At this stage in mobile gaming, "freemium" has become a derogatory term, and for good reason. Though a scarce few publishers have managed to construct a model that can pay the bills and still be fun for players, most other game makers settle for digital sweat shops that yield precious little entertainment for their customers. Offworld is the grand prize hidden behind the glass that players are never meant to win. The goal here is to get players to sink their time and money into the game without ever truly reaping any rewards.

Gibbon: Beyond the Trees is a game with a worthwhile message and well thought out mechanics – but we sadly can’t fully recommend this Switch port until the performance issues are ironed out.

Ultimately if you’re after a new point and click adventure on the Switch you could do worse than Inspector Waffles – it’s well presented and has some great moments – but it still falls short of the best the genre has to offer on the system.

A mixed goodie bag. A largely adorable game with lots to love about the zany world it offers you, which makes some unfortunate missteps in the way it values your time and money - or perhaps, doesn't.

You go back to it again and again because levels are passable – you just wind up trying again and again until the candy gods take pity on you and finally issue a board that gives you a fair chance at succeeding.

In any case there’s ultimately just enough here for us to recommend Papa’s Quiz as a budget priced trivia-focused multiplayer experience. Just don’t expect to be playing it all night.

A admirable attempt at opening up the world of FPS level creation to a wider audience, Gunscape is perhaps a little too grungy for complete newbies to the genre – and those more experienced at shooters might be better off simply learning how to use the likes of TrenchBroom.

Although the 90 levels currently available will take most players a decent amount of time to complete (and recomplete for higher scores), developer Not Doppler has stated even more stages are on the way. Hopefully the new levels will focus on the best parts of Bunny Cannon: creating combos of bunny multipliers, overflowing baskets with bunnies, and watching them bounce like crazy without flying off the stage.

We can’t help but feel this is a price-tag that is directly punishing dedicated Western fans of the game, and acts as a huge barrier to newcomers. We can therefore only really recommend Earth Defense Force: World Brothers if it gets a healthy price cut – because as it stands it’s a well presented but illogically overpriced slab of mindless entertainment.

If you’re someone with a deep passion for storytelling experiments and noir gaming, then Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy Remastered was made for you back in 2005 and its high-quality mobile adaptation delivers the exact same experience. For others, the same inherent flaws that dogged it a decade remain alive and present.

There are ways of earning coins such as by completing certain objectives or simply by enabling push notifications, but Crosswords With Friends is very much a game that’s keen to get some money out of you. I enjoyed my time with it and happily used up all the free coins I could retrieve, but you’ll soon realize that this isn’t challenging by any means. It’s a way of inflating your own ego – making you feel smug that you’ve succeeded at a crossword when this really isn’t hard. As an introduction to the concept of crosswords, it’s fine but expect to want to move on soon enough. You will get bored, even more so when certain answers keep being repeated.

There's a difference between simple and bare bones, and Poker Royale veers a little too much in the latter direction.

It's these gameplay and programming issues that keep Pocket Heroes from being an amazing game, but every problem that I've listed seems easily fixable in future updates. Even if it isn't perfect in its current form, Pocket Heroesis a fun experience that is both unique and nostalgic. With a few gameplay tweaks, it could easily become a must-have for all RPG gamers alike.

KnightScape ends up inhabiting a weird space where neither the course-running nor the combat really grab you on their own, yet they don't necessarily combine like Voltron to kick butt either. There are a number of mobile games where you can see what the developers were trying for clearly enough to lament when they don't make it there, and this feels like one of them.

Even with the "reasonable" pricing, it's hard not to define Deadlings by its shortcomings rather than its successes; a shame, because those successes scream to be genuinely enjoyable. I genuinely want to give it a pass for what it does wrong, and that, at least, says something.

It offers little surprises but if you’re a fan of puzzle titles like this then you can’t really go wrong, especially for the low price point. Just don’t go in expecting much in the way of frills when it comes to the presentation.

If you like orcs, elves, and other Lord of the Rings-esque fantasy trappings, give Kingdom of Heroes a try. Just don't expect to be bowled over by its less-the-stellar presentation and pedestrian gameplay.

OK Golf by OKIDOKICO doesn’t have a lot of charm, but then again, charm isn’t something it needs to have. It accomplishes everything it promises in the name – it’s an ok, but not particularly amazing, golf experience that can be enjoyed by golfers and non-golfers alike. What sets it apart from other mobile golfing experiences is its diorama-style holes. You never have to wonder what’s around the corner because you’re always working with a full 3D topographic view from tee to flag. Although the graphics aren’t exceptionally detailed, it’s very much beautiful in a minimalist sense.

Lords Mobile’s hero mode gets a thumb up from me. The developers have the right idea of how to make a fun game with that gameplay mode, they just need to trim the fat that slows the rest of the game down.

Chroma Rush is far from a bad game. It’s a fun diversion in short bursts that should definitely appeal to the color-arranging fans of Blendoku. But its simplicity and lack of polish make it feel like an appetizer before the next meaty entry in that series, or even something that should have just been a game mode within Blendoku 2.

Frocket isn't a bad game by any means - the concept is solid, and it's all been well put together. Rather, there are a number of niggles that come together to create one almighty problem that takes away from what the game could easily be.

As is, it’s decent. Unfortunately I’m not sure “decent” is enough, considering the competition.

As a game, Lost Tracks is pretty, but too simple (and short) to get much enjoyment out of. As a means of telling a brief but meaningful story about a shy boy trying to work up the courage to talk to a girl he likes, it succeeds.

A first person shooter that is perhaps a little too focused on style over substance, this is still worth investigating for fans of the genre.

Castle Creeps TD might be a fun reminder of why Tower Defense is such an enjoyable genre to play, but it’s also a reminder of some of the less kind elements of free to play. It’s these which are going to stick in your mind in the long term, rather than the enjoyment you had before they set in.

It’s not a game we really needed, and not a game that further expands the universe by offering a mobile option.

At its core, Pang Adventures is a grand arcade flashback from a great time in gaming’s history. Until we get that hoped-for control fix, however, this adaptation of Pang remains an awkward collision of the past and the present.

Tap Bistro isn't precisely a bad game, it just doesn't offer any compelling reason to play it over the glut of similarly-themed games.