It’s time for the third part of our iPhone gaming fest, as we count down the 100 best iPhone games ever. We’re getting to the real good stuff now, as we break into the top 50, heading ever towards the very best titles of them all.
Gameloft makes a good showing in this instalment, and there are entries from other top publishers including EA and Square Enix. On top of those big-name treats there are also some great must-have indie titles. We don’t favour the big boys here.
Don’t forget to check out the previous instalments as well –
100 Best iPhone games 100-81
100 Best iPhone games 80-61
100 Best iPhone games 60-41
100 Best iPhone games 40-21
100 Best iPhone games 20-1
60. Shadow Guardian
By Gameloft
Released December 2010
Gameloft’s take on Naughty Dog’s critically-lauded Uncharted series, Shadow Guardian, is an adventure on a scale not often seen on iPhone – it’s pretty epic. In typical Indiana Jones fashion, you’re an explorer after a priceless artefact that hides a secret power. It’ll take up more than 500MB on your iPhone, but it’s worth every meg if you’re after an involving adventure.
59. Aqua Moto Racing 2
By Resolution Interactive
Released July 2010
Once you’ve tried a jet ski racing game, sitting back behind the wheel of a car can seem dull by comparison. In Aqua Moto Racing 2, you don’t just have to worry about the horizontal axis – turning around corners and so on – but the vertical too. Courses feature jumps, and the movement of the waves will send your jet ski bobbing up and down like mad post-landing. It’s not a purist’s racing game, but supplies more than its share of fun.
58. Isotope
By Affogato
Released June 2009
Although it’s a game for mobile devices, Isotope offers more depth than many of the console-bound games it’s inspired by – most notably Geometry Wars. A twin stick space shooter with elements of roleplaying included to keep you hooked, there are many hours of gameplay on offer here. You can buy new ships, and upgrade them with new weapons and armour. The neon-style graphics give Isotope a high recognisable style too – even if it is an already-familiar one.
57. Defender Chronicles
By Chillingo
Released June 2009
A novel take on the tower defence genre, Defender Chronicles ditches the usual top-down view of game style in favour of a side-on view. Enemies approach, looking to destroy your castle, and you have to make outposts of warriors, magi and archers to stop them. With a compelling fantasy setting and roleplaying elements thrown in for good measure, Defender Chronicles will keep fans of the genre occupied for a hours in the double figures. We’ve spent many a train journey hooked on this one.
56. EDGE
By Mobigame
Released January 2009
You’d never guess to look at it, but EDGE is one of the most controversial iPhone releases ever. Owner of publisher Edge Games Tim Langdell claimed the game’s name infringed his “EDGE” trademark. This led to the innocuous (but rather brilliant) puzzler being pulled from the App Store, but also spurred-on the backing of reams of other indie developers, which temporarily renamed several of iPhone games in support – comically inserting “EDGE” wherever possible, naturally. After Langdell tried to accuse gaming giant EA of the same infringement, a court case ensued, which ended in Langdell giving up his right to the trademark. Thankfully, EDGE is now back in its rightful place on the App Store.
55. Dead Space
By EA
Released January 2011
With great graphics, a creepy atmosphere and compelling gameplay, Dead Space reaffirmed EA’s position as one of the iPhone gaming market’s best developer-publishers. It’s based on the console game of the same name but features a campaign that doesn’t just ape that seen in its bigger console brothers. Played from a behind-the-shoulder perspective, you control a suited soldier as he taken on hordes of nasty, many-limbed enemies. Scary stuff.
54. Star Defense
By ngmoco
Released June 2009
One of the last games made by ngmoco before it took the plunge into social gaming waters, Star Defense is a wonderful tower defence game where each level takes place on a dinky 3D planetoid. The paths are preset, leaving you to simply place defensive towers along them strategically. Your enemies? S’rath invaders from outer space. The gameplay is pure TD (tower defence) and is super-addictive. Games like this make us long for the golden days of ngmoco, back when the App Store was a gold mine still full of gold fit for a plundering.
53. Ultimate Spider-Man: Total Mayhem
By Gameloft
Released August 2010
Gameloft is a publisher often accused of nicking ideas off others, and borrowing bits from its previous games. But every now and then it hits it out of a park with a game that tops its genre. Ultimate Spider-Man: Total Mayhem did this for the third-person action adventure back in 2010. Great graphics, near-flawless controls and plenty of characters from the Spider-Man universe ensured this game’s success. Even now it lingers in the lower end of the top 100 chart.
52. GeoDefense Swarm
By Critical Thought Games
Released September 2009
iPhone gaming has made tower defence games more popular than ever, with titles like Fieldrunners having made the once-niche genre mainstream. That doesn’t mean all iPhone TD games are sweetness and light though. Dubbed by some the “thinking man’s” tower defence game, this neon-infused take on this strategy game type is extremely challenging. Make the wrong move and it’s game over. Crank up the difficulty and it’s virtually impossible to succeed – but incredibly satisfying when you do.
51. Chaos Rings
By Square Enix
Released April 2010
While there are official Final Fantasy games available to buy on iPhone, Chaos Rings is the closest you’ll come to a real, current-gen Final Fantasy adventure – because it basically is one, in all but name. Along with a gang of mysterious adventurers, you are transported to the mysterious Ark Arena, where you have to battle your way towards freedom. Turn-based fighting, plenty of adventuring and loads of androgynous-looking men with white hair feature – just what any self-respecting Final Fantasy fan is after.
50. Doodle Jump
By Lima Sky
Released March 2009
Before buses and trains were filled with people flinging birds into pigs, there were buses and trains full of people turning their iPhone left and right to direct a weird little hand-drawn alien as he jumped up between clouds. They were simpler times. They were the days of Doodle Jump. The game that popularised the hand-drawn iPhone game trend, making room for great games like Parachute Panic, Doodle Jump is no longer the king of the App Store, but we remember it fondly still. Amen.
49. Dungeon Hunter 2
By Gameloft
Released Dec 2010
Dungeon Hunter 2 is Gamloft’s take on PC classics like Dungeon Siege and Diablo. It’s a swords ‘n’ spells adventure, rammed full of fantasy clichés and the publisher’s usual high-grade polish. If you’re after a hardcore weirdy beardy roleplaying game, you’re looking in the wrong place, but if you want action and fun rather than old-school point-based character progression this is a must-download. Every now and then it drops to just a handful of pennies in one of Gameloft’s (in)famous sales too.
48. Wolfenstein RPG
By EA
Released August 2009
The Wolfenstein and Doom “RPG” series is what was spawned when clever mobile game developers tried to cram the fun and tension of the 1993 first-person shooter Doom into a mobile phone. This was back in 2005 too, so we’re talking dinky 2in screens, not iPhone-sized ones. It was a tremendous success, offering more hours of gameplay than the original shooter, and a more robust storyline. Wolfenstein RPG is perhaps the pinnacle of the series, packing-in more humour than the more serious Doom RPG games.
47. Tiki Towers 2
By Gamehouse
Released December 2008
Long before critical darling World of Goo hit the iPad, let alone the iPhone, Gamehouse’s Tiki Towers was supplying a similar flavour of gameplay. You construct bamboo bridges across levels to guide monkeys to safety – and hopefully nab them each a banana on the way. With a dynamic physics model where the monkeys affect the structure as well as good old gravity, this game is endlessly engaging and utterly cheerful, even as it frustrates.
46. Squareball
By Dromsynt
Released September 2009
Simultaneously retro-looking and flashy, Squareball’s blocky graphics give it a very definite style. It’s a simple bouncy action-platform-puzzler, but will test your patience to its limits. It’s devilishly hard – like games used to be, not like the standards of these cotton wool-clad times. You drag your finger across the screen to control the progress of a continually-bouncing ball through a maze chock full of voids. It sound innocuous, but it’s really not. Steel your nerves before taking on this one, but if you can hack it, Squareball is rather brilliant.
45. Star Front: Collision
By Gameloft
Released March 2011
The iPhone’s touchscreen may seem like the perfect interface for real time strategy games like Command and Conquer, but relatively few have made it big on the App Store. Perhaps it’s the play style – while we may all do it, the idea of sitting down and gaming for hours on a phone isn’t necessarily all that attractive. Star Front: Collision is probably the best of the lot, blending casual RTS warfare gameplay with Gameloft’s usual visual spit ‘n’ polish. If you want to back smaller developers, check out Warfare Incorporated – the best iPhone RTS before Star Front collided with the iOS gaming scene.
44. Coin Drop!
By Full Fat
Released April 2011
A game of incredible vibrancy and colour, Coin Drop! looks a bit like a dozen illustrated children’s books that have exploded onto an iPhone screen. The result is charming rather than nauseous, though. Peggle-like in its approach to casual gaming, you drop coins from the top of the screen, with the aim of hitting all the “bad coins” littering the level, and as many pegs as you can. Progress is easy here, but getting those irresistible high score awards isn’t.
43. Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4
By Warner Bros.
Released Nov 2010
On a Nintendo DS you might pay as much as much as £30 for Lego Harry Potter (at launch at any rate). With an iPhone, you don’t have to pay more than £2.99. Ah, the wonders of iPhone gaming. It’s a casual adventure game and offers pretty much the full DS/PSP experience too, with more than a hundred playable characters and almost 50 levels. The touchscreen controls aren’t perfect, but for die-hard Potter fans this is the best iOS app or game released yet.
42. Aralon: Sword and Shadow
By Crescent Moon Games
Released December 2010
Dubbed by many as the iOS answer to Bethesda Softwork’s Elder Scrolls: Oblivion (an artist from that game worked on Aralon too), Aralon: Sword and Shadow is an epic game that stretches the limits of iPhone gaming. It offers an open world riddled with items, quests and enemies. It’ll require patience in more ways than one. Not only is the world bafflingly big, the controls take some getting used to too. But if you’re after a real epic adventure this is the real deal.
41. JellyCar 3
By Disney
Released February 2011
A physics action game-come-puzzler, JellyCar 3 puts you in control (well, mostly in control) of a wibbly wobbly car in 50 levels. The original JellyCar (released October 2008) scored millions of downloads thanks to its low price – it was free! JellyCar 3, on the other hand, has maintained popularity thanks to its fab level design that crams physics puzzles into each level. The latest instalment also lets you customise your car.
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s Part Four, where we’ll count down from 40 to 21.