33rd Division

A line-drawing game in the tradition of Flight Control and Harbor Master, but with a stealthy twist. Your job is direct soldiers to safe spots on the map, but without them being seen by the enemies. You can’t just draw a path, but must adjust it as the enemies patrol and lie down to stay out of sight. It’s tough, rewarding and incredibly exciting, distilling the essence of stealth into a fast-paced arcade rush.

Angry Birds

An immediate classic, Angry Birds arrived on the iPhone with little fanfare, but captivated everyone who tried it. It wasn’t just that people were losing sleep trying to get through all the levels – it’s that they then lost more sleep trying to get the full three-star rating for each one. A simple game where you launch birds at fortifications, the consistent physics and excellent level design lifted this above similar games. The only real problem is that after many hours spent trying to fully complete the game, it still leaves you wanting more. Much, much more.

Canabalt

Superb conversion of the web-based Flash game, Canabalt is a pure rush, controlled simply by tapping the screen when you want to jump. It’s wonderfully presented, perfectly simple and hugely addictive, with the randomly-generated levels meaning you can never be sure quite what’s ahead.

Doom Classic

Arguably the best game ever made, Doom has never really translated well to handheld consoles due to control difficulties. The iPhone version, however, controls beautifully and makes this the third-best version of this classic game (after the PC and Xbox 360 versions). The level design, weapons and enemies are still as wonderful as ever. If you’ve ever loved Doom, this is the version to carry around in your pocket. If you’ve never played, now’s the time to start.

iDrop Dead: Flower Edition

A physics-based puzzler where your job is to inflict as much damage as possible to cute cartoon characters. Tear their limbs off, expose their skulls and blow them up. This is a game, though, not an animated joke and the level goals are well-judged and careful consideration and well-timed flicking is needed to get them all. Forget Ragdoll Blaster and Max Injury, iDrop Dead is the pinnacle of the ragdoll genre and the Flower Edition contains the most content and is well worth paying for over the free versions.

Minigore

There are a lot twin-stick shooters on the App Store, but Minigore is the best. It may not have the RPG-like aspects of Alive-4-ever or the maze-like levels of Against The Fire, but it surpasses all other examples of the genre in pure frantic shooting fun. It’s fast, furious, relentless and tuned to perfection.

Orbital

Fantastic game that tests your aim and your brain. The mechanics are hard to explain, but obvious when you play. It’s a brutally hard game, but never unfair. Like many great games, you may develop a love-hate relationship with it – but you’ll keep going back.

Ridge Racer Accelerated

At launch this was a rough gem, plagued by slowdown and frame rate problems. A patch was issued quickly, though, and on the 3GS at least, performance is now nearly perfect. It doesn’t have the content of the PSP version of the game, nor the polish, but the glorious tilt-based steering makes it worth owning alongside other versions. No other racer on the iPhone comes close to the sheer terror the game can generate as you struggle to control your car round the twisting hills of the classic Ridge Racer courses. The price you see on iTunes doesn’t include the whole game – you need to set aside another three quid or so for the downloadable content – but it’s worth it.

Soosiz

The sound-bite description is Mario Galaxy in 2D, but with its cute visuals and small, but increasingly challenging, levels Soosiz soon leaves its inspiration behind and proves itself to be its own master. It controls perfectly, features a surprising amount of variety and has a enough levels to keep you going for a long, long time. It’s a joyous, bouncy experience, reminiscent of the best 16-bit platformers while being completely modern.

Str8ts

Sometimes you need to kick back and feed your brain, not your reactions, and there are a number of grid-based number puzzles for such occasions. There’s Sudoku, obviously, and KenKen, but the best of them is Str8ts. It’s impossible to say why, but Str8ts is simply the most satisfying puzzle game there is. It’s always logical and if you’re stuck, it’s only ever because you’ve missed something. The ratio between baffled staring and eureka moments is just right and when things flow, it’s glorious.

33rd Division

A line-drawing game in the tradition of Flight Control and Harbor Master, but with a stealthy twist. Your job is direct soldiers to safe spots on the map, but without them being seen by the enemies. You can’t just draw a path, but must adjust it as the enemies patrol and lie down to stay out of sight. It’s tough, rewarding and incredibly exciting, distilling the essence of stealth into a fast-paced arcade rush.

Call of Duty: World At War: Zombies

A direct port of the Zombies game mode from World At War on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, CoD: Zombies really shouldn’t work. A game designed for high-definition hardware and a fully-featured controller – on the iPhone? Incredibly, it’s a total success. There are three different control schemes, all of which work well. The graphics are astounding, with the zombie animations especially noteworthy. And the wave-based survival gameplay simply never gets old. Even without considering the online cooperative multiplayer, this is one of the ten best games on the iPhone. At the time of writing only one map is available, as more are added this game will only get better.

Canabalt

Superb conversion of the web-based Flash game, Canabalt is a pure rush, controlled simply by tapping the screen when you want to jump. It’s wonderfully presented, perfectly simple and hugely addictive, with the randomly-generated levels meaning you can never be sure quite what’s ahead.

Civilization Revolution

Civilization Revolution was a great game on the Xbox 360. The core of the game was the same in the DS conversion, but an awkward interface made it difficult to enjoy. The iPhone version of the game, though, is a triumph. It may not be as pretty as the 360 version or have the AI tweaks that top players want, but it’s much easier to control than the DS version. It’s more of a game than the the more simulation based PC Civilization games, but that doesn’t stop it being a great way to build an empire.

Doom Classic

It may seem to be overkill to have two first-person shooters in this list when no tower defence or racing games have made the cut, but it’s not my fault that both CoD: Zombies and Doom Classic are deserving of a place in this list. Arguably the best game ever made, Doom has never really translated well to handheld consoles due to control difficulties. The iPhone version, however, controls beautifully and makes this the third-best version of this classic game (after the PC and Xbox 360 versions). The level design, weapons and enemies are still as wonderful as ever. If you’ve ever loved Doom, this is the version to carry around in your pocket. If you’ve never played, now’s the time to start.

iDrop Dead: Flower Edition

A physics-based puzzler where your job is to inflict as much damage as possible to cute cartoon characters. Tear their limbs off, expose their skulls and blow them up. This is a game, though, not an animated joke and the level goals are well-judged and careful consideration and well-timed flicking is needed to get them all. Forget Ragdoll Blaster and Max Injury, iDrop Dead is the pinnacle of the ragdoll genre and the Flower Edition contains the most content and is well worth paying for over the free versions.

Minigore

There are a lot twin-stick shooters on the App Store, but Minigore is the best. It may not have the RPG-like aspects of Alive-4-ever or the maze-like levels of Against The Fire, but it surpasses all other examples of the genre in pure frantic shooting fun. It’s fast, furious, relentless and tuned to perfection.

Orbital

Fantastic game that tests your aim and your brain. The mechanics are hard to explain, but obvious when you play. It’s a brutally hard game, but never unfair. Like many great games, you may develop a love-hate relationship with it – but you’ll keep going back.

Soosiz

The sound-bite description is Mario Galaxy in 2D, but with its cute visuals and small, but increasingly challenging, levels Soosiz soon leaves its inspiration behind and proves itself to be its own master. It controls perfectly, features a surprising amount of variety and has a enough levels to keep you going for a long, long time. It’s a joyous, bouncy experience, reminiscent of the best 16-bit platformers while being completely modern.

Str8ts

Sometimes you need to kick back and feed your brain, not your reactions, and there are a number of grid-based number puzzles for such occasions. There’s Sudoku, obviously, and KenKen, but the best of them is Str8ts. It’s impossible to say why, but Str8ts is simply the most satisfying puzzle game there is. It’s always logical and if you’re stuck, it’s only ever because you’ve missed something. The ratio between baffled staring and eureka moments is just right and when things flow, it’s glorious.

This is not a bad thing at all. It’s not annoying, broken or spiteful difficulty. It feels more like the game respects the progress you’ve made and knows that you’ve earned the right to bigger challenges.

Really, if you’ve ever loved 2D platformers and have an iPhone or iPod Touch you need this game.

Well, I’m pleased to announce that the second boss level is only that – a level with a boss fight. No preamble, no long trek to get to the boss, no need for checkpoints. This would make multiple retries a lot easier to bear, but the boss was actually so easy I killed him first time. That might be disappointing for some, but it was a giant relief for me.

And so from the mushroom-filled second world I headed off to world three.

It’s in space. I have a space helmet and everything.

This game is glorious.

I then proceeded to get hopelessly stuck on a completely different blue coin level. This one doesn’t rotate when you go under platforms, nor does it scroll. Instead you’ve just got a fixed-view, flick screen level. It’s basically a glimpse of what Soosiz could have been, had it gone horribly wrong at some point in development. It’s still fun, though, just very, very hard. I’ve still not got all the blue coins, but I’ve settled for silver medal and have moved on.

Now I’m finding a regular level quite tricky but, again, not in a bad way. The game boots up so quickly that you don’t feel committed to playing for ages when you start it up. I tend to have three or four attempts, then shut it down and check the Internet, then come back a little later. Keeps it fresh and helps keep the frustration demons at bay.

I really want to get to the last level of the second world so I can see how annoying the boss is. I have a feeling it’s going to make or break the game for me. Mind you, even if I do give up at that point, I’ll still be very pleased I bought the game, given how much I’ve enjoyed what I’ve played.

In this one, you have to make bits of the level appear and disappear by jumping on buttons, but the changes only last a set amount of time. I can only get so far, because there’s one section where the part of the level I’ve just made appear suddenly disappears with no warning. I suspect there might be some sound effects letting me know what’s happening, but as I play with the sound off that’s not very helpful.

When the level disappears, I disappear along with it, until I press the jump button, suddenly reappear and then plummet to my doom.

It’s not as annoying as it sounds, though. I know I’ve just got to work out how to do that section more quickly. I’ll keep plugging away.

The story’s not especially important.

When it comes to the game, though, you’ve basically got a Super Mario Galaxy-inspired 2D platformer. Lots of little planetoids floating in space, all with their own gravity. Up becomes down, down becomes up. It’s all very confusing at first, but it becomes second nature surprisingly quickly, helped by a difficulty curve that appears to be close to perfection. I’m on the second world now and the game has been getting harder ever so gradually. You don’t really notice until you go back to one of the first levels and scoff at its simplicity.

It’s really very lovely. It looks great, with a Rolando/Loco Roco vibe and the controls are perfect, though getting used to the exact placement of the left and right buttons took five or ten minutes to get down. It doesn’t save your progress within a level if you quit out for any reason, but levels are short enough for that not to be an issue.

Overall, it’s a great game and one of the App Store highlights… but there’s a fly in the ointment.

The game commits one of the worst sins possible, something no game should ever do in the twenty-first century. Something that had me growling and almost giving up.

It has boss fights at the end of certain levels… without a checkpoint before the boss. So if the boss kills you, then you have to go back and do the whole level again. This was irritating the first time it happened, but later in the game when the difficulty of both the boss and the preceding level is higher, I think it might be fatal. I hope not, but I’m very worried.