The Trawler Report: We’re on the road to retroville with Squareball and Leroy Smith

When you spend a lot of time on the Trawler, listening to the purr of its engine as those waves of price drops, updates and new games splash up against its flaking hull, you sometimes start to think a little philosophically about the comings and goings of the App Store.

All those little pearl-like games that came and went unheard, barely breaking through the surface before they were pushed under once more by a new wave of bigger, bolder games.

Watching the App Store day by day is not entirely unlike watching a David Attenborough wildlife documentary, as you see a little group of fledgling antelope decimated by a pair of cheetahs. The App Store – it’s a jungle out there, and an ocean… not bad for a virtual entity.

Anyway, on with the freebies!

The best free iPhone games on the App Store

Robocalypse Lite
By Vogster Entertainment
What is it? It’s a robo-RTS
Type Demo

Although many of the best iPhone games are of the casual sort, Apple's machine has not been a device to shy away from the more hardcore end of the gaming spectrum. Robocalypse is a real-time strategy game that’s already been released for Nintendo DS in the US, and remains pretty much the same in this iPhone port.

An army of robots has gone haywire and turned against its human masters. You have to build another army of good bots to bring back order. It’s a lot more light-hearted than a Terminator game, though.

This lite version lets you play the first two levels, which will show you the basics of unit construction, attacking and the collecting of resources.

Ancient War Lite
By Triniti Interactive Limited
What is it? It’s inverted castle defence
Type Demo

Ancient War isn’t so much about castle defence as castle attack, although your own stronghold is also under threat. At each end of the level rest the totems of you and your enemy. You aim is to destroy theirs by sending in wave after wave of units, although they’ll be doing the same too.

In the relatively early stages offered in this lite version, winning is mostly a strategy of piling on the peons, making sure you don’t go making the wrong type for too long. However, Ancient War has still got that addictive quality we associate with the ‘defence’ sub-genres, and should keeping you tapping away happily for a while.

Sliding Heroes Lite
By Square Enix
What is it? It’s an accelerometer battler
Type Demo

Square Enix’s iPhone games have been a bit hit and miss so far on iPhone, and Sliding Heroes is perhaps its oddest concept yet. It’s an action adventure game where you control a gang of warriors with the accelerometer. So, yes, they slide about like ball bearings in a wooden maze, although thankfully with a slightly different physics model.

It’s not just a simple sliding game, though. You can have a number of different soldiers on the field at once, and there are a few different types you can make, too. Some have ranged fire, others are powerful but have weak defences and others are just your common grunts. And yes, you control all these different troops at the same time with the accelerometer.

Exactly how well this will work through the full passage of the game remains to be seen, but for a quirky concept to try out for free, Sliding Heroes is worth moseying on down to.

Guitar Rock Tour 2 Free
By Gameloft
What is it? It’s Guitar Hero World Tour, sort of
Type Demo

Back when we were gaming youngsters, it seemed to take forever for the sequel to a game to come out. These days, thanks to these young upstart iPhone kids, sequels flash by before you’ve even got past the original’s menu screen. Perhaps we’re just getting old.

Guitar Rock Tour was the iPhone’s answer to Guitar Hero, and Guitar Rock Tour 2 nudges things onwards with a new batch of songs to get your whammy bar ‘a rattlin’.

The lite version lets you play just the one song, but it’s a goodie: Steppenwolf’s ‘Born to Be Wild’. You can play drums or guitar, at any of the three difficulty levels. Not much else has changed a great deal apart from the songs, but for a quick free blast of rocking, Guitar Rock Tour 2 Free is a treat.

Pick of the Week

Squareball
By Dromsynth
What is it? It’s a blend of the old and the new
Type Demo

Not only did sequels used to take ages to arrive back in the day, but games were hard, too. Go back into gaming’s history, say 15 years or so, and see how you fare with the games of yesteryear – with ‘yer lily livered modern gaming sensibilities all pansy’d up to the eyeballs.

Well, actually you don’t have to because Squareball brings the feel of an oldie game to iPhone – arguably the most progressive platform around.

You have to guide a bouncing ball – well, square – from one end of the level to the other by effectively dragging the background. While all the objects are drawn like those of a mid-'80s arcade game, with pixels the size of Pontiacs, there’s a 3D look to everything that makes Squareball a pretty retro homage, not just, well, ugly. We gave it one of our coveted Gold Awards, so checking it out for free is a no-brainer.

Crap Apps Box of Awesome

Leroy Smith iMotivator
By Blast Radius
What is it? It’s for all those people who wish they were a little bit taller, or a baller
Type Full

Do you know who Leroy Smith is?

Don’t worry, we didn’t either. He’s the man who inspired Michael Jordan, NBA star, to become the god-like, and very tall, basketball star he is – or was, whatever.

Okay, so he probably wasn’t, but the door into the weird world of Leroy Smith is one you should consider peeking into. This app is little more than a soundboard for this wacky comic character – who probably has a movie on the way – but there’s some comedy gold to be unlocked.

Check out Leroy’s hilarious – and actually quite fun – web game for a taster. Who is he? David Chappelle with a bald-fro? Eddie Murphy with some face work done (and actually being quite funny again)? Answers on a postcard if you find out exactly what on earth’s going on with Leroy.