Despite its flaws, the new Diner Dash is a decent distraction. If you’re not burned out on time management games, and if you can get around the free-to-play panhandling, you should welcome Flo back into your life.

A game that seems like it's trying to wheedle even more cash out of you despite its base price tag. It's still fun, and one of the better examples of tower defense on the market, but it's hard to escape the impression that Bloons TD 4 wasn't so piratical in its drive to urge you to spend premium currency.

Yet it’s smartly priced, clearly a real labour of love by all involved, and always keeps surprising you. Just not always in a good way, admittedly.

If House of the Dead Overkill: The Lost Reels had a little more zombie meat on on its bones, I’d be telling you to fire up the App Store and download it right away. As it stands, I’d say it’s best to wait for a sale ($2.99 would be a good price), or to go back and purchase either the Wii or PS3 version.

Steam Age is a pretty cool free-to-play game with a heavy emphasis on simulation and combat that works well - assuming players know what they're getting into when they start it up, of course. It's got some clever ideas as well as some slightly clunky ones, but they balance out in the end to make a game that could very well be enjoyed for quite a long time.

Even with the great presentation and nice twist on combat, though, the gameplay just doesn't feel as inspired as it should – especially for a spin-off that exists in the shadow of Mafia Wars 2. At its core, Shakedown offers very little that you haven't seen before.

It’s definitely fun and a different take on both match-3 and Magic, but it’s going to need some updating wizardry to completely captivate me for the long term.

Adventure Bar Story feels like it should be great. Between enjoyable combat and the simple restaurant management, all the ingredients for something special seem to be in place. Unfortunately, things don't really rise like they should thanks to the gameplay's glacial narrative and repetitive grinding.

If you download it expecting to be contented instead of wowed, your head is probably in the right place.

An incredibly deep game that's full of epic storytelling and excellent strategy mechanics… it just might take a little while to appreciate all of this.

For my part, I liked Circadia, but after about 45 of the game's 100 levels I started to get bored.

If you've never played The Fancy Pants Adventures before then iOS isn't a bad place to jump aboard. The entertaining story and abundance of bonus challenges will keep you entertained for quite a while, and the game has style to spare. However, those who have already been on this adventure have no real reason to revisit it due to a lack of new content and gameplay mechanics that still don't feel quite right.

Trials Frontier looks and sounds great, and plays smoothly.

Though folks using older iOS devices may occasionally become frustrated missing a target due to a choppy framerate, Deer Hunter Reloaded is perhaps Glu's most successful attempt at freemium.

Captain Antarctica is not the most original game, but it presents the content in a way that makes it feel fresh. With specific start and stop points in place, it makes it easier to pick up and play for brief periods.

Crossword battles are an interesting idea, and if you match yourself up with the right opponent, CrossMyWord is a lot of silly fun (“Cuts vegetables, hates turtles: S-H-R-E-D-D-E-R”). Serious crossword buffs won’t be impressed, however, at least not until the game receives some much-needed fine-tuning.

Magic Orbz is good, solid fun which takes a tried-and-true foundation and builds upon it nicely. It could do with a little more variety than what it offers, and can grow a little dull if played for longer stretches, but in quick bursts, it satisfies nicely.

Chesster feels quite awkward and rarely natural. Moving the pieces involves dragging them around, rather than simply swapping, and it’s surprising how such a small tweak can instantly make a game feel more cumbersome.

If you've played Modern Conflict, odds are good that you'll enjoy Fantasy Conflict as well. The gameplay isn't a total rehash in a new skin, but it rather it proves familiar enough to keep the appeal alive.

Despite the inclusion of an actual plot (comparatively speaking), a number of quest-giving characters, and plenty of fairytale creatures to care for, Tiny Castle can't quite sidestep the typical pitfalls of the genre. It's not without its charm, of course. There's also no shortage of tasks and quests to complete or animals to raise into adulthood and hybridize--it can just take an awful lot of waiting for meters to fill in order to get through it all.

The low price helps soften this a tad, but there’s still the fact there are three Mom Hid My Game titles available on mobile already – and all free to download. Still, Mom Hid My Game! 2 offers just enough to be worth a go on console. It’s nothing revolutionary, and some may find it a little too bizarre – but for its low price tag it offers an experience that’s like nothing else on the Switch.

Really, it’s all pretty shallow, but as an appetiser before a main course of a meatier feast, it works quite effectively. Even if you’ve seen it all before with a different skin.

Overall, Another Code: Recollection comes recommended to those who love dialogue-heavy games. It’s a relaxing experience, with some head-scratching puzzles thrown in, made all the easier with the brilliant addition of the Compass and Hint functions.

The game looks cool, sounds like highly-concentrated fun, and if you really like simulation games or just the idea of coaching potentially the worst high school baseball team ever, High School High will likely be something you’ll enjoy. However if you’re not someone that can really get behind the slow-sim dimension of the game, you might want to skip this one.

It’s a cute little game that ended up being a lot more clever than I’d expected.

There’s not that much depth to it, there’s not much spice beyond the lovely graphics and the shiny trappings but there’s still a good deal of slightly throwaway fun to be had here. But if you like He-Man, or tapping things, or you just like having an awful lot of fun in the small moments you can steal some gaming goodness on your mobile, then you should definitely have a go on this one.

The bottom line is that Catch the Ark is a pretty good game, at least on a fundamental level. However, the kind of grim undertones seem to make it slightly awkward in some ways. Whether you're fine with that is up to you, but if you are, you should find a pretty good experience here.

Smash Cops offers a fantastic new control scheme and plenty of polish, making Hutch a developer that's definitely worth keeping an eye on in 2012. But their debut has left us with mixed feelings. We love the originality that's here – we just wish it could have gone a little further into the style of missions on offer.