Artwork and light-heartedness aside, the core tower-building of Happy Squirrels doesn't bring a whole lot of new content to the genre, but the mini-games take the interactivity of these thumb-twiddling titles to a slightly higher level.

There are definitely niggles with the controls in the game, but I was won over by the blend of genres, the lovely retro artwork and the kind of chip-tunes that nag away in your brain, long after you've stopped playing.

A thoroughly entertaining runner with enough personality to make it one of the best games on the App Store. Activision probably should have released it for free, as this is the standard where these games are concerned, but our dollar was very well spent.

The unfortunate fact is that Edna & Harvey's best achievements (a deep script, engaging characters and unrivaled interactivity) end up buried beneath a frustrating adventure game, one that's fashioned from over-worked puzzling and meandering dialogue that fails to make a clean separation between depth of story and rewarding gaming.

You won't play a more experimental, risky, fun and flamboyant endless-runner this year, and for that reason alone we're happy to recommend this as the best example of genre evolution we've seen in a very long time indeed. Bravo.

The fact that Trigger Fist lacks originality makes it somewhat generic. Then again, it provides multiplayer that works each and every time, devoid of lag and other performance hiccups.

While Clash of Clans brings something new to accompany its competent but unexceptional empire gameplay, for most of us it'll be a case of too little, too late.

This is not a beautiful game, and it's not even a particularly welcoming one either. Despite the simplistic gameplay, there's little in the way of hand-holding on offer: how exactly to sell crops, what the icons on the mini-map represent, how to transfer goods from combine to trailer and so on.

Throw in evil minions, boss fights and plenty of colorful eye candy, and Bucketz is one of the more intriguing games for smartphones and tablets, a smartly designed and cool puzzle experience that packs a solid challenge while offering up hijinks along the way. An essential pickup, indeed.

It's a triumph for those who favor experiential gaming over the challenge of eking out ever-smaller, incremental degrees of satisfaction from more skill-based titles.

This is a classic slice of gaming that bodes very well for the future of Team17's back-catalog on iOS devices. The controls are solid, and the content has been ported with affection and respect for the original game.

When we come to compile our games of the year this December, 10000000 will have a very high position on that list.

As a piece of interactive artwork, Funny Wood presents a glorious feast of intricately detailed animations, exploration and discovery. As a game though, it's very lacking and its method of handling those meager gameplay elements, to make those items so unsatisfying to find, will leave players of all ages feeling frustrated, rather than challenged.

The music's infectious and will get stuck in your head for days, while the characters and environments have a simplistic but effective cartoon style appearance.

Yes, some things work better than others, but you'll learn to deal with the game's quirks in exchange for that old Disney magic, though if you're a big Kingdom Hearts fanatic, Square Enix already had your support.

As someone who's slogged their way through more than a few tower-defense games this year, that first moment of manning a high-explosive turret put a very big grin on my face. If you're in need of a convincing reason to delve into yet another game in the genre, developer Colossal has a very good one for you indeed.

A ridiculous, rollicking adventure that's clearly been an explosive labor of love for the developers, you'll get more than enough fun for your money from this refreshingly different title.

Flick Champions World Edition certainly captures the spirit of the moment, and offers a decent selection of sports, although there's a mixed bag of quality to be found in the individual events. The progression system is neat though and offers up plenty of replay value, assuming you limit yourself to the more competently realized disciplines.

Personally, we think it's a good management sim that's worth pouring at least $6 into. That'll give you a solid foundation with a fast track to scoring resources at a fairly consistent clip; it also helps if you're a Jurassic Park and/or dinosaur fan. However, if the mere thought of in-app purchases makes you cringe, this simply isn't the game for you.

There is nothing particularly wrong with Worm vs Birds per se, just that it struggles to justify its place on the App Store amongst the likes of Angry Birds, as well as the dozens of extremely competent games that the genre flagship spawned.

Manos: The Hands of Fate is a terrible movie, but it wound up being a solid video game.

Nostalgia fiends are going to get an awful lot more out of Spy vs Spy than those who have never played the game previously: this is every bit the game that was played and loved all those years ago, and the option to play with retro graphics is a very nice addition. For everyone else, there's certainly an enjoyable game to be had here, but the controls will likely take some of the shine off the experience.

In all, Epic Meal Time is a surprisingly enjoyable display of gluttony that won't add several inches to your waistline. As for the group's calorie-busting dishes, eat at your own risk.

ORC: Vengeance absolutely deserves to take its place amongst the best dungeon crawling games on the App Store, of which, there are few. Next to Gameloft's Dungeon Hunter series, it's the closest thing you'll find to Diablo 3 on smartphones and tablets, filled with cool weapons, visually stimulating graphics and rewarding combat.

It's more like an interactive comic book, with believable characters, solid voice acting, attractive cell-shaded graphics and buckets of blood. In all, a thoroughly entertaining undead romp.

An enormous amount of pre-planning is required to set up that perfect chain-reaction, and the intense excitement that accompanies the successful realization of your careful strategizing is both hypnotic and thrilling.

It's by no means perfect, but it is a refreshing change of pace for tower-building lovers, even if genre newcomers would be better served by other titles on the App Store.

This is every inch a Dreamcast-era game, albeit one using tweaked PC code, and for some that will be enough to justify the price of admission on its own.