Nimble Quest

The sole influence for this game is appropriately cited in its tutorial. And the innovations it makes to such an enduring formula are actually pretty brilliant.

Nimble Quest is a fantasy-themed, level-based update to the classic, Snake. You begin the "quest" with a single leader (hero) of your choice, but as you kill more knights and spiders and skeletons, additional characters tag along (almost like a snake or something). Each has a unique attack, from a sword slash to a fireball. Assuming your leader doesn't die (by contacting anything, including the wall), you advance to the next level by slaying a particular number of enemies (the progress of which is indicated by a handy green bar at the top of the screen). Your heroes continue through level upon level, hopefully stringing along more and more heroes as they go and making use of convenient powerups like potions and bombs. But once your leader dies, you must start the quest from the beginning.

Intelligently, the challenging, retro formula remains roughly the same (and in such a natural way), but comes updated with helpful features, like coins, which function more or less like quarters in an arcade machine, allowing for a continue when a leader dies. They can also be used at the beginning of a quest for bonuses and automatic level advancement. Of course, these coins are pretty sparse unless you buy a pack of them in-game with actual money, but that's very suited to the nature of the game. It's not supposed to be easy. And that's great. Nimble Quest is exactly what it should be: simple, old, and new.

Order & Chaos: Duels

A fun, richly-illustrated Magic-style card game that taints itself completely with the freemium model.

Or at least that's my proposed tagline for the game.

Freemium works for both parties sometimes (see: League of Legends). But it doesn't usually work on iPhone. I don't know why exactly, but it probably has something to do with greed and hasty development standards.

Gameplay-wise, Order & Chaos: Duels is more or less what you'd expect from a trading card game. You battle, collect new cards, adjust your deck, and battle some more. Nothing about the game is too groundbreaking, but I had a lot of fun with it: the controls aren't clunky; the gameplay is strategic, but not taxing; the cards are nicely illustrated and even have some neat animations (waving particles, moving water, etc.). The quality of this game genuinely impressed me for the most part. Yes, the story is almost nonexistent, the dialogue is pretty awful at times, and nothing about the game is especially innovative (unless you consider that it's maybe the first good card game of its type to hit the App Store). But I expected those shortcomings. And I'm okay with them. If I have fun.

That's where I get frustrated. Order & Chaos is an enjoyable game--until you've made it ten or so battles into the campaign and realize it's near impossible to advance without making some ridiculous in-app purchase to bulk up on cards. I use the word "ridiculous" not because they're particularly expensive in-app purchases, but because I have no idea how many times I'll have to repeat the process. It is true that restarting the campaign with a different character, or grinding for who knows how long might eventually allow me to defeat this Elven Archpriest who continually pounds my Rouge back down into her own deck. But can I really be expected to?

I'm not saying don't try this game. Just know that you'll be dealing from the deck of evil. Winston Churchill said something like that.

Ridiculous Fishing

This neo-retro trend is really beginning to impress me. What used to be the necessity is now a diversely refined art form that generates both nostalgia and sharp, original visuals that prove to be a lot more memorable than many of their graphics-heavy contemporaries.

What's even more memorable than Ridiculous Fishing's look is its buzzing, 8-bit sounds--those kind of melodies that are beautifully simple and always tickle you, and could never belong more perfectly anywhere else. Ridiculous Fishing reminds me of a time when I held a Game Boy Color instead of an iPhone.

The premise of the game is appropriately simple: you're a hillbilly with a boat. You spend your time dropping lines and avoiding fish (by tilting the device) to make it as far down into the waters as you can; when you've either maxed out your line or run into a fish, the line pulls up and you're tasked with exactly the opposite: catch all the fish! When the line makes it all the way up to the surface with (hopefully) a heaving mass of scales and fins, the fish fly into the air and your final job is to shoot (tap) them all out of the sky to earn your daily buck. Then, with a satisfied, toothless grin, you can take your earnings to the store and pick out some nifty upgrades, like longer lines, better (more ridiculous) guns, and even some fancy accessories for your misunderstood, hillbilly soul. [As a pretty dedicated vegan, I'm not sure how I managed to get past all the brutalization. But just don't actually do this to fish. They're people, too.]

The more fish you discover, the farther you can go, sweeping the seas from your home waters. The game can be tricky, but because you're always earning at least a little something every time you fish, you're given a continuous sense of progress (and a distinct lack of "stuck feeling"), always something more to unlock that's only a few dropped lines away. Ridiculous Fishing updates the old, rather than reviving it in all its punishing glory. Which in this case, is a very good thing.

I will confess that the gameplay isn't the most exciting or progressive I've ever experienced. Though it is fun. But what's sure is that Ridiculous Fishing is worth playing purely on account of its shameless sense of humor: you're not only a fishing hillbilly, you're a fishing hillbilly with a smartphone that records captured fish, provides a trusty map of the sea, and, of course, gives you all the latest tweets from your ridiculous, seafaring friends.

Neuroshima Hex!

While I haven't played the board game equivalent, I'd be very excited to try it out. Neuroshima Hex! is just that: a board game port. And the exclamation point is warranted.

When AI is carefully programmed and online connectivity is smooth, board games are an excellent match for the mobile touchscreen. They're games that are best played in person, but they're also games that are meant to be touched. And as a plus, they're generally very well balanced and thoughtfully designed, since they cost a lot more to produce than, say, an app. It is a shame when board games are relatively incompatible with the platform (Catan). But the ones that do work, work like they were meant to exist on a touchscreen.

Neuroshima Hex! is, of course, one of those fine examples. (And it's especially impressive since it's not a well-known game to begin with.) It's a strategy game themed in a post-apocalyptic world with four main armies (and several more with a costly but quality expansion). Each army has it's own unique hexes that are played on a cramped and competitive battlefield. Players begin by placing their HQs, which hold special bonuses for adjacent units but also serve as lifelines and scoreboards for their respective armies. A turn consists of receiving (drawing) three hexes, choosing one to discard, and playing the other two. When either an army plays a battle hex or the entire battlefield is full of units, a battle occurs, and HQs take appropriate damage (they start at 20 hit points and each time they're hit, they lose a point and their army falls one mark further from victory). Any units in the line of fire also take damage and typically disappear from the board after one hit. When all the hexes have been played, the army with the most hit points wins.

What makes this game especially interesting and challenging is that each attacking unit has an initiative number, which determines when it will attack. So many times, units are eliminated from the battlefield before they ever have an opportunity to strike.

Neuroshima Hex is full of deep strategy, as well as constant surprises from the unpredictability of which hexes will arrive next. It all comes together to form a tense, exciting, and enormously replayable game. There is an admitted learning curve, however, as when you first start out, you'll have little to no idea what any of the hexes do. But thankfully, the game includes an information button that gives fair explanations for any hex you tap. So as long as you're patient enough in the beginning and willing to work through the unknown, you'll learn to love an overlooked marvel. If you need more convincing: I never muted the in-game music.

Real Racing 3

I'm impressed that EA decided to lay down a free racer. I'm even more impressed that they aren't (in my opinion) at all audible about asking you to pay for in-game upgrades, etc. However, that doesn't mean that they went all-out for a top-notch racing game.

Real Racing 3 is pretty simple: you race, you buy new cars, you upgrade them, you race more. It contains no storyline of any kind (thank you!). What it does contain is races upon races upon races and quite a number of good-looking, licensed cars. Races range from the classic three-laps-around-the-track to drag races to top speed challenges. The cars range from the Ford Focus to the McLaren F1. And everything looks pretty spectacular considering the limitations of the iPhone.

Real Racing 3 also incorporates some of its namesake into the game. In addition to paying for cars and upgrades, you have to pay for any damage your car takes during a race--from windshields to mirrors--and each has an individual cost, plus a hit to your car's performance if you choose not to fix it. This realistic system includes maintenance issues, as well, like changing the oil and swapping out the tires. With maintenance, though, you're forced to wait through the process across several minutes of real time before you can use your car again. This wait also occurs when you order a new car. But however annoying it might be sometimes, it's honestly not a very big issue and it supports the idea (along with the game's relatively quick races) that this is a racing game for iOS--meaning you're supposed to be on the go and multitasking. So a little wait isn't going to matter because you've got plenty else to do.

My main issue with the game is that it has way too much to do and none of it is particularly difficult. This may be a good thing for other people, or simply untrue, based upon skill level. But the game was unsatisfying for me, as I never felt a true sense of accomplishment after winning a race. Monetary progress was quick, so I could always buy a new car before the old one got stale, and there was always another set of races that popped up when I won enough of them. But, overall, the difficulty wasn't quite substantial enough and the pacing suffered.

This, I imagine, is far from a universal experience, though. And that's why I'd still recommend this game to just about anyone. It's a thoroughly extensive time-killer if nothing else.

Gun Bros 2

Gun Bros 2. No, not as awful as it sounds. The gameplay is actually pretty enjoyable. It's a fairly standard two-stick shooter with big muscly guys (bros), big blasty guns, and lots and lots of bad dudes. Your bro is thrust into a moderately-sized arena (a number of new ones unlock as you go) and you have to defeat waves and waves of creepy things, eventually bosses. (But you do have a bro-partner, so it's not so scary.) When you make it through your mission you get some loot, and then you have the option to buy new weapons, upgrade them, mod them, etc., plus you can do the same with different types of military-style armor.

That's the game, more or less: you progress through missions and arenas, get bigger guns, fight bigger baddies, and there's an endless mode, as well. While it's not breathtaking or particularly innovative for either the genre or the platform, it is a good romp.

But here is where I must disagree with Apple's editors and their choosing of this game. With all the thousands and thousands of games in the App Store, why would anyone waste their time with a flawed one, especially when it offers nothing irreplaceable? I know I wouldn't.

And my example, naturally, is Gun Bros 2. Yes, it is fun. And even free. But it lacks polish. That might sound insignificant, but consider, for example, the obnoxiously long loading screens. No, it's not because of the graphics: I've played much prettier, graphics-heavy games on my iPhone with loading times at least half these (see: Infinity Blade). This, of course, is not to mention the fact that the game deleted my data for no apparent reason and is now prompting me to create a new character. I will not.

Even if this is a one-in-one-hundred-thousand kind of scenario, it's too many. This is a massively relevant lesson to developers and iPhone gamers alike: there are way too many games out there to waste your time on something that doesn't work.