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The free iPhone game Trawler Report – 2XL ATV Offroad, Spore Creatures, and Stranded: Mysteries of Time

20th April 2010

The free iPhone game Trawler Report – 2XL ATV Offroad, Spore Creatures, and Stranded: Mysteries of Time
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Many developers are furiously working away at iPad games at the moment, so we were a little surprised to see quite how many high-profile iPhone freebies appeared on the App Store this week.

Three mobile veterans make an appearance – Gameloft, EA, and Glu all have entries – and maestro of snazzy racers 2XL Games is no small fry these days either.

It demonstrates the extraordinary momentum iPhone gaming has managed to gather together since the scene began, even though it's less than two years old.

The iPhone is like a steamroller. First it squished rival phones, and now it threatens to squish gaming consoles too. Will it succeed? Only time will tell.

The best free iPhone games on the App Store

2XL ATV Offroad Lite
By
2XL Games
Type Demo

At review, 2XL ATV Offroad was criticised for its lack of a chunky, satisfying career mode – but these issues don't crop up in the quick-fire lite version.

It features a full track to race around. Just soak in the beautiful, beautiful mud. 2XL ATV Offroad isn't set in the world's most gorgeous locations, but its fab graphics more than make up for the muddy tracks.

You control your ATV buggy with the accelerometer, but there's a handful of control options to let you customise how your kart rolls.

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Spore Creatures Free
By
EA
Type Demo Spore Creatures sees you take a cute little amoeba-like creature and lead it through the various stages of evolution. It's only a very loose lesson in Darwinism, thoug,h because it takes liberties with how the process works.

As you progress, you unlock all sorts of appendages, limbs, and horns to glue onto your creature. Using these, you can design the best possible version of your creature – so survival of the fittest gets back into the equation in the end.

The free version of Spore Creatures lets you play the first two levels, out of the full 20.

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The Simpsons Arcade Free
By Gameloft
Type Demo Remember that old The Simpsons arcade game? Where you could play as Marge and swing her vacuum cleaner as a weapon? Well, that's what this iPhone game is based on.

It's not a direct port, being instead an "inspired by" remake. The results aren't quite as great as the arcade original – or the mobile version – but it's worth a download for Simpsons fans.

This freebie lets you play through the first level of the full game. A bite of the doughnut.

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Airdrop Pro
By Christiaan Rendle
Type Full Sometimes it's the most innocuous looking games that are secretly the most fiendish. Airdrop Pro is a serially unforgiving – and you might even say cruel – game, but it remains strangely moreish.

A plane flies overhead, and you have to carefully time a screen tap to let loose its cargo, so that it lands on a target below. You have to factor-in wind speeds and the speed of the plane too. Tricky.

You start off with just one life, and only win more lives by perfecting rounds, which consist of several drops.

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Pick of the week Stranded: Mysteries of Time
By Glu
Type Demo If you have never played the original Stranded mobile game, you're missing out. Released in 2005, it was an eye-opener – an epic adventure, on your mobile phone.

This game is the sequel, heating the action up with time travelling and Jurassic Park-esque, Dino-filled world.

The free version lets you play the first two episodes of Stranded: Mysteries of Time.

Yes, there are dinosaurs.

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Crap Apps Box of Shame Award OMG!
By Maraj
Type Full The internet has brought many amazing, life-changing innovations. Free, instant worldwide communication, oodles of knowledge, and the ability to sell your old DVDs to someone half-way across the country without even talking to them, all deserve a mention. Not all the internet has brought with it is positive, though. OMG! proves this point.

As you may have already guessed, it's a soundbox that pipes out OMIGOD soundbites on command. Yes, we know you think it's "So funee LOL," but we have conclusive proof that it isn't.

Wait there, BRB, AFK.