The free iPhone game Trawler Report: Sky Tour, Hired Gun, Hold ‘em Battle

To borrow an old UK advertising slogan: I get that Friday feeling when a free game comes my way.

Or four, for that matter. Yes, it’s time for the Trawler Report – our weekly sift through the App Store meat factory for those prime freebie off-cuts.

This week we’ve got pizzas, hit men, blimps, and cards – which sounds rather like a night out in Newcastle. Only kidding - I’ve never been to Newcastle. I’m sure it’s lovely.

(It's not - ed.)

At the opposite end of the spectrum from lovely we have our Crap App, which this week seeks to irritate as much as it sucks. Pathetically, it can’t even manage that.

Pizza Shop Mania
By Digital Chocolate
Type Full

The time-management genre might have had its time in the limelight, but that doesn’t stop Pizza Shop Mania from being worthy of attention. It’s a fun, polished experience.

Typically of Digital Chocolate, it looks sharp and plays very smoothly indeed. Your job is to run a pizza parlour, taking and fulfilling customer orders as quickly and efficiently as possible.

As with all the best time-management games, the key to success is multi-tasking, so the real challenge comes in remembering and prioritising customer orders so that no one gets annoyed.

Pizza Shop Mania doesn’t bring anything particularly exciting to the table, but the service is impeccable.

Hold ‘em Battle/Blitz
By Thwart Poker Inc
Type Demo

This neat twist on poker brings an extra element of second guessing into the mix, and allows you to sabotage an opposing player’s hand.

Once the first three cards are displayed on the table, each player must form a five card hand by selection cards from the same random selection of 20.

If two players select the same card, they’ll be 'thwarted,' and won’t get to keep the card. As such, there’s a great deal of value in picking a less obvious or slightly weaker hand.

Though it’s only a demo, you can play unlimited single games in both the Battle and Blitz variant. The only difference between the two is that there’s a betting element to Battle.

Sky Tour
By Bunz Software Development
Type Full

These one-button see-how-far-you-can-get games are ten a penny right now, but something about Sky Tour grabbed my attention.

It’s not an especially clever or deep game – you press a virtual button to make your zeppelin rise and release it to fall, all in the name of avoiding the various hazards that come your way. There’s a good variety to these, though, from missiles to superheroes and witches.

Indeed, it’s this fantastical, faintly Ghibli-esque atmosphere – helped no end by the attractive art style and an excellent, airy soundtrack – that made me play this when so many similar titles pass me by.

Pick of the week

Hired Gun
By Triniti Interactive
Type Full

Triniti is getting very good at this free game malarkey. Yet another offering from the studio makes the Trawler Report, and proves to be my favourite freebie of the week. Hired Gun is a brilliantly focused example of what you can do in this field with a bit of care. It’s a sniper game, where you have to pick out all of the stick men wandering around wearing a certain colour of hat (surely that’s discrimination). You then zoom in, fine tune your aim by tilting your iPhone, and squeeze the trigger.

It’s an immensely satisfying and challenging mechanic, allowing for plenty of finesse (you get bonus time for head shots). It also looks fantastic, and possesses the funkiest soundtrack you’ll hear all year.

Crap apps

Annoy Free
By Knighthawk Systems
Type Full

I was thinking of inventing a whole new category for Annoy Free: Obnoxious Apps. As it happens, there was no need, as it’s equally crap.

The app plays assorted sounds at timed or random intervals. Apparently this is intended to either “annoy your friends or just to amuse yourself.” I’m sure it would achieve the former, but only an imbecile could find it amusing.

It’s not even an especially imaginative or effective annoying tool, with a paltry six sounds available. These include the really not very annoying “Cricket” sound and the frankly-quite-normal-for-an-iPhone “Phone” sound, which just makes you look like a prat for not answering it.