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The ten best mobile games of 2007

The finest £50 you'll spend this year

The ten best mobile games of 2007
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The strangest thing about mobile gaming in 2007 is that there was nothing strange about it. We were braced for ad-supported freebies, 3D spectaculars, a stream of flash titles, motion-sensing, location-based games, camera gimmickry, community features, and of course the ever-elusive N-Gage platform to inundate us with their high-tech marvels. Everyone agreed that big changes were coming.

So here we are, staring down the barrel of 2008 and nothing much has happened. Sure, we've tinkered with some N-Gage titles, 3D games have been growing steadily more prominent, Digital Chocolate unveiled its DChoc Café series of community games, we politely watched a man from Nokia doing camera phone keepy-ups with his finger and spent some time tinkering with motion-sensing titles in the far east, but on the whole it's been business as usual in the mobile gaming world.

Which isn't to say things haven't improved. By and large, the games in this list aren't just the best games of 2007, but the best mobile games we've ever played. One of them, Critter Crunch, is undergoing an unusual transformation from mobile to DS, while February's Orcs & Elves has already been there. Once a small fry, the mobile is now trading notes with the world's most successful gaming device.

But ultimately, there's nothing very new in this list. There's innovation, particularly in Urban Attack's visionary take on the target genre, but nothing like the revolution we expected. And guess what: we didn't need it.

The ten best mobile games of 2007

10. Win at Texas Hold 'em Poker
Developer: I-play
Publisher: I-play


Poker has come a long way in the last couple of years, and the mobile has seen a succession of excellent titles. We've chosen I-play's recent effort for two reasons: it doesn't let you spend real money, taking the more difficult path of supplying excellent AI opposition; and it makes a point of teaching you how to play. Win at Texas Hold 'em Poker features the international poker star Daniel Negreanu, but declines to mention him in the title, a decision that embodies the game's quiet authority. There are no exchanges of corny virtual banter, no slick animations, and no superfluous game modes here; the poker speaks for itself.

9. DChoc Café
Developer: Digital Chocolate
Publisher: Digital Chocolate


'Community' is one of the biggest buzzwords in the highly personal and portable world of mobile gaming, but relatively few developers have managed to turn theory into practice. It was no surprise to us that Digital Chocolate was the first to make a proper go of it. The DChoc Café concept takes the form of a series of board and card games situated in an isometric café environment. You can dress your avatar, decorate your café, invite opponents, build your premises over time, and generally dwell in the continuous world that the developer has built. The games that make up the Café are all solid, but it's the community infrastructure that distinguishes this as one of the year's most promising mobile releases.

8. Project Gotham Racing (3D)
Developer: Glu
Publisher: Glu


Although it technically appeared at the very end of 2006, Project Gotham Racing 3D is simply too good to neglect. From the flashy 3D graphics to the Ghost Racer connectivity features, via a range of modes and vehicles and flawless handling, PGR is a roaring success. We like to mount our soapboxes from time to time to decry the inappropriate shoehorning of high-end licences onto the humble mobile handset but PGR proves that, with care, the mobile can carry off even the flashiest console impersonation with confidence.

7. Real Football 2008
Developer: Gameloft
Publisher: Gameloft


Three football games battled it out for sports game of the year, but neither Pro Evolution Soccer nor FIFA 08 quite made the final cut. Real Football is here not because it's the out-and-out best, although it arguably is, but because it was born in the mobile stable and continues to defy the major licences. The improvement on the 2007 edition is fairly minimal in terms of core gameplay, but Gameloft's decision to go 3D paid off. Real Football 2008 looks great, plays well, and features enough modes to retain its giant killer status for another season.

6. Blades & Magic
Developer: Fishlabs
Publisher: Player X


There's magic, there's levelling up, and there are orcs and dragons. Blades & Magic might not add much to the RPG genre as a whole, but it makes a huge contribution to the mobile canon. Ever the philosopher, our own Stuart Dredge recently coined the phrase 'new hardcore' to describe games like Blades & Magic. So often regarded – even dismissed – as a casual platform, the mobile phone is capable of much more than most give it credit for, and Blades & Magic is an excellent showcase not only for the power of Fishlabs's Abyss 3D engine but for the potential for mobile to deliver rich and complex gameplay.

5. Flexis Extreme
Developer: VisualMedia
Publisher: Telcogames


We'd be lying if we said Flexis Extreme was original. In fact, it's the oldest and most overused concept in the video game puzzle handbook: different-coloured blocks fall down, you bring those of the same colour into contact, they disappear, repeat. Flexis Extreme is Tetris plus physics. Rather than sticking to an invisible grid, its rubbery agglomerations of blocks rebound off obstacles and tumble freely, resting where they land. It's such a simple gimmick that you'll be amazed you haven't seen it more often, and such an effective one that you'll wonder why every puzzler isn't vulcanised.

4. Table Tennis Star
Developer: Shadow Light Games
Publisher: Player One


Like SolaRola, there is something of the homage in Table Tennis Star, but while the former took its inspiration from a PSP title, the latter looked straight to the top of the console food chain and pulled off something remarkably close in both look and feel to Rockstar's Table Tennis. The astonishingly rich pre-rendered graphics are amongst the best we've seen on mobile, but even these take a back seat to the remarkable alchemy of physics and control that turned a rainy day pursuit into one of the most addictive and satisfying sports games around.

3. Urban Attack
Developer: Vivendi Games Mobile
Publisher: Vivendi Games Mobile


Even before you fire your first shot, Urban Attack's elaborate dystopian plot hints at something special. After a second Cold War breaks out between the US and Russia, the arms trafficking trade enables the Red Mafia to overthrow the government and escalate international hostilities to all-out butchery. You play the role of Yuri, an amnesiac Russian cyborg gradually discovering his identity as pops inexhaustible caps in American asses. A grid-based target shooter that boils down to something like a frantic and well-paced game of whack-a-mole, Urban Attack's unique and ingenious pared-down cyberpunk look is as much a part of the experience as the shooting.

2. Critter Crunch
Developer: Capybara Games
Publisher: Disney Mobile Studios


To make a puzzle game for mobile is the easiest thing in the world. To make an impression with one is the hardest, and so developer Capybara deserves kudos not only for choosing to compete in mobile gaming's busiest division, but for pulling it off so magnificently that the door to DS glory was thrown open. Despite revolving around the consumption and regurgitation of insects by larger insects, Critter Crunch manages to endear because its cast of exquisitely-drawn invertebrates look as happy to be involved as you are in the game's deceptively rich pastel-hued carnival of fun.

1. SolaRola
Developer: Progressive Media
Publisher: Eidos


Derivative of LocoRoco? Perhaps. A bit too tricky? Maybe. A 'perfect' 10? Well, points are there to be contended, and as soon as we passed our verdict the comments board started to crackle with agreement and dissent. Wherever you stand, however, there's no doubt that SolaRola is the shining light in a genre populated for the most part by listless film and console tie-ins. By turns funny and demanding, the entire game is a hugely inventive riff on the theme of movement and malleability, in which a single motif of circles recurs and yet no two levels are the same. This is platforming at its pinnacle.

Rob Hearn
Rob Hearn
Having obtained a distinguished education, Rob became Steel Media's managing editor, now he's no longer here though.