Top 10 best iPhone and iPad games of December 2013
Snakes! Sushi! Squiggles!
We're not quite done with 2013.
While the year is dead and buried, and we're all laser-focused on 2014, we've still got some unfinished business from last year.
Specifically, we've got to round off the year with a round-up of the best iOS games from December. So, let's do that. Right now.
Last month, we were witness to enormous console conversions, clever new puzzle games, massive sequels, and more.
Even when you take a week off for Christmas (and take into account the App Store freeze), there were a record number of awesome games in December. Here are ten of the best.
Cut the Rope 2By ZeptoLab - buy on iPhone and iPad
Cut the Rope was a game with a name that doubled up as the main instruction. In this dynamic sequel, though, ZeptoLab has added so many ideas that it could be called Pop the Balloon, Retract the Tongue, or Clone the Blue Monster Guy.
Whatever new toys are added, though, this remains a simple, satisfying single-screen puzzle game that won't leave your Home screen until you've finished every stage and rinsed them for those all-important stars.
Grand Theft Auto: San AndreasBy Rockstar Games - buy on iPhone and iPad
San Andreas is one of the most ambitious games ever made. In this PS2 crime epic, you can drive cars, climb mountains, tag graffiti, parachute out of choppers, fly planes, be a firefighter, and do hundreds of other jobs.
To have this game on your phone is to have instant access to a whole other world, wherever you are. And it's a world of sharp dialogue, scattershot satire, great music, and a huge storyline to work through. It even works alright on touchscreen.
The Wolf Among UsBy Telltale Games - buy on iPhone and iPad
The blurb for Telltale's latest graphic novel adaptation sounds quite absurd. Storybook characters like Snow White, Tweedledum, and the Big Bad Wolf are now living in 1980s New York. Oh, and they all use magic to disguise their fairy tale forms.
But it works. Somehow. And sets the stage for an engrossing episodic whodunit story that's - so far, we're only on episode one - well written, slickly presented, and moves at a thundering pace. Bring on part two.
Colossatron: Massive World ThreatBy Halfbrick - buy on iPhone and iPad
I hope you've remembered your primary colours. In Halfbrick's latest, you are forced to mix and match red, blue, and yellow gems at speed in order to keep a rampaging robot snake alive and kicking.
You don't have much control over the eponymous robo-snake, mind, which takes some getting used to. But boosting the power of your pet massive world threat by making judicious and immediate decisions results in a quite compulsive thrill of its own.
Sushi SnakeBy Brave New Hello World - buy on iPhone and iPad
Sushi Snake is one of those puzzlers that'll leave you with a big grin on your face when you realise just how devilishly clever it is.
It might look simple, you see, with its minimalist style and pixel-art visuals, but it's one of the tougher head-scratchers we played last month.
It's all about snakes who want to chow down on dots. Alas, the snakes turn the colour of whatever they eat and then can't pass through walls of the same colour. It means thinking ahead, experimenting with solutions, and chomping right through your fellow reptiles.
Ridge Racer SlipstreamBy Invictus - buy on iPhone and iPad
In his glowing Gold Award review, reviewer man Jon Mundy called this game "an almost perfect distillation of the last great console Ridge Racer, with spot-on handling and a stunning engine." He then dubbed it "arguably the best arcade racer on iOS".
High praise, indeed.
And Invictus even got off lightly regarding the endless in-app purchases - which enable you to leapfrog past events and unlock better cars and boosts - for the Hungarian dev handles the monetisation with an "admirable lightness of touch".
The Inner WorldBy Studio Fizbin - buy on iPhone and iPad
Point-and-click adventure The Inner World takes place in a truly inventive fairy tale world.
Asposia, a wind-powered nation found inside the hollow tummy of a rocky planet, is a place of wind monks, wooloofs, noses that can be played like flutes, and flying snakes that turn you to stone.
The actual process of talking to people and filling your pockets with everything not bolted down is more traditional. But, at the very least, the puzzles are considered and well designed, which means you'll rarely get lost or stuck.
The Shadow SunBy Ossian Studios - buy on iPhone and iPad
If Ravensword: Shadowlands wasn't quite the Skyrim-esque experience for which you were hoping, then give The Shadow Sun a go. It's another enormous, open, and in-depth RPG, with shades of tabletop games and console adventures.
Role-playing expert Matt gave it a Silver Award. He said that "it's easy to lose yourself in the rich world, immersive lore, and forest of side-quests of The Shadow Sun".
The Room 2By Fireproof Games - buy on iPad
In retrospect, The Room should have been called "The Box". You only poked, prodded, pawed at, and solved the puzzles on one intricate puzzle box, after all.
The name The Room 2 is perfectly justified in this sequel, though, for here Fireproof pulls the camera out and lets you explore entire rooms.
Rooms filled with weird machines, tactile objects for you to play with, and some of the most delightful brainteasers you're likely to find on iPad.
BlekBy Kunabi Brother - buy on iPad
Blek is a game about repetition.
Draw a doodle or a curly line on the screen and it will keep replicating itself until it falls off the screen or hits an obstacle. With this simple rule in mind, you can set up self-perpetuating squiggles that score through all the coloured dots on display.
Unlike most puzzle games, there's no set solution to find in Blek. You can do whatever works to finish the level, which is sometimes more satisfying than arriving at some singular answer.
Previously...
November 2013 - October 2013 - September 2013
