The content included in the game is absolutely worth the purchase price, and I didn't feel like I missed out on much by not spending more. The game is intensely engaging with a light-hearted tone that makes it a real pleasure to jump in to. Tweaks to the Kingdom Rush formula should please long-time fans and jaded TD players who have seen everything. If you're new to this kind of game, Vengeance is a great, entertaining jumping off point.

It might not be a ‘true’ C&C game, but it’s one of the tightest and most compelling strategy games on mobile.

It's not revolutionary, but ELOH is a good puzzle game that develops its central ideas well and puts them in a very attractive package.

A meaty mobile port of the massive farm simulation game that’ll keep you occupied on the go, with a few minor control issues.

As a sequel, Euclidean Skies is as different from its predecessor as it can be while maintaining the core puzzle tactics concept. It’s not perfect, but it’s better for it.

Grimvalor is the best Metroidvania you’ll find on a mobile platform, but doesn’t move the bar for the subgenre at large.

The most addictive and polished way to live out your fantasies of taking the Iron Throne in Reigns' best version to date.

A surprisingly charming and fun football management sim, it is just a pity that the financial model takes the shine off.

The puzzles are clever, but not as varied or mind-melting as the Go series. The game's central mechanic is cool, but it isn't quite clever or adaptable enough to push it to instant-classic status like Monument Valley. That said, it would be hard to reach the heights of those games, and as it is, Where Shadows Slumber is an atmospheric and imaginative puzzle game.

Stockpile is a clever game, but to get the most from the experience you would probably be best investing in the board game.

An intriguing survival game that forces real-life players to sustain each other as the clock ticks down, one minute (year) at a time.

Alphabear 2 is a nigh-perfect bear-collecting spelling word puzzler held back by just a few arbitrary limitations.

Donut County excels with its tone, art and story though it will leave players looking for a challenge wanting more. Niche, brief but still great.

An intriguing puzzler that takes a novel approach to tried-and-true mechanics for a unique experience.

Ball bouncing has never looked or felt better than it does in Holedown, a game that proves that there’s always a more interesting way to do the things we’ve been doing for years.

It’s another unchallenged trophy-winning season for Sports Interactive’s mini beast but I’m hoping for something just a bit more next time to stop this series getting stale.

If you're a fan of real-time combat games Barbearian is easy to recommend as it is certainly one of the better mobile titles in the genre. It looks great, is loaded with smashy goodness and visceral feel, and is a ton of fun to play. It offers plenty of challenge without nearing the rage-quit-and-never-look-at-the-game-again reaction some similar games seem to elicit. The ability to micromanage the difficulty and completely control the UI layout is just icing on the cake.

A well designed and quick playing abstract strategy game that unfortunately becomes repetitive after only a few plays.

Pocket City is by far one of the best city-building experiences you can have on any platform, mobile or otherwise. The streamlined, ad-free experience is great fun at every turn, and minutes spent in-game quickly turn into hours. It's a wonder this review even got written, with a bustling city that's in need of its mayor unattended for the length of time it took to write this. If you're on the fence, just go ahead and pay the five bucks. You certainly won't regret it.

America’s favourite pastime broken down into mindless menus, static screens and drop down boxes, with no learning curve for new or old players.

The lack of many of the features that we have become accustomed to makes for a disappointing and frustrating experience.

If you played Teeny Titans and are ready for more great figure-battling action, or enjoy the genre in general, Teen Titans GO Figure is an easy recommendation to make. The game is a great blend of old awesomeness and new hotness and does feel like a new experience, one that I am enjoying just as much the second time around.

Isle of Skye is a terrific board game, it is just a pity that the app wasn’t thoroughly play-tested before being released.

It's the perfect way to kill some time while on your commute to work, waiting at the doctor's office, or any time you want to jump into an RPG-flavored world without the lengthy introductions, lore setup, or being forced into character roles you don’t want at the onset. For RPG combat on your terms, Battleheart 2 delivers in spades.

A motorsport manager that could rival any outing on a major console or PC, bursting with details, stats and features.

If you can weather Six Ages' raw approach to immersion, you will find yourself taking one of the most thrilling narrative & strategy journeys on mobile.

Not without faults, but a generous amount of free contact makes this worth trying if you are prepared for the significant time investment.

Bardbarian has a great genre-bending idea and amusing aesthetic but suffers in the execution.

For some, Sir Questionnaire will be just too casual and undemanding to maintain interest. The decisions are simple, and the constant switching of inventory items can also get a little tiresome. However, for the rest of us, this is without question a spiffing release.

Zach Gage’s knack for finding age-old games, shaking out the excess, and rearranging what’s left into a brilliant work gleams in every inch of Pocket-Run Pool.

A neat twist on an old classic, but lacking in variety and challenge.

Death Coming is a fun lightweight puzzler with great art and creative environments. It's frustrating the devs didn't trust their core gameplay enough to avoid gumming it up with unnecessary frustrations.

Playing solo may lack challenge, but otherwise, this is a terrific game.

A clever dance to excellent music in beautifully colorful world. But over time this initially compelling and graceful experience deteriorates into a dissapointingly rote routine.

Banksy wannabes and those not familiar with this style of game should check this out. For everyone else, Vandals could prove to be underwhelming.

In the end, some nice visuals and a little deduction can't save a basic gameplay idea that's just too random. Overall, there's not enough deduction and bluffing added to the Battleship formula, leaving the game with a frustrating random feel.

Its market price is less than a hamburger at McDonalds, which is a good deal for a pretty polished and lengthy, if generic, RPG. The in-app purchases, currencies and crafting are ignorable if that's not your bag. Ultimately, though, it’s just too uninteresting to seriously recommend. It's only worth playing if you've somehow already ploughed through all the hundreds of hours of far better JRPG experiences out there.

An impressive and captivating simulation that will eat up hour after hour of your spare time.

A nice-to-look-at clicker/survival-sim. Nothing terribly wrong with it, but nothing exciting either.

Armello plays like an American-style board game with loads of dice rolls and player conflict. It has some neat ideas, with asymmetric player powers and multiple paths to victory, adding long-term interest, all of which are explained in a very well-presented tutorial. My biggest problem with the game is that at the moment it seems quite difficult to arrange matches with reliable players. Mutual enjoyment relies on all players sticking to a code of honour that involves seeing the whole game out and not ganging up on a single player.

The Siege of Dragonspear is a tale well told in a form that remains compelling, if showing its age. If you liked Baldur's Gate and its sequel, you will probably like Dragonspear too, though it does not reach the heights of its venerable predecessors.

An engaging game of space exploration, but the theme/humour are an acquired taste.

A fast and addictive card game with silky-smooth gameplay - Meteorfall rocks.

Charming, witty and as addictive as a bag of chips with lashings of salt and vinegar.

Easy to learn, hard to master is now schlocky ad-speak for multiplayer games, but Antihero lives up to that slogan and more, all while serving up a variety of play modes with style.

Cinco Paus is, quite literally, a revelation. Strongly recommended for enterprising word-nerds as well as puzzle- or min/max-minded individuals who don't mind trafficking in vagaries and risk.

In the end, Bridge Constructor Portal is a fantastic puzzle game, and a thoroughly Portal title. I fully recommend it to anyone with a passing interest either in the genre or the franchises, even at full price. Now excuse me, while I go build more testing chambers and wholly endanger test subjects' lives. You know, for science.

Civilization VI is a great game, but you already knew that. The iPad port is exceedingly well done and well worth the consideration of any fan of the franchise or turn-based strategy genre.

Abalone is a classic implementation of a classic abstract with all the advantages and disadvantages that implies. It's easy to learn but unfolds to have a rich, deep strategy, especially when you vary the starting setup. On the other hand, it's dry and offers little hand-holding for new players who are easily obliterated by the more experienced. How you feel about it will likely align with how you feel about abstract games in general. But the faults in online play aside, if abstracts are your thing, you'll find the shell of this snail pretty and the meat satisfying.

GNOG showcases a delightful style and unique environmental puzzles which will appeal to the imagination as much as the intellect.

For those of us that have played Kairosoft’s Game Dev Story, this game will feel very familiar. Replace the graphics with Kairosoft’s trademark pixel art and, on the surface at least, the two games would be hard to tell apart. However, look a little deeper and you will realise that Game Dev Tycoon has a lot more to offer, both in terms of depth and opportunities to experiment with different approaches. The presentation is clear and simple, and overall, it just feels like the game has found its true home on touchscreen devices -- and it works equally well whether you choose to play in short sessions or over longer periods. My one real gripe is that the endlessly looping music quickly becomes irritating; it would have been lovely to have a soundtrack based on the chip music of different eras.

Reigns: Her Majesty is perhaps the perfect time-filler. A game that's as fun played for a second with the swiping of a single card as it is for an hour or a day. And, like all the best games, it taught me something. That even when you're caught between two choices, a rock and a hard place, it's important to stay true to your ideals.

This port of a classic boardgame gets the big picture right but is starting to show its age.

Many may dismiss Flipflop Solitaire as yet another solitaire game but happily it is possible to find sparks of genius in the most mundane of places. If you have no interest in Solitaire then this isn’t going to change your mind, it may also struggle to attract a casual audience, as it is a barebones app with no gimmicky mascots or tacked-on theme. For players familiar with the traditional version there will initially a bit of a learning curve as your brain gets accustomed to the demands of taking a more flexible approach. However, the effort is well worth it, so download it for free; you have nothing to lose - apart from hours of your life.

Lack of variation in missions and unit's abilities make Battlevoid: Sector Siege just too boring for anyone but hardcore fans of the franchise.

Not many games leave you feeling like you have had a genuine insight into the subject matter, but Afghanistan ’11 left me feeling informed without patronising or preaching. Obviously, the approach to the whole issue is simplified and the solutions idealised, yet I still came away feeling I had a better understanding of the Afghanistan situation.

Sheltered will test your mettle and patience more than your wits, but has unique merits even when compared to other survival games.

Halcyon 6: Lightspeed Edition produces a nexus of meaningful, distinct strategic choices within a well-considered narrative and audiovisual package.

The game’s sheer style and approachability will draw players in, but for seasoned gamers there is a distinct lack of challenge.

Great for dedicated fans of Demon's Rise & XCOM, Strike Team Hydra is an ambitious strategy title undermined by some arbitrary, sprawling design decisions.

Frost is a well-designed game. It looks and sounds beautiful in its own bleak and foreboding way, especially on my iPad Pro. I did test it on my iPhone 6S plus and it looked fine there too. It is harder to read the words without expanding cards, but once you know your way around that matters less. Gameplay is fun and effective and offers ample opportunity for tactics and strategy. The sights, sounds, gameplay, and every other aspect of Frost feed its survivalist theme perfectly. Skill definitely has a role in Frost, but chance often plays the greater part. I know this turns many gamers off, and if you're one of them, you might want to look elsewhere. If you don't mind losing to bad luck now and then there's a lot to love about Frost and it is definitely worth picking up. Frost is available on iOS and Android.

While other games like Tiller’s Overland Campaign are more detailed and accurate, games like Civil War 1864 fill two essential roles for the gaming industry. First, the seemingly simple nature of play serves as an introduction to new gamers by providing them with the feel of an era and giving them insight into the mechanics of a period’s combat. For all of its tap and go feel, this game does a fine representation of what went on during the most bloody summer of the American Civil War. Secondly, this game genre provides relief for veteran gamers from drawn-out and detail-heavy games. We need to get back once in a while to that just one more turn feel. Hexwar’s games does both of these tasks in very accessible fashion. No historical gamer should fall for the trap that, just because the mechanics are the same, every Hexwar game is the same. A look at their Civil War series shows that maps and objectives are sculpted to faithfully represent the situation for each year. Given the limitation of the engine, this approach represents an accomplishment we can all appreciate.

The open-air theme will probably appeal to a larger audience, and being able to play solo or with as many as four players is a welcome addition. Patchwork wasn’t a hugely interactive game but there was a little more going on in that you could deny your opponent tiles and time your moves to grab the bonus patches. In contrast, pottering around in your garden feels very much like a solitary pass time. Cottage Garden is a stress-free, easygoing game with flowers and cats. Despite this, I still prefer the slightly more involved Patchwork, with its less cluttered screen, clever time management and button economy.

Smash Up is a mixed-bag success & lack-lustre design choices, but it has a promising future ahead.

Seeing the end result of your work, particularly when you zoom out and see the entire network of tiny dots across your tangled mess of concrete, is oddly charming. There is a rough-and-ready crudeness about Freeways that has totally won me over. I’ve restarted maps countless times - even ones I’ve completed, because there’s always improvements that can be made to your mangled creations. Because of how fiddly it can get, I do wonder if it'll ever release onto phones as currently it's tablet only. However, for its price, if you’re even remotely curious I would say pick it up.

There’s just enough free content to give you a taste of Mushroom Wars 2 on mobile, and it’s a beautiful-looking, fun little game that has a surprising amount of depth to it. The question is how you feel about the price tag, which is mighty steep for the mobile space. Where you find yourself on the cost versus value proposition will come down to personal preference, but Mushroom Wars 2 is certainly worth at least a look.

Do not let the IAPs and steep challenge deter you from strong gameplay and incredible presentation. Iron Marines is an excellent mobile RTS.

For all the attention given to orders of battles and battlefield terrain, Peninsular War Battles remains a typical simplistic game. The recent Hold the Line shows Hexwar can do better. Thought should be given to upgrading their older games rather than just recycling them to different platforms.

Eight-Minute Empire may not be the kind of game that will absorb hours of your time. However, if you are looking for a fresh, quick-playing and easy to grasp empire building game then you really should give it a try.

Minos Strategos rewards tactical play and quick thinking and will easily entertain for whatever span of time it is played.

Cat Quest is a delightful, challenging, and ultimately wonderful action-RPG. Fans of Zelda, Dark Souls, or anything cute will find themselves happily occupied for at least a dozen hours. It’s not purrfect, but it’s close.

Darkest Dungeon visits fresh horrors upon unseasoned newcomers, but behind its grim facade is a fascinating dungeon crawler.

Although the conversion is excellent, there are some things that you simply can't capture in digital form.

If you enjoy playing well-made boardgames and solo play, Burgle Bros. is well worth your time and money. Now it all it needs is online multiplayer...

An accomplished multiplayer experience that feels a little directionless when playing alone.

Though it has its technical flaws, this is an enjoyable RPG that brings some new ideas to the table.

Miracle Merchant is a simple yet compelling solitaire game with a winning mix of finesse and fortune that will win over a wide variety of players.

Like Mr. Bond, FRAMED2 is a classy and immaculately presented spy caper. You may be shaken by its brevity, but this innovative puzzler is still stirring stuff.

A streamlined management sim experience, Motorsport Manager 2 is an enjoyable game even if you are not a fan of motorsports.

A Planet of Mine is a compellingly complex galactic empire builder for your phone, and you really ought to be playing it.

Due to the rampant increase in difficulty and sometimes feeling wholly dependent on luck, Missile Cards is a great idea that frustrates just a little too much to be a great game.

There is certainly room on the market for a streamlined spaceship management game. Unfortunately, in the process of making a more approachable game, the developers have not only rationalised the idea but also oversimplified it. The result is a rather repetitive and directionless experience. It is sad that the legacy of Panthera Frontier’s initial freemium release is still present. The considerable expense of decent upgrades and the ability to cheat death feel unbalanced and make the game too much of a slog unless you are prepared to spend extra cash.

The rogueish elements can't make up for shallow gameplay in the other parts of Dead Age. The combat is dull and long, the survival elements are simplistic, and the story is predictable. The gameplay often doesn't fit the theme, and it is poorly optimized, although occasionally beautiful.

Age of Rivals starts off daunting but quickly unravels itself to become an addictive and strategic card game that stands up against the big boys.

A truly gorgeous experience that lives up to the reputation of its predecessor - shame it's over far too quickly.

It’s not a terrible game by any means, but it is uninspired. Made all the more frustrating by the cleverness of the CARROT apps that preceded it.

Let's hear it for truth in advertising - this is indeed an epic little war game. It is a perfectly intentionally generic take on the strategy game, and very well executed.

Though it never reaches the potential highs, Chroma Squad is the best video game adaptation of Power Rangers to date.

Rogue Wizards is an excellent tactical RPG. The line-of-sight graphical style is appealing and the game is easy to play and understand. If you enjoy tons of loot and optimizing a character's gear, it is the game for you. It really scratched the Diablo 3 itch for me right from my phone. What's more, the game is free and its monetization system is smart and respectful of players. I hope the developer finds success with it and that more freemium game makers experiment with these types of approaches.

It seems surprising that Asmodee chose to resurrect a title that was nearly 10 years old for a mobile release. After playing it, the reason is clear: it's a great fit for the platform. And it's a game that was perhaps unfairly forgotten after its original release. A slew of minor niggles keep the game from greatness, but it's fast and fun. I'm glad I got the chance to play a game I might otherwise not have heard of. Perhaps tabletop game archival is the next big direction for app store games?

Beholder is pithy, with small sketches of character and darkness. Sadly, submission to the game's mechanics means much is lost in the God of efficiency.

Scoring this one is tough, especially since I have painted myself into a corner with my earlier Marmite comparison. Sensitive souls will be content to chill out and enjoy the story, maybe with a box of tissues close at hand. They will call the game’s detractors soulless wretches who are missing the point. So do we have a touching and emotive exploration of the human condition? Or is it an overly sentimental and mawkish cliché that doesn’t even qualify to be called a game? Personally, I'm certainly not the type of guy who thinks To The Moon is a pointless drivel, but neither am I convinced that it is the best thing since sliced bread - with or without marmite.

If you enjoy simulation games and the prison subject matter interests you, Prison Architect is certainly worth checking out. The depth of options and strength of the simulation will appeal to fans of the genre, though the constant "now this, now this" pressure can be a bit much. The game does a good job of capturing some of the moral questions around the for-profit penal system as well. Grab and it and see what you think, Prison Architect's awesome free-trial option leaves little risk in doing so.

An obscure and dull system has drained this all-American pasttime of joy. If you are a devout fan of baseball, slavish repetition or Kairosoft's other works, try the game. Everyone else should stay away.

Even with a fatal crash and not seeing the end sequence, Spaceplan has provided me with one of the most memorable experiences of the year so far from a genre I didn’t think was capable of such a feat.

Draknek's game is difficult but hospitable, obviously made with great joy and care. Cosmic Express is an elegant and wonderful chance for you to surprise yourself, to laugh at your foibles and cleverness in turn.

Meganoid 2017 is an incredibly challenging game, but it is one that hangs on this challenge because of both intended design and poor controls. When you die from a laser that was off screen, it teaches you to tread more carefully and pay attention to your environment. When you slip off the edge of a platform into a spike trap due to the controls, it just leads just annoyance and frustration. I like certain elements about this game: parts of the presentation and level design, plus the large array of item, but I can’t see myself coming back to it anytime soon.

If you wanted to pick fault with this, it would be a lack of any kind of single-player campaign. But that's a nice to have, an extra feather in the hats of the creme de la creme of mobile adaptations like Galaxy Trucker. It isn't necessary in an economic game like this. And however you feel about economic games - and player interaction - this version of Race of the Galaxy is good enough to be worth your cosmic dollars.