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The free iPhone game Trawler Report: We go Christmas crazy with Advent Annihilation: Westbang, and Santa Trapper

21st December 2009

The free iPhone game Trawler Report: We go Christmas crazy with Advent Annihilation: Westbang, and Santa Trapper
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The App Store has gone crazy in the run-up to Christmas. There were so many freebies released, not to mention other games that were only free for a day or so, that you could virtually fill your iPhone with them.

In this spirit of abundance, we’ve only featured Christmas games this week. It’s not that there weren’t decent non-festive freebies - there were loads! Sherlock Holmes Mysteries, Rogue Planet and Xenowars are just three that are well worth a look.

Christmas only comes once a year, though, so we thought that we’d indulge in a little more iPhone gaming eggnog. As you might imagine, Santa makes more than a few appearances, whether you’re trying to lock him up or save him from a towering block building.

The best free iPhone games on the App Store

Advent Annihilation: Westbang
By
Rake in Grass
Type Full

Gallery shooters are a good friend to the iPhone’s touchscreen, and Westbang’s one of the best out there on the App Store. Rake in Grass has given it a lick of festive paint and made it free to download in the form of Advent Annihilation.

It places you in front of four different doors, from which gun-wielding Santas and elves pop out. You can only blast them away once they’ve pulled out their piece, though - shooting before will lose you a life.

How could shooting Santa fail to get you into the festive spirit?

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DropBrick Christmas Edition
By
Antonio Xu
Type Full DropBrick’s Christmas tie-in may be a bit tenuous, but it’s enough for a place on the Trawler. In each level, there’s a festive character on top of a structure made out of blocks and you just have to help them get back down to the ground. To do this, you just tap on these blocks, which makes them disappear. However, there’s a physics system involved, too, so if you’re not careful you’ll end up flinging Santa into oblivion. There are just ten levels in this freebie festive edition, but add that to the other Christmas crackers on this week’s report and you’ve got more than enough to be getting on with.
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Christmas CaRoll Lite
By
Jae Wook Jung
Type Demo While we’ve had a spot of snow in the UK just recently, not everyone got enough to make a snowman - or indeed win themselves a day off work thanks to the cold white stuff. If you managed to miss the snow, Christmas CaRoll will help you feel like you haven’t missed out on too much.

It sees you controlling a snowball as it rolls down a hill. Collect snow power-ups and you’ll get bigger. Whack into too many trees and you’ll fall apart completely. You can jump to avoid them, though.

Quick, good-looking and making use of both the accelerometer and the touchscreen, Christmas CaRoll is a Christmas game that doesn’t feel like it’s just a quick edit of a thoroughly non-Christmassy original.

A Christmas Santa Lite
By
Blue Wind
Type Demo

First it was the post, and now it’s the airlines. Strikes are never too far away these days. In A Christmas Santa, Santa’s reindeer are putting up their antlers and refusing to play ball.

Instead of trying to coax them in with milk and mince pies, Santa decides he’ll just deliver the presents on his own - by flying. A Christmas Santa follows the 45 days leading up to Christmas as he trains and supercharges his sleigh.

Gameplay-wise, it’s dead simple, just leaving you to control Santa’s trajectory as he flies through the sky with each flight, but you also manage his upgrades between flights.

Pick of the Week

Santa Trapper
By
Two Lives Left
Type Full

The most common image of Santa is one of joviality and giving, but anyone that has seen Bad Santa will know what it’s not always the case that Santa has to be a good guy. Santa Trapper is all about these Santas that would rather see Christmas ruined.

Several of them are wandering around a shopping mall and you have to pen them in by making horizontal or vertical walls within the mall. Your aim is to separate them all while keeping as much of the shopping centre Santa-free.

However, if a Santa walks into one of your walls as its being constructed, it’ll be destroyed. It’s a Qix Christmas challenge.

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Crap Apps Box of Shame Throw Santa
By
Gergely Nagy
Type Full For every tasty bit of gaming stuffing, there’s always a turkey waiting somewhere nearby - and for us it’s Throw Santa. Just like this week’s other picks, it’s a Christmas-themed game, but we’d rather throw Throw Santa out of the nearest window than play it.

A simple little game, you just have to swipe across the screen to send gobs of green stuff flying towards Santa’s sleigh, which randomly ambles across the screen every now and then.

Hit the sleigh and it explodes like a festive firework, as if Santa has been packing dynamite rather than presents.

Unresponsive controls and an overall feeling that Throw Santa was cobbled together in an afternoon mean it doesn’t get a thumbs-up from the Trawler crew.