I’m not going to lie to you and say that I haven’t reawakened as an obsessive portable gamer since getting my iPhone for Christmas. Because I have. It’s not my fault that there’s a ton of quality software out there for my little wunderphone, or that many of that software happens to be really good and worth playing as more than just an occasional timewaster. It took me awhile to overcome that hurdle, as I still have nightmares of what mobile gaming USED to be…I’m talking Bubble Pop for your Samsung flip phone. I shudder at the thought.
And so, like with anything that I discover I like, I’ve become obsessive about finding new games to play. This is to your benefit, though, as it means I’ve sifted through tons and tons of crap to find some of the gems in the mix to recommend. MAYBE WE CAN EVEN PLAY TOGETHER (if you have an iPhone or an iPod or an iPad (if you can get ahold of one when they come out (good luck))).
First off, a website recommendation. Most all of the games on this list were downloaded for free at the time (even if they aren’t free anymore) using a site called AppShopper.com. Don’t get the wrong idea…they’re not pirated and the site is totally innocuous. It’s just an App Store tracker that shows when games are having price drops or free days. I keep AppShopper.com/Prices bookmarked on my phone so I can check it every couple of days and stock up on a batch of new free games to try. Even if there’s a game you want to actually PAY for, it’s worth it to keep a lookout on this site to see if you can’t save yourself a couple of bucks before you buy.
NOW THE GAMES, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER:
Words With Friends
This one is probably the most common of these games, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth mentioning. I haven’t spent a ton of time with the official Scrabble app, but it seems to me like they’re doing Scrabble better than Scrabble is. The fact that you can download the full version of the game, albeit with ads that don’t really get in the way of the experience at all, is also a real selling point over the $4.99 that EA is asking for real Scrabble. If you want to upgrade to the full version, it’s only $3 and they deserve your money for building a clean, effective word game knock-off. It’s easy to connect with random opponents and you can have up to 20 games going at a time, so you almost always have a board to play on when you’re bored.
Download Words With Friends now!
Stackus
There are quite a few physics-based games for the iPhone, and some of them are quite good (Finger Physics comes to mind), but this one takes the cake in terms of stacking games. The concept is simple: you take all the blocks on one side of the screen and restack them in whatever configuration you can on the other side to make a stable structure. It actually sounds impossibly easy, until you realize that if any piece falls off of the increasingly small platforms you have to work with as bases, you’ll have to start all over. I keep using the word “clean,” but it’s another example of a game with a very simple art and sound design that really make for a rewarding experience. The sing-songy countdown clock when you complete your structure and the marimba celebration song upon your success will be stuck in your head for weeks. And it’s free, though you can download a “Season Two” of 50+ new stages for $1.99 once you work your way through the first 50.
Amateur Surgeon
This is an older title, but worth the mention. Amateur Surgeon is from Adult Swim Games, and I believe there’s a full free version of it as a Flash game on their website, but it’s perfect for a touch-based game. Imagine the game Operation, except with better graphics and instead of working in a hospital, you’re doing back alley surgery with chainsaws and staplers. There’s a simple little story mode that goes along with it, but the game is long for what it is, and the surgeries gradually ramp up difficulty as you’re faced with case after case of bizarre medical emergency. You’ll detoxify a body of poison, you’ll remove pieces of glass from someones liver, you’ll replace a rapper’s ribs with gold-plated bones and electroshock weird bugs crawling around inside a guy’s heart…and while the game gets a little bloody, it’s all done in an extremely cartoony style that makes even the grossest stuff look cool.
Bonus! The Amateur Surgeon Christmas Edition is a free download that also acts as a semi-sequel to the original game. If story means nothing to you, try out the gameplay with this short, holiday-themed version!
Alphabetic
Talk about another deceptively simple game…here’s the one-line description: you have to touch the alphabet in alphabetical order. Except that the alphabet is bouncing and moving and changing color and filling your screen with random letters that you have to scavenge through to find the next item on your list. The basic game doesn’t have a ton of replay (unless you get into a high score challenge with your girlfriend, which I may or may not have), but there is a Challenge mode as well that offers you specific goals, such as endurance or hitting a certain score or finding double letters. The game is equipped with OpenFeint achievements as well, for those working on their iPhone gamerscore.
Angry Birds
Another game with a great graphic style, Angry Birds is a tower-destroying catapult game packaged as a war between the titular angry birds and a group of evil pigs who have stolen their eggs. Because that’s a thing. This is another game that relies heavily on a realistic physics engine for much of its gameplay, but the feeling of knocking down these fortresses by launching specially-powered birds with a slingshot is immensely satisfying. Best of all, it’s long…which is more rare than I would like for many puzzle games on the iPhone. There are 105 levels of bird-shooting action for $.99, which is pretty damned good. There’s a Lite version you can test, but it’s hard to find a better game deal for a dollar.
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So there’s a few of my recommendations. Do you know an awesome game that I should try? Leave me a comment and I’ll give it a shot! It’s like they say in the Bible: “You can always find time for more games.” No? Maybe not the Bible? Oh well.
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