It does, however, incorporate some great multiplayer features we rarely see on the platform, and the free-to-play model is a fair compromise. If you haven't yet overdosed on defending your bases from automated hordes, Spice Invaders is well worth checking out.

This Could Hurt is pretty brief and pretty challenging, but it's also pretty fun. The 3D isometric graphics are vibrant, and what's more ridiculous than sending a child through a mechanized death course? Players who have a knack for games that require perfect timing will love this one, even if they find themselves finishing the entire game a little quickly.

The Curse is a great game, but again, it's out to taunt and torment you into spending your money to be able to lock The Mannequin away once again. It's just a darn shame we kind of want him to stick around, which seems to work against the entire premise.

Finger Tied isn't the first "it's kinda like Twister but with your fingers" experience we've seen on the iPad, but it's the best I've played.

Lost Treasures of Infocom can't quite decide which audience it's going for: existing interactive fiction fans or new players. It tries a few ease-of-use tricks to help attract interactive fiction newbies, but it also includes legacy things like scans of feelies, something that might confuse anyone who didn't grow up with packaged versions of the games.

Tap and fling gameplay is nothing new on mobile devices, sitting at the root of a little game by the name of Angry Birds. But PUK manages to distill that style of play to its most essential bits, while bringing in a deviously clever timer to keep the action moving. The result is a game that could quickly become a new mobile obsession.

Bottle Cap Blitz is a slick little timewaster that doesn't try to be anything more complicated than it is, and instead caters to those who are looking for a trusty app to spend five or twenty minutes with on the commute to work or while sitting on the throne. It does its job, and makes bottle cap tossing pretty darn fun.

Problems aside, series fans should enjoy Bloons TD Battles, especially since the Assault Mode adds an extra layer of strategy. Get back to monkeying around. It’s your duty.

Hunter Island isn't a Pokémon substitute, but it doesn't try to be. It's just a very decent RPG that provides hours of battling fun. It is, quite simply, its own monster.

Island of the Lizard King was originally written in 1984, and it shows. By the standards of modern fantasy, it can sometimes seem clumsy and crude. But besides being a great nostalgia trip, it reminds us of the simple excitement that sophisticated fantasy has lost. Sometimes those primal thrills of adventure and exploration get buried in the desire to justify and explain everything. Besides, any book that lets you fight a lizardman riding a styracosaurus gets two thumbs up from me.

Tiny Dice Dungeon is still very much worth a roll if you're a fan of RPGs.

It doesn’t revolutionize it, and it’s not trying to. Regardless, Adventure Xpress is still plenty entertaining for fans of the genre.

A hammer with dreams of being a scalpel.

If you’ve not picked it up yet and nostalgia is tugging at your thumbs, by all means go mobile.

Race the Sun is a surprising little racing game that will sink its hook in you for quite some time.

While the games are fun and engaging, after you’ve completed the first area a good 5 times because you accidentally close the app out of habit, it ceases to be fun or cute.

It feels like Star Wars: Force Arena delivers enough fun and nostalgia that the de facto four-battle limit won’t be a dealbreaker, but it is something to keep in mind. It’s certainly a worthy addition to the overall pantheon of Star Wars mobile games, one that gives you new hope — pun fully intended — that creative ways to approach the world’s most famous sci-fi series are still out there.

In fact, if you’re old enough to go all the way back to the beginning of the Power Rangers brand, you’ll probably enjoy Chroma Squad on a level that younger gamers might not appreciate. The nice part is that it’s of high enough quality that anyone can enjoy it, and the fact that Bandai Namco published it gives the game an extra special seal of approval. Get ready to be shouting “Lights, Camera, Chromatize!” at random moments and have other people looking at you strangely. Unless, of course, they’re playing too, in which case they might flash you a knowing smile.

Phogs! is an experience like no other, and one we’d recommend everyone to try – especially if you can rope in a friend.

The presentation is superb, with hand-drawn artwork and a relaxing ambient soundtrack. This all adds to the feeling that Wingspan is well aware it is targeting a very small niche. Even with that in mind we’re still not sure Wingspan needed a digital gaming iteration, and if you can get your hands on the physical version we’d recommend that as a first resort – even if it is triple the price. If not then this a more than serviceable alternative.

Aside from Epic Mode,there aren’t a whole lot of surprises in They Need to be Fed 2 if you’ve played the first game. That’s not necessarily a terrible thing if you enjoyed the first game. If you’re still hungry for more great 2D platforming that spits in gravity’s smug face, come on back for a second helping.

There's a seriously potent fun factor to Nimble Quest. Leaving the Bitizens behind without hesitation, this game shows off NimbleBit's mastery of the things that make bite-sized gaming tick, and blows the doors wide open on what we can expect to see from them in the future.

Visually, Injustice 2 is a feast, with those aforementioned cinematics backed up by pretty good-looking character models once the fighting actually begins. In motion, they sometimes are a little stiff, and blended with the controls, the whole experience just isn’t quite as crisp as it feels it could be. But then you’ll see one of the ultimate moves play out, like Cyborg boom tubing an opponent to Apokalips and seeing the poor sap get beat up by two Parademons before returning to Earth and getting a huge sonic cannon blast to the face. Somehow that makes your small gripes about the game go away.

If you like your trivia funny, challenging, and a little risqué, there's simply no better choice on the App Store. Now let's just hope they can keep churning out new episodes as quickly as I can keep playing them.

Driving feels good, combat is crazy fun and the upgrade system is borderline addictive. It's true I wish there were more tracks, but hopefully that's a problem that will be remedied soon. But as it stands it's one of the best racing games we've seen on the App Store yet.

EPOCH isn't a game changer in the way that Infinity Blade was (the comparison is perhaps a bit unfair, but they seem like spiritual brothers in a sense). It is, however, more than the sum of its parts, and much more entertaining than you might expect a shooting gallery game to be.

Completing a level is remarkably satisfying, particularly for the type of person who needs to hear the hook of a song all the way through before they turn off their radio. Anyone who can appreciate the process of creating music, especially the complexity of layered loops found in electronic music, will enjoy Resynth. Puzzle lovers in general can also indulge in a fresh perspective on problem solving that offers some hearty challenges. Ultimately, this conceptual representation of synesthesia makes for an artful gameplay experience.

Sadly, however, I found the controls somewhat lackluster compared to everything else in the package.