Its nuanced changes to the standard gameplay and overall visual presentation do a decent job of differentiating itself.

Blot blows most of its competition out of the water with style alone. It's delightful, plain and simple, and when given the choice between equally solid games, I'll take the one that delights me any day.

By fudging its rhythm mechanics, Frederic -- Resurrection of Music actually presents itself as more of an interactive cartoon than a game. But when viewed as such, Resurrection often comes off muddled and directionless and, even at the end of the game, it's not clear why Chopin was resurrected, who he's "saving" music from, or if he really succeeded.

Perhaps the biggest issue with DvO is simply that the game is too slow. Units plod along at a very sluggish pace, with only the special "fast" units seeming to move at an appropriate speed. Even early battles seem to drag on, and as you get further into the campaign and the likelihood of temporary stalemates rise, missions take forever. Even worse, there aren't any ways to speed up the gameplay, meaning each map starts painstakingly slow as you're initially collecting minerals.

The level designs are varied and interesting, and ramp up in difficulty as you'd expect with the last chapter requiring more thought than the fairly easy first levels. The difficulty increases because there's more game elements placed on the screen to navigate through.

Well-made, clever and fun, Niko is definitely a platformer that's worth your attention. If you explore the first six levels for free, and if you find you're hooked, it's pretty cheap to score the rest. Then you can slingshot, jump and fly through the air to your heart's delight.

A cautious recommendation will have to do. If you're looking for an old-school strategic romp through some very traditional dungeons, you're in the right place. But these aren't play sessions you can cram into five minute smoke breaks. Dungeon Crawlers is built to last - for better or worse, you'll get hours out of it. If you're a sit-back-and-be-patient sort, you'll be just fine.

There's just no reason to go back to something that might have been an okay (if slightly familiar) title two years ago when there are so many fantastic games coming out right now.

Fingle is the sort of game that could start out funny and end up sexy, or start out cold and end up with a slap to the face.

A well-crafted – though hardly groundbreaking – puzzle game. It's fun and extremely well-executed, with enough challenging puzzles to keep you occupied.

Its slow, turn-based gameplay is a much different take than most tank games I've played on iOS, and it's bound to turn some heads, but only for pretty hardcore puzzle or strategy fans.

Star Warfare: Alien Invasion is a pretty good first-person shooter for a dollar, despite the expensive weapons, emphasis on IAP and need to buy bullets with in-game money.

It seems the developers set out to make a throwback to some of their favorite old-school platformers, with awesome graphics and solid controls, and at this they completely succeed with Paper Monsters.

Run Roo Run isn't the most original game ever, but it takes the best out of a lot of worlds, and then owns that stuff. Its entertaining in big or small chunks, and those challenge levels are a whole new world of hurt. Give it a shot.

There are undoubtedly some JRPG fans out there that embrace this style of play. Considering that Fantasy Chronicle gets a lot of the underlying gameplay and controls right, I'd actually recommend it to those types of gamers as a title worth checking out. However, if you're looking for something a bit less formulaic or a game with more emphasis on story quality, Fantasy Chronicle may not be the RPG you're looking for.

It's a shame that the best way to monetize the game was to make it frustratingly slow, because that will undoubtedly turn away many potential players. Don't make their mistake. Slow and steady wins the restaurant race, so take it easy and cook up something nice.

It's nice to see developers using touch controls in new and innovative ways, especially when it involves car chases, 360 degree burn-outs, ramming, and slow motion vehicle smashes.

I like the story and want to see more of it, but I want the systems to get more engaging before plopping out more cash, especially because it's so easy to see that the fundamentals are already in place. Ash II: Shadows is an improved game over the original in many ways, but until some tweaks are made and we see how the rest of the episodes shake out it's hard to gauge if it's ultimately an overall better experience.

If you can deal with its shortcomings, SoulCalibur on iOS is actually an excellent port. It looks great, runs smoothly, controls as well as a fighting game can without buttons, and offers a decent amount of single player content to play through.

It sells itself as a game with a unique and engaging story, and that's something it simply doesn't have. Setting aside the translation, the message of the game is still iffy at best and you'll only find parallels to Louis Armstrong if you squint really hard. But it is, for the most part, a solid, fun platformer.

When you combine the large amount of depth on the gameplay side with a good narrative tale and a fairly decent control scheme, Time of Heroes is well worth a recommendation for any fan of strategic turn-based games.

Sure, Triple Town is just another matching game, but it's deep and surprisingly strategic.

For pure entertainment dollar by dollar, I'll take Caylus over most board games in the App Store. It's an obscenely good game, which makes its flaws all the more frustrating.

With a great selection of music, simple but well-executed gameplay, and a good, clean overall presentation, Cytus is well worth a recommendation for anyone interested in rhythm games.

I've enjoyed and savored Numberlys, but like any film, I probably won't watch it again for a while, but it could be a recurring treat for a young child.

With its complete lack of narrative, boring mission structure, antiquated visuals, spotty controls and monotonous gameplay, I don't know who would want to play this, much less eventually spend money within it.

The over-the-top silliness and the bright, colorful graphics feel reminiscent of an old Saturday morning cartoon. The game's just difficult enough to make it challenging and simple enough to engage in without requiring too much of a forethought.

You'd have to be a diehard fan of Breakout-styled games in order to check out Transformoid.