as the film, the game shows what can actually be done on the phone and the results are pretty impressive for the platform.
While it’s not 3D in the cinema sense, Avatar is a full 3D world in the game. It’s not quite a sandbox game, your character follows a set path through the first half of the game and it’s not until later on that you’re given more of a free reign to carry on.
As the guinea pig for the Avatar programme, you play Corporal Ryan Lorenz, the first person to become a Na’vi Avatar and go exploring in their homeland outside of the base restrictions.
Once you’ve got over the usual training ground area, which shows you the ropes of jumping, firing etc then you get to explore Pandora. The world of Pandora is full of things to do. You’ll get to slide down trees, climb vines and bounce off large mushroom things while avoiding those strange disappearing flowers and marking the route for the army to gain the Unobtainium they need. Creatures can be shot easily with your gun, a jump technique will spread your fire and avoid them easily at first but they soon gain in sufficient numbers to cause you problems.
The scenery is very well put together, though you get the feeling that much of it is there to keep you moving in one direction in the first few levels of Pandora’s forests.
The story, although set a long time before the movie, is very similar. You won’t be surprised to find that your character starts becoming sympathetic to the Na’vi and realises what the army is up to. It’s nothing original (and some may argue that neither is the film storyline) but it’s pretty fleshed out for an iPhone game.
The issue here is that after a few levels you might despair a little at the game getting a bit samey. You have a limited number of moves and I soon found that actually staying back a little and firing at enemies, while not being very exciting, is the easiest way to continue. But fear not, once you get to the open world environment you’ll start to get some tasks which make the game more interesting and having this open world itself is like a breath of fresh Pandora air.
The 3D camera, however, isn’t so friendly. As with many games like this on many systems it’s the one thing that lets the side down a bit. Luckily the frequent level saves and most of the level design don’t make this too much of a problem but when you’ve missed a ledge for the second time and end up right back at the bottom of a cliff it can be frustrating.
Controls are pretty good too, though it’s all still a virtual joystick I found them to be more responsive than other games I’d played with the same control set up. There is a single button for fire independent of weapon and another for jump, it’s all pretty straight forward.
As a total package Avatar works well despite its faults because it’s just so well put together. As a fan of the movie I enjoyed a little bit of a back story, albeit one that felt slightly recycled, and the game itself is fun to play. The price has recently gone down to £3.99 too, which I think is a far more suitable price (and the reason why I was tempted to get it).
7/10
6. Star Wars – Trench Run
I remember smokey old arcades holding the sort of magical charm you just can’t get these days (alongside the throat cancer and goodness knows what else from the chip shop next door) and most of all I remember one arcade cabinet that seemed to sit proudly in the corner, gathering glances from its muffled sampled speech.
The game was Star Wars and it consisted of a few levels of shooting and dodging, that’s all. But it WAS Star Wars, you could use an X-wing to fight Tie Fighers, you got to be Luke Skywalker and take on the Death Star and you got Obi Wan telling you to “Use the Force”.
And so we come to the modern day and the wonder of the iPhone. THQ has created a Star Wars app which aims to recapture that same Arcade feeling but with up-to-date graphics and scenes from the movie.
Starting off with a battle over the surface of the planet shaped death machine you tilt the iPhone to steer your sleek X-wing while pressing the bottom right for weapons and bottom left to use a ‘force power’ which slows down the action (think Bullet Time).
Once all the pesky fighters are destroyed it’s on to the Death Star trenches and weaving in and out of the girders while avoiding or shooting the cannons that aim to stop you (hah, no chance!). Finally a shadow looms behind you and you swerve to avoid the enemy fire from none other than Darth Vader himself before (hopefully) making a final run to launch those torpedoes at the heart of the Death Star and legging it.
It may be short but it’s certainly sweet for Star Wars fans who loved the arcade machine. Arcade mode will let you play the scenes over again with increasing difficulty, trying to raise your score on the leaderboard, while Mission mode will let you play from start to finish.
Completing on Easy mode is, well, easy, but pick Jedi mode and you’ll have your work cut out for you.
Graphically the game looks very slick and now its been updated it moves smoothly on any iPhone or Touch, scenes and sounds from the movie add a professional touch to the game and make it well worth the price, with only the length of the game letting it down slightly.
8/10
5. X2 Snowboarding
There aren’t that many snowboarding games on the iPhone, even fewer good ones. Thankfully, X2 is one of these, in fact it’s the best Snowboarding game I’ve played in a while.
If you’ve ever played one of the early SSX games then you’ve got a good idea of what to expect here. The game is designed for fun over realism and this works in its favour. Who wants to hit the snow every few minutes and end up with a screen full of powder? Not me, I’d rather be jumping and pulling off cool stunts.
You start off with a bunch of players from different countries, much like SSX, and need to get down the slope, jumping ramps and performing tricks to gain boost and points. The tricks also unlock Achievements which you can view from the main menu,
If you’ve done well you can always replay your run, Gran Turismo syle, down the slope. It’s a cool feature that you can use to show off to your mates.
Controls are tilt based for steering and acceleration, tilting forward to crouch (and go faster). 3 icons on the left and right let you jump, perform tricks and finally boost when you’ve built up your boost bar with tricks. Pressing on the board while in the air will make your rider hold on to it as well.
The graphics are pretty good for a portable game and even at high speed everything is clear with some good draw distances. You get snow falling gently down the screen while you play, it might seem like something insignificant but it really adds to the feel of the game.
X2 is not just the best snowboarding game on the iPhone/touch it’s also one of the best games on the app store, sitting happily next to Real Racing and Peggle as a constant entry in the Top 25 games. I’d recommend it to anyone with an iDevice.
9/10
4. Peggle
Peggle is what would happen if you crossed pinball with Arkanoid and a puzzle game. It's a sort of Frankenstein's monster of gmaing without the horror (or the bolt through the head, which may or may not be in the next update).
Launch a series of balls, choosing the angle of your aim carefully, in to a series of coloured pegs and try to get all the orange pegs before you run out of balls. Luckily you have some help in the green balls littered around most levels. Their power differs but some will show you the trajectory, others give you flippers like in pinball and another will give you multi-balls.
These play in to the strategy of the game nicely and you'll find yourself thinking ahead, wondering what angle to go for first in order to get the specials and the orange pegs without losing too many balls.
The levels are grouped via a series of colourful animal characters who explain any new features you might come across. It helps to break down what might have been a slog through the later stages of the game into something worth playing for.
Graphics in the main game are pretty colourful too, though there's not a lot of detail needed in a game like this. It's the splash screens between levels and some of the backgrounds that show that Peggle has had a lot of work put into it.
When I first played Peggle I thought it was just a game of luck, but as I played through I began to understand that, just like pool or pinball this game has a big element of strategy, good aiming and planning ahead are essential to complete some of the more fiendish levels.
What sets Peggle apart and really sells the game is that it has that 'one more go' element of addiction which all good puzzle games have. It also has a wide appeal, my wife couldn't put it down after trying just the first few levels. The cartoony graphics help to charm its way into the heart of many non-gamers.
With multiplayer 'Duel' mode and loads of levels Peggle is a sure-fire hit and a game well worth downloading on the app store.
9/10
3. Flight Control
Flight Control puts you in the shows of an air traffic controller at a busy airport . The idea is to draw flight paths to guide the planes to their runways (larger and smaller planes and coptors all have their own specific runways) without them crashing in to each other.
As aircraft all travel at different speeds and more turn up every ‘level’ you’ll have to plan ahead and work frantically to get them all landed safely.
With 4 different maps and an increasingly frantic airspace to contend with this is the perfect game to keep you occupied. Flight Control will also keep you coming back again and again in order to improve on your score. For a 59p game it has a lot of re-play value and some great production.
Score: 10/10
2. Plants vs Zombies
Every Top Ten needs a Zombie game and Plants vs Zombies is not only a game filled with brain munching creatures, it’s also one of the best games on the iPhone. Ever.
The simple concept involves a garden (back or front), a bunch of zombies, each with different skills, and a bunch of plants at your disposal to defeat them.
As you would expect, different plants do different things. Sunflowers are the most important as they will give you more sun to grow other plants (basically the same as earning points for new weapons in any TD game), other plants do things like shooting zombies, stopping them in their path, freezing them or blowing them (and the surrounding ground) up.
Graphically PvZ is great, the detail in the different zombie designs really make it stand out and the fact that it has a Michael Jackson zombie is a winner in itself. It’ll have you in stitches as the surrounding zombies dance to Thriller!
With a whole bunch of levels, a neighbour who pops up to offer new plants and plots of land and an ever increasing difficulty level, Plants vs Zombies is a perfect iPhone game and highly recommended.
10/10
1. Angry Birds
“Why are these birds angry? “ You may ask, well, their eggs have been stolen by naughty pigs (go with it!) and the birds need to get their own back, Rambo style.
This neat little prologue sets up the game nicely and starts you off on the road to feathered vengeance. How? Well, by launching your birds via a catapult in to the pigs lair of course (how else?!).
Cue a cannon style game where you need to adjust the trajectory and power of the catapult to hit the structure just right and squash the pigs. Variety and strategy are handled by the type of bird you get to use; some split in to 3 when touched, some go super fast and others are just powerful.
Since I wrote the first review of this game several updates have been made available. The Golden Egg mode allows you to find golden eggs throughout the original levels, giving you replay value for the levels you’ve already completed. Why? Well, once you’ve found an egg it will open a brand new level in the Golden Egg section to play though.
Also a new set of levels have become available in the main game, lengthening an already packed story mode for the money and feeling just as good as the original set of levels. For this reason, and the fact that it’s just such a good game on the system, Angry Birds gets my number 1 spot.
Score: 10/10
Honourable mentions go to:
Transformers G1 – a turn based strategy game with scenes from the original animated series.
Must Eat Birds – Fire your monster in to the air to eat birds. Basic but fun
Yield – A game where you need to get cars across a crossroads. Starts of easy but gets harder.
Valet Hero – Flight Control for cars.
Age of Tribes – a game based on Lemmings but with tribes of people
Tiki Totems – a Physics based free puzzle game
Minigore – An isometric shooter with odd charming characters
All-in-one Game Box – A bunch of fun games that could have been released individually all in one app.
Doodlejump – Notorious game where you need to get as high in the air as possible jumping on objects. Sold millions.
GravSpace – A Thrust style game, good fun but a quite high difficulty level.
Blades of Fury – An amazing fighting game in the style of Soul Calibur.
Canabalt – Simply run and jump over a crumbling city. Stylised graphics and cool music make this impressive.
Tap Defence – Free but basic Tower Defence game.
Glyder 2 – A much better game that the first Glyder, use the tilt functions to fly a glider and collect gems. Quite relaxing!
10. Fly Kiwi Fly
Little Kiwi sits with his father watching the space shuttle take off on TV. As any normal Kiwi would he decides then and there to try and fly to see the shuttle.
The problem is that Kiwi’s can’t fly (as his father points out) and the shuttle is a long way away on the other side of the world. Cue your attempt to get little Kiwi to the shuttle. You start off with a kite and the ability to lift and dive, using basic aerodynamics to keep him in the air. As you can imagine, this doesn’t last for long.
Luckily you will earn money as you fly further and also by performing stunts in the air and unlocking medals. These can be used in the shop to buy better modes of flight and rockets for propulsion as well as trampolines and better fuel efficiency among other things.
The aim, of course, is to get all the equipment and upgrades in order to get to the rocket, but you’ll also need a bit of skill and strategy to get there.
Ultimately, Fly Kiwi Fly is a great little game while it lasts but when you get to the rocket it just ends, dead. With a longer game and more to do this would be a 10 but as it stands, and for the 59p asking price, this still comes recommended.
Score: 8/10
9.Fieldrunners
Although the app store is overrun with Tower Defence games, Fieldrunners is certainly one of the nicer looking defence games and also provides some variety in that the enemies don't just come along a set path, you actually have to guide them away from the exit by placing the towers to make a path. Most other games in this genre have the paths already set. It adds a new element of strategy to what is fast becoming an already over-stretched genre.
Graphically, Fieldrunners is one of the nicer looking apps, it’s very futuristic looking which sets it apart from most of the other Tower Defence games out there. The elements all come together to make it look quite polished.
Fieldrunners is certainly one of the best Tower Defence games for the iPhone. If you love these sort of games Fieldrunners is well worth a download.
Score: 9/10
8. Raging Thunder 2
Probably one of the most surprising genres to take off on the iPhone (other than the FPS) is the racing game. We gamers are lucky to have a smattering of both arcade and realistic games to choose from.
The first Raging Thunder game was a fairly good arcade game with some odd bugs and fairly generic, so when the sequel was announced it wasn’t met with a great deal of enthusiasm.
Pixelbite Games seem to have listened to the critics, though, because this sequel is far better than the original, adding flair and features to the game and making it an essential driving game app.
The first thing that hits you is the attention put in to the graphics, it really shows what the iPhone is capable of and even moving at high speeds there is very little in the way of slowdown. As with other arcade racers you get boost power and skids/certain driving conditions will fill the boost bar for you to use at the right moment.
There are 5 different single player modes on offer; Time Attack, Career, Arcade, Survival and Single Race, plus local and online multiplayer, putting this game in the same class as a full home console release. Indeed, the game feels a lot like one of the early Burnout games or one of the better Need for Speed titles.
The only fly in the ointment is that it only uses accelerometer controls, which is fine if you’re used to it (I actually prefer this) but some option for a virtual joypad would be a nice addition. However, it does have adjustable levels for this scheme and a little bit of messing around with these will create the perfect control setup.
For me, though, the wealth of options and fun factor make this the must have arcade racer on the iPhone.
9/10
7. Avatar
Avatar is based on the film of the same name, you know, the one famous for big blue people and 3D being all the rage at the moment. You’d think, therefore, that the iPhone was the last place a game based on a film all about looks would turn up. But it has. However, just as surprising as the film, the game shows what can actually be done on the phone and the results are pretty impressive for the platform.
While it’s not 3D in the cinema sense, Avatar is a full 3D world in the game. It’s not quite a sandbox game, your character follows a set path through the first half of the game and it’s not until later on that you’re given more of a free reign to carry on.
As the guinea pig for the Avatar programme, you play Corporal Ryan Lorenz, the first person to become a Na’vi Avatar and go exploring in their homeland outside of the base restrictions.
Once you’ve got over the usual training ground area, which shows you the ropes of jumping, firing etc then you get to explore Pandora. The world of Pandora is full of things to do. You’ll get to slide down trees, climb vines and bounce off large mushroom things while avoiding those strange disappearing flowers and marking the route for the army to gain the Unobtainium they need. Creatures can be shot easily with your gun, a jump technique will spread your fire and avoid them easily at first but they soon gain in sufficient numbers to cause you problems.
The scenery is very well put together, though you get the feeling that much of it is there to keep you moving in one direction in the first few levels of Pandora’s forests.
The story, although set a long time before the movie, is very similar. You won’t be surprised to find that your character starts becoming sympathetic to the Na’vi and realises what the army is up to. It’s nothing original (and some may argue that neither is the film storyline) but it’s pretty fleshed out for an iPhone game.
The issue here is that after a few levels you might despair a little at the game getting a bit samey. You have a limited number of moves and I soon found that actually staying back a little and firing at enemies, while not being very exciting, is the easiest way to continue. But fear not, once you get to the open world environment you’ll start to get some tasks which make the game more interesting and having this open world itself is like a breath of fresh Pandora air.
The 3D camera, however, isn’t so friendly. As with many games like this on many systems it’s the one thing that lets the side down a bit. Luckily the frequent level saves and most of the level design don’t make this too much of a problem but when you’ve missed a ledge for the second time and end up right back at the bottom of a cliff it can be frustrating.
Controls are pretty good too, though it’s all still a virtual joystick I found them to be more responsive than other games I’d played with the same control set up. There is a single button for fire independent of weapon and another for jump, it’s all pretty straight forward.
As a total package Avatar works well despite its faults because it’s just so well put together. As a fan of the movie I enjoyed a little bit of a back story, albeit one that felt slightly recycled, and the game itself is fun to play. The price has recently gone down to £3.99 too, which I think is a far more suitable price (and the reason why I was tempted to get it).
7/10
6. Star Wars – Trench Run
I remember smokey old arcades holding the sort of magical charm you just can’t get these days (alongside the throat cancer and goodness knows what else from the chip shop next door) and most of all I remember one arcade cabinet that seemed to sit proudly in the corner, gathering glances from its muffled sampled speech.
The game was Star Wars and it consisted of a few levels of shooting and dodging, that’s all. But it WAS Star Wars, you could use an X-wing to fight Tie Fighers, you got to be Luke Skywalker and take on the Death Star and you got Obi Wan telling you to “Use the Force”.
And so we come to the modern day and the wonder of the iPhone. THQ has created a Star Wars app which aims to recapture that same Arcade feeling but with up-to-date graphics and scenes from the movie.
Starting off with a battle over the surface of the planet shaped death machine you tilt the iPhone to steer your sleek X-wing while pressing the bottom right for weapons and bottom left to use a ‘force power’ which slows down the action (think Bullet Time).
Once all the pesky fighters are destroyed it’s on to the Death Star trenches and weaving in and out of the girders while avoiding or shooting the cannons that aim to stop you (hah, no chance!). Finally a shadow looms behind you and you swerve to avoid the enemy fire from none other than Darth Vader himself before (hopefully) making a final run to launch those torpedoes at the heart of the Death Star and legging it.
It may be short but it’s certainly sweet for Star Wars fans who loved the arcade machine. Arcade mode will let you play the scenes over again with increasing difficulty, trying to raise your score on the leaderboard, while Mission mode will let you play from start to finish.
Completing on Easy mode is, well, easy, but pick Jedi mode and you’ll have your work cut out for you.
Graphically the game looks very slick and now its been updated it moves smoothly on any iPhone or Touch, scenes and sounds from the movie add a professional touch to the game and make it well worth the price, with only the length of the game letting it down slightly.
8/10
5. X2 Snowboarding
There aren’t that many snowboarding games on the iPhone, even fewer good ones. Thankfully, X2 is one of these, in fact it’s the best Snowboarding game I’ve played in a while.
If you’ve ever played one of the early SSX games then you’ve got a good idea of what to expect here. The game is designed for fun over realism and this works in its favour. Who wants to hit the snow every few minutes and end up with a screen full of powder? Not me, I’d rather be jumping and pulling off cool stunts.
You start off with a bunch of players from different countries, much like SSX, and need to get down the slope, jumping ramps and performing tricks to gain boost and points. The tricks also unlock Achievements which you can view from the main menu,
If you’ve done well you can always replay your run, Gran Turismo syle, down the slope. It’s a cool feature that you can use to show off to your mates.
Controls are tilt based for steering and acceleration, tilting forward to crouch (and go faster). 3 icons on the left and right let you jump, perform tricks and finally boost when you’ve built up your boost bar with tricks. Pressing on the board while in the air will make your rider hold on to it as well.
The graphics are pretty good for a portable game and even at high speed everything is clear with some good draw distances. You get snow falling gently down the screen while you play, it might seem like something insignificant but it really adds to the feel of the game.
X2 is not just the best snowboarding game on the iPhone/touch it’s also one of the best games on the app store, sitting happily next to Real Racing and Peggle as a constant entry in the Top 25 games. I’d recommend it to anyone with an iDevice.
9/10
4. Peggle
Peggle is what would happen if you crossed pinball with Arkanoid and a puzzle game. It's a sort of Frankenstein's monster of gmaing without the horror (or the bolt through the head, which may or may not be in the next update).
Launch a series of balls, choosing the angle of your aim carefully, in to a series of coloured pegs and try to get all the orange pegs before you run out of balls. Luckily you have some help in the green balls littered around most levels. Their power differs but some will show you the trajectory, others give you flippers like in pinball and another will give you multi-balls.
These play in to the strategy of the game nicely and you'll find yourself thinking ahead, wondering what angle to go for first in order to get the specials and the orange pegs without losing too many balls.
The levels are grouped via a series of colourful animal characters who explain any new features you might come across. It helps to break down what might have been a slog through the later stages of the game into something worth playing for.
Graphics in the main game are pretty colourful too, though there's not a lot of detail needed in a game like this. It's the splash screens between levels and some of the backgrounds that show that Peggle has had a lot of work put into it.
When I first played Peggle I thought it was just a game of luck, but as I played through I began to understand that, just like pool or pinball this game has a big element of strategy, good aiming and planning ahead are essential to complete some of the more fiendish levels.
What sets Peggle apart and really sells the game is that it has that 'one more go' element of addiction which all good puzzle games have. It also has a wide appeal, my wife couldn't put it down after trying just the first few levels. The cartoony graphics help to charm its way into the heart of many non-gamers.
With multiplayer 'Duel' mode and loads of levels Peggle is a sure-fire hit and a game well worth downloading on the app store.
9/10
3. Flight Control
Flight Control puts you in the shows of an air traffic controller at a busy airport . The idea is to draw flight paths to guide the planes to their runways (larger and smaller planes and coptors all have their own specific runways) without them crashing in to each other.
As aircraft all travel at different speeds and more turn up every ‘level’ you’ll have to plan ahead and work frantically to get them all landed safely.
With 4 different maps and an increasingly frantic airspace to contend with this is the perfect game to keep you occupied. Flight Control will also keep you coming back again and again in order to improve on your score. For a 59p game it has a lot of re-play value and some great production.
Score: 10/10
2. Plants vs Zombies
Every Top Ten needs a Zombie game and Plants vs Zombies is not only a game filled with brain munching creatures, it’s also one of the best games on the iPhone. Ever.
The simple concept involves a garden (back or front), a bunch of zombies, each with different skills, and a bunch of plants at your disposal to defeat them.
As you would expect, different plants do different things. Sunflowers are the most important as they will give you more sun to grow other plants (basically the same as earning points for new weapons in any TD game), other plants do things like shooting zombies, stopping them in their path, freezing them or blowing them (and the surrounding ground) up.
Graphically PvZ is great, the detail in the different zombie designs really make it stand out and the fact that it has a Michael Jackson zombie is a winner in itself. It’ll have you in stitches as the surrounding zombies dance to Thriller!
With a whole bunch of levels, a neighbour who pops up to offer new plants and plots of land and an ever increasing difficulty level, Plants vs Zombies is a perfect iPhone game and highly recommended.
10/10
1. Angry Birds
“Why are these birds angry? “ You may ask, well, their eggs have been stolen by naughty pigs (go with it!) and the birds need to get their own back, Rambo style.
This neat little prologue sets up the game nicely and starts you off on the road to feathered vengeance. How? Well, by launching your birds via a catapult in to the pigs lair of course (how else?!).
Cue a cannon style game where you need to adjust the trajectory and power of the catapult to hit the structure just right and squash the pigs. Variety and strategy are handled by the type of bird you get to use; some split in to 3 when touched, some go super fast and others are just powerful.
Since I wrote the first review of this game several updates have been made available. The Golden Egg mode allows you to find golden eggs throughout the original levels, giving you replay value for the levels you’ve already completed. Why? Well, once you’ve found an egg it will open a brand new level in the Golden Egg section to play though.
Also a new set of levels have become available in the main game, lengthening an already packed story mode for the money and feeling just as good as the original set of levels. For this reason, and the fact that it’s just such a good game on the system, Angry Birds gets my number 1 spot.
Score: 10/10
Honourable mentions go to:
Transformers G1 – a turn based strategy game with scenes from the original animated series.
Must Eat Birds – Fire your monster in to the air to eat birds. Basic but fun
Yield – A game where you need to get cars across a crossroads. Starts of easy but gets harder.
Valet Hero – Flight Control for cars.
Age of Tribes – a game based on Lemmings but with tribes of people
Tiki Totems – a Physics based free puzzle game
Minigore – An isometric shooter with odd charming characters
All-in-one Game Box – A bunch of fun games that could have been released individually all in one app.
Doodlejump – Notorious game where you need to get as high in the air as possible jumping on objects. Sold millions.
GravSpace – A Thrust style game, good fun but a quite high difficulty level.
Blades of Fury – An amazing fighting game in the style of Soul Calibur.
Canabalt – Simply run and jump over a crumbling city. Stylised graphics and cool music make this impressive.
Tap Defence – Free but basic Tower Defence game.
Glyder 2 – A much better game that the first Glyder, use the tilt functions to fly a glider and collect gems. Quite relaxing!
This may well be longer than my GTA IV review. Very long :P Congrats on the GAD win :)
*EDIT* 3260 words to be precise :P
*EDIT* 3260 words to be precise :P
After posting a review roundup the other month, I thought I’d go back through all the iPhone games I’ve played since owning the machine and produce a decent top 10 of games I think everyone should own.
10. Fly Kiwi Fly
Little Kiwi sits with his father watching the space shuttle take off on TV. As any normal Kiwi would he decides then and there to try and fly to see the shuttle.
The problem is that Kiwi’s can’t fly (as his father points out) and the shuttle is a long way away on the other side of the world. Cue your attempt to get little Kiwi to the shuttle. You start off with a kite and the ability to lift and dive, using basic aerodynamics to keep him in the air. As you can imagine, this doesn’t last for long.
Luckily you will earn money as you fly further and also by performing stunts in the air and unlocking medals. These can be used in the shop to buy better modes of flight and rockets for propulsion as well as trampolines and better fuel efficiency among other things.
The aim, of course, is to get all the equipment and upgrades in order to get to the rocket, but you’ll also need a bit of skill and strategy to get there.
Ultimately, Fly Kiwi Fly is a great little game while it lasts but when you get to the rocket it just ends, dead. With a longer game and more to do this would be a 10 but as it stands, and for the 59p asking price, this still comes recommended.
Score: 8/10
9.Fieldrunners
Although the app store is overrun with Tower Defence games, Fieldrunners is certainly one of the nicer looking defence games and also provides some variety in that the enemies don't just come along a set path, you actually have to guide them away from the exit by placing the towers to make a path. Most other games in this genre have the paths already set. It adds a new element of strategy to what is fast becoming an already over-stretched genre.
Graphically, Fieldrunners is one of the nicer looking apps, it’s very futuristic looking which sets it apart from most of the other Tower Defence games out there. The elements all come together to make it look quite polished.
Fieldrunners is certainly one of the best Tower Defence games for the iPhone. If you love these sort of games Fieldrunners is well worth a download.
Score: 9/10
8. Raging Thunder 2
Probably one of the most surprising genres to take off on the iPhone (other than the FPS) is the racing game. We gamers are lucky to have a smattering of both arcade and realistic games to choose from.
The first Raging Thunder game was a fairly good arcade game with some odd bugs and fairly generic, so when the sequel was announced it wasn’t met with a great deal of enthusiasm.
Pixelbite Games seem to have listened to the critics, though, because this sequel is far better than the original, adding flair and features to the game and making it an essential driving game app.
The first thing that hits you is the attention put in to the graphics, it really shows what the iPhone is capable of and even moving at high speeds there is very little in the way of slowdown. As with other arcade racers you get boost power and skids/certain driving conditions will fill the boost bar for you to use at the right moment.
There are 5 different single player modes on offer; Time Attack, Career, Arcade, Survival and Single Race, plus local and online multiplayer, putting this game in the same class as a full home console release. Indeed, the game feels a lot like one of the early Burnout games or one of the better Need for Speed titles.
The only fly in the ointment is that it only uses accelerometer controls, which is fine if you’re used to it (I actually prefer this) but some option for a virtual joypad would be a nice addition. However, it does have adjustable levels for this scheme and a little bit of messing around with these will create the perfect control setup.
For me, though, the wealth of options and fun factor make this the must have arcade racer on the iPhone.
9/10
7. Avatar
Avatar is based on the film of the same name, you know, the one famous for big blue people and 3D being all the rage at the moment. You’d think, therefore, that the iPhone was the last place a game based on a film all about looks would turn up. But it has. However, just as surprising as the film, the game shows what can actually be done on the phone and the results are pretty impressive for the platform.
While it’s not 3D in the cinema sense, Avatar is a full 3D world in the game. It’s not quite a sandbox game, your character follows a set path through the first half of the game and it’s not until later on that you’re given more of a free reign to carry on.
As the guinea pig for the Avatar programme, you play Corporal Ryan Lorenz, the first person to become a Na’vi Avatar and go exploring in their homeland outside of the base restrictions.
Once you’ve got over the usual training ground area, which shows you the ropes of jumping, firing etc then you get to explore Pandora. The world of Pandora is full of things to do. You’ll get to slide down trees, climb vines and bounce off large mushroom things while avoiding those strange disappearing flowers and marking the route for the army to gain the Unobtainium they need. Creatures can be shot easily with your gun, a jump technique will spread your fire and avoid them easily at first but they soon gain in sufficient numbers to cause you problems.
The scenery is very well put together, though you get the feeling that much of it is there to keep you moving in one direction in the first few levels of Pandora’s forests.
The story, although set a long time before the movie, is very similar. You won’t be surprised to find that your character starts becoming sympathetic to the Na’vi and realises what the army is up to. It’s nothing original (and some may argue that neither is the film storyline) but it’s pretty fleshed out for an iPhone game.
The issue here is that after a few levels you might despair a little at the game getting a bit samey. You have a limited number of moves and I soon found that actually staying back a little and firing at enemies, while not being very exciting, is the easiest way to continue. But fear not, once you get to the open world environment you’ll start to get some tasks which make the game more interesting and having this open world itself is like a breath of fresh Pandora air.
The 3D camera, however, isn’t so friendly. As with many games like this on many systems it’s the one thing that lets the side down a bit. Luckily the frequent level saves and most of the level design don’t make this too much of a problem but when you’ve missed a ledge for the second time and end up right back at the bottom of a cliff it can be frustrating.
Controls are pretty good too, though it’s all still a virtual joystick I found them to be more responsive than other games I’d played with the same control set up. There is a single button for fire independent of weapon and another for jump, it’s all pretty straight forward.
As a total package Avatar works well despite its faults because it’s just so well put together. As a fan of the movie I enjoyed a little bit of a back story, albeit one that felt slightly recycled, and the game itself is fun to play. The price has recently gone down to £3.99 too, which I think is a far more suitable price (and the reason why I was tempted to get it).
7/10
6. Star Wars – Trench Run
I remember smokey old arcades holding the sort of magical charm you just can’t get these days (alongside the throat cancer and goodness knows what else from the chip shop next door) and most of all I remember one arcade cabinet that seemed to sit proudly in the corner, gathering glances from its muffled sampled speech.
The game was Star Wars and it consisted of a few levels of shooting and dodging, that’s all. But it WAS Star Wars, you could use an X-wing to fight Tie Fighers, you got to be Luke Skywalker and take on the Death Star and you got Obi Wan telling you to “Use the Force”.
And so we come to the modern day and the wonder of the iPhone. THQ has created a Star Wars app which aims to recapture that same Arcade feeling but with up-to-date graphics and scenes from the movie.
Starting off with a battle over the surface of the planet shaped death machine you tilt the iPhone to steer your sleek X-wing while pressing the bottom right for weapons and bottom left to use a ‘force power’ which slows down the action (think Bullet Time).
Once all the pesky fighters are destroyed it’s on to the Death Star trenches and weaving in and out of the girders while avoiding or shooting the cannons that aim to stop you (hah, no chance!). Finally a shadow looms behind you and you swerve to avoid the enemy fire from none other than Darth Vader himself before (hopefully) making a final run to launch those torpedoes at the heart of the Death Star and legging it.
It may be short but it’s certainly sweet for Star Wars fans who loved the arcade machine. Arcade mode will let you play the scenes over again with increasing difficulty, trying to raise your score on the leaderboard, while Mission mode will let you play from start to finish.
Completing on Easy mode is, well, easy, but pick Jedi mode and you’ll have your work cut out for you.
Graphically the game looks very slick and now its been updated it moves smoothly on any iPhone or Touch, scenes and sounds from the movie add a professional touch to the game and make it well worth the price, with only the length of the game letting it down slightly.
8/10
5. X2 Snowboarding
There aren’t that many snowboarding games on the iPhone, even fewer good ones. Thankfully, X2 is one of these, in fact it’s the best Snowboarding game I’ve played in a while.
If you’ve ever played one of the early SSX games then you’ve got a good idea of what to expect here. The game is designed for fun over realism and this works in its favour. Who wants to hit the snow every few minutes and end up with a screen full of powder? Not me, I’d rather be jumping and pulling off cool stunts.
You start off with a bunch of players from different countries, much like SSX, and need to get down the slope, jumping ramps and performing tricks to gain boost and points. The tricks also unlock Achievements which you can view from the main menu,
If you’ve done well you can always replay your run, Gran Turismo syle, down the slope. It’s a cool feature that you can use to show off to your mates.
Controls are tilt based for steering and acceleration, tilting forward to crouch (and go faster). 3 icons on the left and right let you jump, perform tricks and finally boost when you’ve built up your boost bar with tricks. Pressing on the board while in the air will make your rider hold on to it as well.
The graphics are pretty good for a portable game and even at high speed everything is clear with some good draw distances. You get snow falling gently down the screen while you play, it might seem like something insignificant but it really adds to the feel of the game.
X2 is not just the best snowboarding game on the iPhone/touch it’s also one of the best games on the app store, sitting happily next to Real Racing and Peggle as a constant entry in the Top 25 games. I’d recommend it to anyone with an iDevice.
9/10
4. Peggle
Peggle is what would happen if you crossed pinball with Arkanoid and a puzzle game. It's a sort of Frankenstein's monster of gmaing without the horror (or the bolt through the head, which may or may not be in the next update).
Launch a series of balls, choosing the angle of your aim carefully, in to a series of coloured pegs and try to get all the orange pegs before you run out of balls. Luckily you have some help in the green balls littered around most levels. Their power differs but some will show you the trajectory, others give you flippers like in pinball and another will give you multi-balls.
These play in to the strategy of the game nicely and you'll find yourself thinking ahead, wondering what angle to go for first in order to get the specials and the orange pegs without losing too many balls.
The levels are grouped via a series of colourful animal characters who explain any new features you might come across. It helps to break down what might have been a slog through the later stages of the game into something worth playing for.
Graphics in the main game are pretty colourful too, though there's not a lot of detail needed in a game like this. It's the splash screens between levels and some of the backgrounds that show that Peggle has had a lot of work put into it.
When I first played Peggle I thought it was just a game of luck, but as I played through I began to understand that, just like pool or pinball this game has a big element of strategy, good aiming and planning ahead are essential to complete some of the more fiendish levels.
What sets Peggle apart and really sells the game is that it has that 'one more go' element of addiction which all good puzzle games have. It also has a wide appeal, my wife couldn't put it down after trying just the first few levels. The cartoony graphics help to charm its way into the heart of many non-gamers.
With multiplayer 'Duel' mode and loads of levels Peggle is a sure-fire hit and a game well worth downloading on the app store.
9/10
3. Flight Control
Flight Control puts you in the shows of an air traffic controller at a busy airport . The idea is to draw flight paths to guide the planes to their runways (larger and smaller planes and coptors all have their own specific runways) without them crashing in to each other.
As aircraft all travel at different speeds and more turn up every ‘level’ you’ll have to plan ahead and work frantically to get them all landed safely.
With 4 different maps and an increasingly frantic airspace to contend with this is the perfect game to keep you occupied. Flight Control will also keep you coming back again and again in order to improve on your score. For a 59p game it has a lot of re-play value and some great production.
Score: 10/10
2. Plants vs Zombies
Every Top Ten needs a Zombie game and Plants vs Zombies is not only a game filled with brain munching creatures, it’s also one of the best games on the iPhone. Ever.
The simple concept involves a garden (back or front), a bunch of zombies, each with different skills, and a bunch of plants at your disposal to defeat them.
As you would expect, different plants do different things. Sunflowers are the most important as they will give you more sun to grow other plants (basically the same as earning points for new weapons in any TD game), other plants do things like shooting zombies, stopping them in their path, freezing them or blowing them (and the surrounding ground) up.
Graphically PvZ is great, the detail in the different zombie designs really make it stand out and the fact that it has a Michael Jackson zombie is a winner in itself. It’ll have you in stitches as the surrounding zombies dance to Thriller!
With a whole bunch of levels, a neighbour who pops up to offer new plants and plots of land and an ever increasing difficulty level, Plants vs Zombies is a perfect iPhone game and highly recommended.
10/10
1. Angry Birds
“Why are these birds angry? “ You may ask, well, their eggs have been stolen by naughty pigs (go with it!) and the birds need to get their own back, Rambo style.
This neat little prologue sets up the game nicely and starts you off on the road to feathered vengeance. How? Well, by launching your birds via a catapult in to the pigs lair of course (how else?!).
Cue a cannon style game where you need to adjust the trajectory and power of the catapult to hit the structure just right and squash the pigs. Variety and strategy are handled by the type of bird you get to use; some split in to 3 when touched, some go super fast and others are just powerful.
Since I wrote the first review of this game several updates have been made available. The Golden Egg mode allows you to find golden eggs throughout the original levels, giving you replay value for the levels you’ve already completed. Why? Well, once you’ve found an egg it will open a brand new level in the Golden Egg section to play though.
Also a new set of levels have become available in the main game, lengthening an already packed story mode for the money and feeling just as good as the original set of levels. For this reason, and the fact that it’s just such a good game on the system, Angry Birds gets my number 1 spot.
Score: 10/10
Honourable mentions go to:
Transformers G1 – a turn based strategy game with scenes from the original animated series.
Must Eat Birds – Fire your monster in to the air to eat birds. Basic but fun
Yield – A game where you need to get cars across a crossroads. Starts of easy but gets harder.
Valet Hero – Flight Control for cars.
Age of Tribes – a game based on Lemmings but with tribes of people
Tiki Totems – a Physics based free puzzle game
Minigore – An isometric shooter with odd charming characters
All-in-one Game Box – A bunch of fun games that could have been released individually all in one app.
Doodlejump – Notorious game where you need to get as high in the air as possible jumping on objects. Sold millions.
GravSpace – A Thrust style game, good fun but a quite high difficulty level.
Blades of Fury – An amazing fighting game in the style of Soul Calibur.
Canabalt – Simply run and jump over a crumbling city. Stylised graphics and cool music make this impressive.
Tap Defence – Free but basic Tower Defence game.
Glyder 2 – A much better game that the first Glyder, use the tilt functions to fly a glider and collect gems. Quite relaxing!
10. Fly Kiwi Fly
Little Kiwi sits with his father watching the space shuttle take off on TV. As any normal Kiwi would he decides then and there to try and fly to see the shuttle.
The problem is that Kiwi’s can’t fly (as his father points out) and the shuttle is a long way away on the other side of the world. Cue your attempt to get little Kiwi to the shuttle. You start off with a kite and the ability to lift and dive, using basic aerodynamics to keep him in the air. As you can imagine, this doesn’t last for long.
Luckily you will earn money as you fly further and also by performing stunts in the air and unlocking medals. These can be used in the shop to buy better modes of flight and rockets for propulsion as well as trampolines and better fuel efficiency among other things.
The aim, of course, is to get all the equipment and upgrades in order to get to the rocket, but you’ll also need a bit of skill and strategy to get there.
Ultimately, Fly Kiwi Fly is a great little game while it lasts but when you get to the rocket it just ends, dead. With a longer game and more to do this would be a 10 but as it stands, and for the 59p asking price, this still comes recommended.
Score: 8/10
9.Fieldrunners
Although the app store is overrun with Tower Defence games, Fieldrunners is certainly one of the nicer looking defence games and also provides some variety in that the enemies don't just come along a set path, you actually have to guide them away from the exit by placing the towers to make a path. Most other games in this genre have the paths already set. It adds a new element of strategy to what is fast becoming an already over-stretched genre.
Graphically, Fieldrunners is one of the nicer looking apps, it’s very futuristic looking which sets it apart from most of the other Tower Defence games out there. The elements all come together to make it look quite polished.
Fieldrunners is certainly one of the best Tower Defence games for the iPhone. If you love these sort of games Fieldrunners is well worth a download.
Score: 9/10
8. Raging Thunder 2
Probably one of the most surprising genres to take off on the iPhone (other than the FPS) is the racing game. We gamers are lucky to have a smattering of both arcade and realistic games to choose from.
The first Raging Thunder game was a fairly good arcade game with some odd bugs and fairly generic, so when the sequel was announced it wasn’t met with a great deal of enthusiasm.
Pixelbite Games seem to have listened to the critics, though, because this sequel is far better than the original, adding flair and features to the game and making it an essential driving game app.
The first thing that hits you is the attention put in to the graphics, it really shows what the iPhone is capable of and even moving at high speeds there is very little in the way of slowdown. As with other arcade racers you get boost power and skids/certain driving conditions will fill the boost bar for you to use at the right moment.
There are 5 different single player modes on offer; Time Attack, Career, Arcade, Survival and Single Race, plus local and online multiplayer, putting this game in the same class as a full home console release. Indeed, the game feels a lot like one of the early Burnout games or one of the better Need for Speed titles.
The only fly in the ointment is that it only uses accelerometer controls, which is fine if you’re used to it (I actually prefer this) but some option for a virtual joypad would be a nice addition. However, it does have adjustable levels for this scheme and a little bit of messing around with these will create the perfect control setup.
For me, though, the wealth of options and fun factor make this the must have arcade racer on the iPhone.
9/10
7. Avatar
Avatar is based on the film of the same name, you know, the one famous for big blue people and 3D being all the rage at the moment. You’d think, therefore, that the iPhone was the last place a game based on a film all about looks would turn up. But it has. However, just as surprising as the film, the game shows what can actually be done on the phone and the results are pretty impressive for the platform.
While it’s not 3D in the cinema sense, Avatar is a full 3D world in the game. It’s not quite a sandbox game, your character follows a set path through the first half of the game and it’s not until later on that you’re given more of a free reign to carry on.
As the guinea pig for the Avatar programme, you play Corporal Ryan Lorenz, the first person to become a Na’vi Avatar and go exploring in their homeland outside of the base restrictions.
Once you’ve got over the usual training ground area, which shows you the ropes of jumping, firing etc then you get to explore Pandora. The world of Pandora is full of things to do. You’ll get to slide down trees, climb vines and bounce off large mushroom things while avoiding those strange disappearing flowers and marking the route for the army to gain the Unobtainium they need. Creatures can be shot easily with your gun, a jump technique will spread your fire and avoid them easily at first but they soon gain in sufficient numbers to cause you problems.
The scenery is very well put together, though you get the feeling that much of it is there to keep you moving in one direction in the first few levels of Pandora’s forests.
The story, although set a long time before the movie, is very similar. You won’t be surprised to find that your character starts becoming sympathetic to the Na’vi and realises what the army is up to. It’s nothing original (and some may argue that neither is the film storyline) but it’s pretty fleshed out for an iPhone game.
The issue here is that after a few levels you might despair a little at the game getting a bit samey. You have a limited number of moves and I soon found that actually staying back a little and firing at enemies, while not being very exciting, is the easiest way to continue. But fear not, once you get to the open world environment you’ll start to get some tasks which make the game more interesting and having this open world itself is like a breath of fresh Pandora air.
The 3D camera, however, isn’t so friendly. As with many games like this on many systems it’s the one thing that lets the side down a bit. Luckily the frequent level saves and most of the level design don’t make this too much of a problem but when you’ve missed a ledge for the second time and end up right back at the bottom of a cliff it can be frustrating.
Controls are pretty good too, though it’s all still a virtual joystick I found them to be more responsive than other games I’d played with the same control set up. There is a single button for fire independent of weapon and another for jump, it’s all pretty straight forward.
As a total package Avatar works well despite its faults because it’s just so well put together. As a fan of the movie I enjoyed a little bit of a back story, albeit one that felt slightly recycled, and the game itself is fun to play. The price has recently gone down to £3.99 too, which I think is a far more suitable price (and the reason why I was tempted to get it).
7/10
6. Star Wars – Trench Run
I remember smokey old arcades holding the sort of magical charm you just can’t get these days (alongside the throat cancer and goodness knows what else from the chip shop next door) and most of all I remember one arcade cabinet that seemed to sit proudly in the corner, gathering glances from its muffled sampled speech.
The game was Star Wars and it consisted of a few levels of shooting and dodging, that’s all. But it WAS Star Wars, you could use an X-wing to fight Tie Fighers, you got to be Luke Skywalker and take on the Death Star and you got Obi Wan telling you to “Use the Force”.
And so we come to the modern day and the wonder of the iPhone. THQ has created a Star Wars app which aims to recapture that same Arcade feeling but with up-to-date graphics and scenes from the movie.
Starting off with a battle over the surface of the planet shaped death machine you tilt the iPhone to steer your sleek X-wing while pressing the bottom right for weapons and bottom left to use a ‘force power’ which slows down the action (think Bullet Time).
Once all the pesky fighters are destroyed it’s on to the Death Star trenches and weaving in and out of the girders while avoiding or shooting the cannons that aim to stop you (hah, no chance!). Finally a shadow looms behind you and you swerve to avoid the enemy fire from none other than Darth Vader himself before (hopefully) making a final run to launch those torpedoes at the heart of the Death Star and legging it.
It may be short but it’s certainly sweet for Star Wars fans who loved the arcade machine. Arcade mode will let you play the scenes over again with increasing difficulty, trying to raise your score on the leaderboard, while Mission mode will let you play from start to finish.
Completing on Easy mode is, well, easy, but pick Jedi mode and you’ll have your work cut out for you.
Graphically the game looks very slick and now its been updated it moves smoothly on any iPhone or Touch, scenes and sounds from the movie add a professional touch to the game and make it well worth the price, with only the length of the game letting it down slightly.
8/10
5. X2 Snowboarding
There aren’t that many snowboarding games on the iPhone, even fewer good ones. Thankfully, X2 is one of these, in fact it’s the best Snowboarding game I’ve played in a while.
If you’ve ever played one of the early SSX games then you’ve got a good idea of what to expect here. The game is designed for fun over realism and this works in its favour. Who wants to hit the snow every few minutes and end up with a screen full of powder? Not me, I’d rather be jumping and pulling off cool stunts.
You start off with a bunch of players from different countries, much like SSX, and need to get down the slope, jumping ramps and performing tricks to gain boost and points. The tricks also unlock Achievements which you can view from the main menu,
If you’ve done well you can always replay your run, Gran Turismo syle, down the slope. It’s a cool feature that you can use to show off to your mates.
Controls are tilt based for steering and acceleration, tilting forward to crouch (and go faster). 3 icons on the left and right let you jump, perform tricks and finally boost when you’ve built up your boost bar with tricks. Pressing on the board while in the air will make your rider hold on to it as well.
The graphics are pretty good for a portable game and even at high speed everything is clear with some good draw distances. You get snow falling gently down the screen while you play, it might seem like something insignificant but it really adds to the feel of the game.
X2 is not just the best snowboarding game on the iPhone/touch it’s also one of the best games on the app store, sitting happily next to Real Racing and Peggle as a constant entry in the Top 25 games. I’d recommend it to anyone with an iDevice.
9/10
4. Peggle
Peggle is what would happen if you crossed pinball with Arkanoid and a puzzle game. It's a sort of Frankenstein's monster of gmaing without the horror (or the bolt through the head, which may or may not be in the next update).
Launch a series of balls, choosing the angle of your aim carefully, in to a series of coloured pegs and try to get all the orange pegs before you run out of balls. Luckily you have some help in the green balls littered around most levels. Their power differs but some will show you the trajectory, others give you flippers like in pinball and another will give you multi-balls.
These play in to the strategy of the game nicely and you'll find yourself thinking ahead, wondering what angle to go for first in order to get the specials and the orange pegs without losing too many balls.
The levels are grouped via a series of colourful animal characters who explain any new features you might come across. It helps to break down what might have been a slog through the later stages of the game into something worth playing for.
Graphics in the main game are pretty colourful too, though there's not a lot of detail needed in a game like this. It's the splash screens between levels and some of the backgrounds that show that Peggle has had a lot of work put into it.
When I first played Peggle I thought it was just a game of luck, but as I played through I began to understand that, just like pool or pinball this game has a big element of strategy, good aiming and planning ahead are essential to complete some of the more fiendish levels.
What sets Peggle apart and really sells the game is that it has that 'one more go' element of addiction which all good puzzle games have. It also has a wide appeal, my wife couldn't put it down after trying just the first few levels. The cartoony graphics help to charm its way into the heart of many non-gamers.
With multiplayer 'Duel' mode and loads of levels Peggle is a sure-fire hit and a game well worth downloading on the app store.
9/10
3. Flight Control
Flight Control puts you in the shows of an air traffic controller at a busy airport . The idea is to draw flight paths to guide the planes to their runways (larger and smaller planes and coptors all have their own specific runways) without them crashing in to each other.
As aircraft all travel at different speeds and more turn up every ‘level’ you’ll have to plan ahead and work frantically to get them all landed safely.
With 4 different maps and an increasingly frantic airspace to contend with this is the perfect game to keep you occupied. Flight Control will also keep you coming back again and again in order to improve on your score. For a 59p game it has a lot of re-play value and some great production.
Score: 10/10
2. Plants vs Zombies
Every Top Ten needs a Zombie game and Plants vs Zombies is not only a game filled with brain munching creatures, it’s also one of the best games on the iPhone. Ever.
The simple concept involves a garden (back or front), a bunch of zombies, each with different skills, and a bunch of plants at your disposal to defeat them.
As you would expect, different plants do different things. Sunflowers are the most important as they will give you more sun to grow other plants (basically the same as earning points for new weapons in any TD game), other plants do things like shooting zombies, stopping them in their path, freezing them or blowing them (and the surrounding ground) up.
Graphically PvZ is great, the detail in the different zombie designs really make it stand out and the fact that it has a Michael Jackson zombie is a winner in itself. It’ll have you in stitches as the surrounding zombies dance to Thriller!
With a whole bunch of levels, a neighbour who pops up to offer new plants and plots of land and an ever increasing difficulty level, Plants vs Zombies is a perfect iPhone game and highly recommended.
10/10
1. Angry Birds
“Why are these birds angry? “ You may ask, well, their eggs have been stolen by naughty pigs (go with it!) and the birds need to get their own back, Rambo style.
This neat little prologue sets up the game nicely and starts you off on the road to feathered vengeance. How? Well, by launching your birds via a catapult in to the pigs lair of course (how else?!).
Cue a cannon style game where you need to adjust the trajectory and power of the catapult to hit the structure just right and squash the pigs. Variety and strategy are handled by the type of bird you get to use; some split in to 3 when touched, some go super fast and others are just powerful.
Since I wrote the first review of this game several updates have been made available. The Golden Egg mode allows you to find golden eggs throughout the original levels, giving you replay value for the levels you’ve already completed. Why? Well, once you’ve found an egg it will open a brand new level in the Golden Egg section to play though.
Also a new set of levels have become available in the main game, lengthening an already packed story mode for the money and feeling just as good as the original set of levels. For this reason, and the fact that it’s just such a good game on the system, Angry Birds gets my number 1 spot.
Score: 10/10
Honourable mentions go to:
Transformers G1 – a turn based strategy game with scenes from the original animated series.
Must Eat Birds – Fire your monster in to the air to eat birds. Basic but fun
Yield – A game where you need to get cars across a crossroads. Starts of easy but gets harder.
Valet Hero – Flight Control for cars.
Age of Tribes – a game based on Lemmings but with tribes of people
Tiki Totems – a Physics based free puzzle game
Minigore – An isometric shooter with odd charming characters
All-in-one Game Box – A bunch of fun games that could have been released individually all in one app.
Doodlejump – Notorious game where you need to get as high in the air as possible jumping on objects. Sold millions.
GravSpace – A Thrust style game, good fun but a quite high difficulty level.
Blades of Fury – An amazing fighting game in the style of Soul Calibur.
Canabalt – Simply run and jump over a crumbling city. Stylised graphics and cool music make this impressive.
Tap Defence – Free but basic Tower Defence game.
Glyder 2 – A much better game that the first Glyder, use the tilt functions to fly a glider and collect gems. Quite relaxing!