Bugger.

Either no bugger’s updated the game yet or I’m a lot better than I think I am, because I’m doing really well on the scoreboards.

It probably means you don’t have the game yet, because you’re bound to be better than me. So why haven’t you bought this, eh? You really should have. Toddle of to the App Store and get it now. (And get Super QuickHook while you’re there.)

And if you did buy the game and decided it was an uncontrollable mess then play it some more. It feels horrid at first, I know, but after half an hour you’ll be zipping around, loving the controls and wondering why you ever thought differently.

The first is Redline mode, which is a randomly-generated endless level. (Bit of theme today, that.) It’s absolutely brilliant fun and will probably get the bulk of my playtime from now on.

Shhhhh! It's a secret!

The second mode is secret, but easy to find either by luck or with a bit of detective work. (If you want a hint, have a look at the OpenFeint leaderboards.)

Ah, what times we live in. This is a golden age.

New track! New track!

It seems that about fifteen sections is my sweet spot for a challenging but achievable track.

The trouble is, though, over the weekend I seemed to have no patience and kept hammering the “New Track” button as soon as one began annoying me. Not a good way to play this game. As such, I didn’t get many points at all.

Carcassonne

The rules are simple, the strategy less so.

Mostly excellent conversion of the classic board game. The interface is lovely, playing against the AI is fun and it’s a wonderful conversion. It’s let down a bit by what appears to be a completely broken online implementation – many games I’ve tried to play have been full of baffled chat messages and no actual game – but when it works it’s excellent. Easy to pick up, but brain-twisting in the best possible way as you try to make long-term plans based on hopes and educated guesses. Buy it as a single-player or local-multiplayer game with a possibility of bonus online multiplayer against friends and you won’t be disappointed.

Civilization Revolution

Conquer the world in a lunchtime.

The App Store is built on novelty. Games appear for pennies, are the best thing ever for ten minutes, then disappear. Civilization Revolution is different. It eats both hours and battery life with equal abandon and is almost impossible to put down once you’ve started a game. You start with a small, wandering prehistoric tribe capable only of building a small settlement. You end up with tanks and fighter plans and nuclear weapons as you struggle to dominate the world through your military, cultural, economic or scientific might. It’s all incredibly absorbing and doesn’t deserve to be left to rot as you devour the latest, greatest arcade novelty.

Cubed Rally Racer

You will crash. A lot.

Of course, there’s a lot to be said for arcade thrills and Cubed Rally Racer is one of the best of the newer games on the App Store. Essentially it’s an isometric driving game, where the aim is simply to make it to the end of the randomly generated course with as many points as possible. You simply choose how long you want the course to be – ten sections for a commercial break, twenty-five sections for a serious challenge – and then try to get to the finish line without crashing. Hard to put down, seemingly infinitely replayable, this is a serious bargain.

Dungeon Solitaire

You will be needing the tutorial, but it the game is a lot less scary than it looks.

Fed up of traditional Solitaire? Has even Spider Solitaire got tiresome? Try this. It’s very much a Solitaire game – it’s all based on a deck of cards and the shuffle is as important as the strategy – but you’ll also have to engage your brain. It’s a great game with the default deck, but there are numerous expansions that add new cards, often with new rules. It’s nothing like Magic The Gathering, despite the screenshot suggesting otherwise, but it is the best Solitaire game I’ve ever played.

FIFA World Cup

It's even got a good replay viewer.

This would not feature in a list of the ten best iPhone games, but you can’t really get more topical. And if you do get swept up in World Cup fever and want to play with real players on your iPhone, then EA have had the decency to put a decent game in this bit of merchandise. Nice features like arrows showing where your passes will go and excellent replays mean that this is a very solid game. Will you be playing long after the World Cup is over? I doubt it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good game to have right now.

iNetHack

As a conversion of a game that uses almost every key on your keyboard, the iPhone conversion works far better than you might expect.

It’s always good to get free games. It’s especially good to get free games when they’re absolute classics. Initially baffling, if you can work your way inside NetHack, you’ll be rewarded with a deep, endlessly-replayable roguelike. You move through the dungeon, killing monsters, trying strange potions, attacking shopkeepers by mistake and, inevitably, dying. Just don’t get too attached to your pets.

Orbital

Make circles. Then destroy them.

An absolute, stone cold classic. This should be preinstalled on every iPhone. Today, for example, the queue in Spar was huge, so what did I do while I waited to buy my Mini Cheddars? Yes, I played Orbital. Three game modes, all worth playing, all sorts of high scores and a cold, yet beautiful, aesthetic. Absolutely essential.

Robot Unicorn Attack

Keep jumping so the unicorn doesn't explode.

This is one of those arcade novelties. Maybe you won’t play it forever. Maybe it’s not as good as the free Flash version. Maybe it’s overpriced at £1.79. Whatever. Right now, today, this is great fun. And it makes a change from Canabalt.

Slay

Conquer the world in a tea break.

If Civilization Revolution seems a bit too much, play Slay instead. Games are quicker, military conquest is the only option and, well, it’s not even remotely the same, apart from being turn-based and based on conquering territory on a map. It’s been around for many years, but the fact that it’s the same as the ancient PC game shows how well the mechanics have stood the test of time. Easy to overlook if you’ve not played it, this really deserves your attention.

Trucker’s Delight: Episode One

Sexual harassment for fun and profit.

And let’s finish off with another novelty. Beautiful graphics, simple yet addictive gameplay and a fairly worrying backstory based on a music video. I played it solidly for two days and haven’t been back since. I keep meaning to, but somehow things get in the way.

I won this 15-section track first go - amazing!

Yep, I played more of this game last night. You can tell I play a lot, because although my high score only puts me at number 42 in the global leaderboards, when it comes to experience (gained for completing races) I’m breathing down the neck of the top ten. It really is an utterly fantastic little game. I’ve put hours into it without getting tired of it – and all for the cost of a (cheap) sandwich. Brilliant.

I feel like the Duke boys. Both of them.

Still playing this, yes. I’ve can make tracks of up to twenty-five or twenty-six sections now, but I’ve found that ten-section tracks are the most fun and fit nicely into commercial breaks.

Oops. Again.

Fantastic game, though. If it’s good enough to interrupt my usual dreams of cowboys and separation anxiety, then it must be pretty special. Also: I’ve been playing it too much.

Oops.

My experiences with the game went something like this:

0 mins: Hmm, the review on Touch Arcade made this sound great and it’s only £1.19, I’ll give it a go.

5 mins: Okay, this is completely uncontrollable. Whoever programmed this either hates gamers or me personally. Might be a good game, otherwise, but these controls are appalling.

15 mins: Right, I’m starting to get the hang of this handling, but I keep missing the buttons. They’re just too small.

30 mins: My thumbs have adjusted and I’m hardly missing the buttons at all.

45 mins: Actually, this handling model is lovely. Skidsome in the extreme, bombing round these tracks is brilliant fun.

60 mins: One… more… go…

120 mins: My battery ran out! But I need to keep playing! Chills coming on… starting to shake… must find charger…

Which is all a long-winded way of saying that it takes a while to become comfortable – it takes a while to even be able to turn the simplest corner, to be fair – but once you start getting used to it, it won’t let go. There’s never a chance of getting stuck, because a whole new track is only a button click away.

It’s not perfect, though. The left and right buttons could do with being a little taller. I’ve adjusted now, but I can’t imagine that it would hurt the game in any way just to extend the area of control response up the screen a little. Also, the game doesn’t save tracks. It’s not much of an issue at first, but when you start on the longer tracks it’s annoying that you can’t take a break and come back to them. You can retry the same track as much as you like while in the game (which gives you a ghost of your best attempt, a lovely touch), but quit and come back and you’ll have a whole new randomly-generated track to deal with.

Still, neither of those niggles spoil the experience. I’ve not been this consumed by an iPhone game for a while. It’s really brilliant stuff. Initially unfriendly, but definitely worth sticking with.