Top 5 most anticipated mobile games for 2010

Compiling a list of future mobile game releases is no easy task, let me tell you. Unlike the wider games industry, mobile developers and publishers seem relatively tight lipped over their future plans - we tend to only find out about most of them a couple of months ahead of release.

Rather than speculate wildly, we thought we’d highlight a few games we know are coming in 2010. Most if not all will be arriving towards the beginning of the year, so you shouldn’t have too long to wait.

Let us know about any mobile games you're looking forward to in the comments below.

With a new Splinter Cell on the way for the consoles comes a new Splinter Cell mobile game from Gameloft. By the time this arrives, we’ll have gone three years without slipping into the sneaky shoes of Sam Fisher on our phones. Time flies when you’re not having stealthy fun.

It’s looking like the new-look console release will be a far more energetic, action-packed affair with its Bourne-aping tale of a rogue super-agent on a revenge mission. How this will affect the mobile game is anyone’s guess.

It’s a pretty safe bet that it’ll retain its side-scrolling action roots - which is no bad thing considering how much we enjoyed the mobile treatment of Chaos Theory. We’re sure that Gameloft will continue the good work, as well as sneaking in a few surprises.

It came as something of a surprise to us to learn that EA had acquired the rights for the enormously popular casual puzzler Jewel Quest series. Although given that it is enormously popular and EA has more money than a small country, we probably shouldn’t have been.

If you haven’t played any previous versions before (where have you been?) it mixes Bejeweled-style gem-swapping gameplay with a light hearted Indiana Jones-style adventure. That might sound like an odd mix, but the jet-setting premise allows for a surprising amount of variation in the levels.

Early word is that EA is looking to bring a whole heap of bonus awards and achievements to their first Jewel Quest, as well as its now customary practice of making established franchises more playable on the go with special modes.

We know very little about this one at this point, but we know it’s coming, which is reason enough to get us whooping and hollering and preparing to let slip the worms of war. Again.

We’d hazard a guess that this will be a stripped down version of the iPhone game that turned up in 2009, which in itself shared much with the PS3 version. Console Worms on our mobile phones? Yes please.

Whatever form it takes, though, we’ll be looking forward to more wriggly carnage on the move - especially when you look at how spiffing the last one was.

There’s a sequel to the atmospheric PC shooter Stalker in the works, so we’re not too surprised to see a mobile version appearing on the roadmaps. We can only hope that it matches the ambition of the first attempt at a mobile conversion from Qplaze, which featured a lush (by mobile standards) 3D engine.

Regardless of how the sequel is presented, if the developers can nail the atmosphere of the host series they’ll be on to a winner. The games are set in a post-apocalyptic Ukraine that’s full of deadly mercenaries, radiation black spots and crazy mutated beasties - a truly evocative place to play.

While the PC games are sprawling, open ended affairs we’re expecting a far tighter, scripted mobile interpretation. Let’s hope it’s a good one.

At the other end of the spectrum to Stalker’s dark, brooding world we have Bloons, which has you popping balloons with a monkey. Can there be any more joyful a premise than that?

No.

It seems that squillions of iPhone users would agree with that sentiment, too - Bloons’s iPhone release has gone down an absolute storm. A mobile release really seemed like a matter of when rather than if, and so it proved.

The gameplay is simplicity itself - you aim your, er, aimer at a bunch of balloons then press and hold the 'fire' button to build up power before releasing your dart. The idea is to pop as many balloons as possible with a limited number of darts.

Of all the releases on this list, we can imagine how Bloons will look and play the best - it’ll be almost identical to the iPhone and Flash versions (if a little more squished), and it will suit the mobile platform like a monkey suits balloons. That’s 'very well,' by the way.