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Here's our picks for the best iPhone games currently available. We weeded through the thousands of titles to bring you the cream of the crop.
With over 500,000 apps now available for download in the iTunes app store, the gaming options are nearly limitless. In the sea of games for the iPhone, some are worth your 99 cents (or download time) and others are not. We’ve taken on the burden of sorting through the endless games to bring you what we think are the best iphone games for everyone from the intense console gamer to the casual word puzzle enthusiast.
Have a suggestion? Let us know in the comments section!
Also check out our picks for The Best iPhone Apps, The Best iPad Apps, and The Best iPad Games.
Minecraft – Pocket Edition ($7)The chances are good that you’ve heard about the smash hit indie sandbox game, Minecraft. It challenges you to explore, mine, construct, and survive in a series of randomly generated environments. You are free to choose how you want to play the game, which has virtually infinite replay value, but the main focus is on building. The initially disappointing iOS version has been updated in the last few months and now offers crafting, a survival mode, mobs, and a creative mode.
Draw Something Free (Free)Insanely addictive and occasionally laugh out loud funny, Draw Something is essentially a one-on-one version of Pictionary without the time limit. You pick one of three words, sketch it, and then the other player uses their available letters to guess what it is. You score points for correct answers but they don’t really matter. If you can’t cope with intrusive ads then you might feel the $2.99 premium version is worth splashing out for.
SpellTower ($2)An odd blend of Tetris and word search puzzles, SpellTower is extremely addictive. Letters on tiles fall from the top of the screen and you have to find words to clear them away. The longer the words you find, and the rarer the letters you use, the more tiles you’ll eliminate. The aim is simple: stop the letters from reaching the top of the screen. The local multiplayer mode is a great addition.
Total War Battles: Shogun ($5.50)Real time strategy addicts are not well served on the iPhone but Total War Battles aims to change that. This is a gorgeous game with stylized Japanese artwork and fluid animations. You must guide your clan through a series of battles on hex-based maps. Basic resource management is thrown into the mix with the same split between the turn-based management and the real-time battles as you find in the PC games. Naturally, this is simplified and scaled down by comparison but there’s plenty on offer to get strategists frothing at the mouth.
Angry Birds ($1)This notoriously obsession-inducing game begins with the story of some ugly green pigs who stole eggs from their neighboring birds. These birds are now, as you would assume, very angry. Users fling the angry (and squealing) birds at fortified castles inhabited by the green pigs in an attempt to destroy the pigs and get to the next level. It’s a game of trial and error, but birds with different advantages (extra power, wider coverage) and pigs with extra protections (hardhats, etc.) keep things interesting.
Amazing Breaker ($1)If you’re a fan of addictive and challenging puzzle games then check out Amazing Breaker. The goal of the game is to blast the various ice structures with bombs from your launcher. Each blast takes away bits of ice, leaving tiny shards behind. The fewer amounts of shards left over at the end of each round, the better your score. With over 80 levels and full high-resolution retina display graphics – Amazing Breaker is one of those games that is easy to learn but hard to master.
Temple Run (Free)This addictive game has you running from a pack of gorillas as fast as possible through a temple-like obstacle course. You must make quick turns, jump over logs and bridges, slide underneath rings of fire, collect gold coins and make it as far as you can without getting trampled by the gorillas or meeting your death from a fall or smack in the face. This one’s good for adrenaline junkies and those who like a good race.
Ski-On-Neon (Free)This skiing game is addictive thanks to the difficulty of getting the slopes just right. It’s a simple game where all you have to do is press your finger to the screen when you want to crouch (going into a downhill slope) or not. The slopes make for tricky timing and you must get to a certain height jump before making it to the next level.
Epoch ($6)This newly released action game has you controlling a robot as it struggles to survive a post-apocalyptic world where humans are no longer around and robots live to fight a never-ending war. The game utilizes a unique cover system and features stunning visuals not typically matched on mobile devices. Endless customization awaits you as you configure your robot with salvaged parts and battle waves of robots in arena-style action.
Fruit Ninja ($1)Like Angry Birds, this action game is extremely simple but extraordinarily addictive. Users swipe a finger across the screen to slice fruit as it flies across the screen. Miss slicing one too many and you’re out. Slice multiple pieces of fruit with one swipe for combination points and watch out for flying bombs, which will kill you and your score in an instant. The game features classic and arcade modes as well as multiplayer for Game Center-enabled devices. Turn the sound up because, trust us, hearing your fruit be slashed and splattered is the best part.
Plants vs. Zombies ($3)The much-loved tower defense game that started out as a hit on PC is now available for the iPhone, to the relief of countless fans. Users must defend their homes against hoards of angry zombies attempting an invasion. Planting a variety of zombie-zapping plants will fend off the walking dead, and the more zombies you kill the more plants you can get to defend your home. The game has 50 different levels that feature different scenes and backgrounds. The game stays interesting thanks to the variety of zombies with special skills and tricks.
Sparkle the Game ($3)This action puzzle game puts speed and accuracy to the test as users shoot orbs into a constantly moving line, hoping to make them disappear fast enough that they don’t fall into the dreaded abyss. Users tap the screen where they want to shoot orbs; match three orbs of the same color to make them disappear. Three game modes, different scene locations, and hidden bonuses and secrets keep the action fun. The game is simple in concept, but the entertainment will last hours.
Bejeweled 2 ($1)This addictive game is one of the top paid apps of all time, and for good reason. The puzzle game challenges users to match sparkling jewels to get points to get to the next level. The premise is simple but the fun of beating each level is addicting. Different modes allow for intense or relaxed play, and new Facebook integration allows users to challenge their friends to a match.
Where’s My Water? ($1)This extremely popular game revolves around an alligator named Swampy who is desperate to take a nice hot shower. To get the water to him, you must cut through rock in just the right places, avoid obstacles, and figure out the puzzle in time before Swampy starts to shiver. The game has over 200 levels and is surprisingly fun and addictive, despite the game’s strange initial premise.
I’ve sent thousands of American, German and British soldiers to die in battle. I’ve sent men into situations where I knew they would die in order to win the larger fight, seen tanks go from powerful symbols of freedom into burning husks within seconds and put so many craters into quaint villages that they look like the surface of the moon. All of this and more I’ve done in the real time strategy franchise Company of Heroes.
Company of Heroes, more than any other game in any genre, has let me experience the horrors of war. Granted, it’s a representation wrapped up in the conventions of a video game, but it still portrays combat in a realistic enough way that it sometimes makes me reflect on how awful these men had it. Despite two expansions, the original Company of Heroes never took us to the Eastern Front, where more than 20 million people lost their lives. That changes in 2013 with the release of Company of Heroes 2, when everyone will finally get direct control over Soviet forces, taking them into battles fought and won as much by desperation as by sound tactics. Having recently tried it myself, I’ve briefly experienced battles in the most brutal front in history.
Despite having played hours of Company of Heroes, the sequel still threw me for a bit of a loop. The basic gameplay principles from the first game are carried over to the second (you still capture points to collect resources, cover is crucial, vehicle positioning matters, etc.), but many subtle changes have been implemented. Some of them, like the new True Sight mechanic, make the game feel more realistic, and make fighting in tight spaces much more claustrophobic. Since your units no longer have a 360 degree view (but instead have their vision broken up by terrain like they would in real life) you realize how much more frightening it is for a soldier to move into an area with lots of obstructions. Enemies could come from anywhere; intersections, which previously made me think of all the directions I could move, now make me fear what the hell will be around the corner. Scouting has become far more important than it was in the original Company of Heroes.
Likewise, resources play totally differently. In earlier Company of Heroes titles, you captured points with specific resources attached to them; an ammo point gave ammo, a fuel point fuel, etc. This made points with high resources an integral part of the level design, and in multiplayer this often resulted in furious battles to control a specific point that could make the difference between victory and defeat. While the details are still being ironed out, developer Relic is giving you the option to choose what resource you need in Company of Heroes 2. In an effort to encourage players to battle over more areas of the map, Relic leaves it to players to determine which resources are important. This comes alongside a smaller number of capturable points to hopefully make the maps easier to create and for you to tell when you have resources connected. In practice it’s still hard to know how it will shake out. The single match I played against the AI wasn’t enough to learn the maps or the Russian forces intimately enough to know if I should lean my resources toward ammo or fuel. Still, it’s a potentially exciting change because it makes it harder to predict what your foe is up to. Previously, if you knew they were capturing a lot of fuel you could predict what they might be gearing up to, but now you have to do more scouting and stay on your toes.
Even the way that you capture points has been changed for Company of Heroes 2. Previously, the only way to capture a point was to order a squad to take it, meaning you had to click the specific point and have a squad sit on it. This reduced their combat effectiveness, and if you weren’t paying attention the squad could be wiped out with ease. Company of Heroes 2 still allows you to order a squad to capture a point in this way, but alternatively they can just sit within a small radius of a point to take it. It’s a seemingly minor change, but it means that combat around points can become a lot more interesting, as each side is vying to see who can stay within proximity of a point long enough to capture it. It also means that things like booby traps or teller mines from Company of Heroes, which relied on the fact that the enemy was going to need to reach the point itself, won’t be effective and likely won’t be used in the same fashion they were before.
The Russian forces themselves obviously play a lot differently than the armies in the original game. It’ll take hours and hours of play to really get a hold on what makes them so special, but even during the short time I played a few things stood out. First of all, there’s conscript units. These large groups of infantry, normal citizens forced into the war, aren’t great at fighting, but are great for absorbing fire and can merge with other units to reinforce them on the field. For instance, if you had a machine gun crew down to one guy, you could use a conscript squad to bring them back up to their original size. These squads are cheap and efficient, and a bit unnerving when you realize how little value these peasants’ lives hold unless they’re used in specific ways.
Other units also stand out, feeling like variations on the past game’s units. The Maxim machine gun has a massive crew of six people and is a bit sluggish with its comparatively tight field of fire. The Russian sniper teams come in pairs instead of solo and are heavily clad in order to battle the blizzards that now sweep into levels and kill unprepared units. The Katyusha trucks fire Nebelwerfer-like rockets -- albeit a bit inaccurately -- from absurdly far away. The Russians even have an array of tanks, making an armored assault feel viable. Basically, they seem to have a bit of everything, with units that make them feel like an amalgamation of the original Company of Heroes' Wermacht and American forces.
The really striking thing about Company of Heroes 2 is the tone the game sets with its fantastic fidelity and animation. It’s easy to get caught up in the fact that I’m playing a game, but as I watch a group of conscripts struggle through heavy snow while taking machine gun fire, or throw themselves to the ground as an explosion comes a bit too close, I sometimes take a moment to reflect on the actual men and women that did that. These people endured some of the harshest conditions in the entirety of the war, and it’s great to see one of the best strategy franchises ever portraying their plight in vivid detail. It’s not often games succeed at being so much fun to play while simultaneously being intensely visceral in their portrayal of history.
