Top 10 Halloween games on iPhone according to the critics

Just over a month ago, Pocket Gamer publisher Steel Media launched Quality Index (Qi), an online resource for iPhone games and apps, which aggregates professional reviews into a single Qi score out of ten.

With only five days to go until All Saints’ Eve, we thought this would be an opportune moment to take advantage of Qi’s powerful, and indeed magical, filtering system and bring you its definitive list of Halloween-themed iPhone gaming treats.

From tower defence to twin-stick shooters, perpetual climbing to professional football, there ought to be enough variation below to satisfy even the most demanding iPhone spirit.

So, in a VERY particular order, here are Qi’s top gaming recommendations for Halloween, though don’t wait until October 31st to download them!

Plants vs Zombies (PopCap Games)

Qi rating = 9.0

If you haven’t yet sampled the devilish delights of PopCap’s iconic tower defence title, where have you been and whom – sorry, what - have you been doing?

Protect your home from the onrushing hordes of zombified pole-vaulters, snorkelers, bucketheads, and disco dancers by strategically planting an assortment of undead-mashing flora.

Supplies are limited, of course, so seeing off those pesky phantoms in the backyard swimming pool, say, isn't quite as straightforward as the premise itself.

Zombie Attack! (IUGO) Qi rating = 8.8

Substituting cannons and flame throwers for PopCap’s sunflowers and cacti, IUGO’s polished tower defence game taps into the more traditional motifs of zombie lore, namely an apocalypse, a lone survivor, and a worryingly isolated shack.

As to be expected, you’re targeted from the off by wave after wave of flesh eaters, desperate for that newly purchased MacBook Air inside your cabin and, oh, some blood.

To erect your turrets on the battlefield, move the last-man-standing via the iPhone’s accelerometer and tap on the screen for your weapon of choice. Carefully place your plucky hero right next to the field gun and inflict even greater damage on the evil dead.

Should matching three objects prove too insubstantial for your liking, Casual Friday Games’s smooth and responsive offering ups the puzzling ante by a great big factor of one.

The aim of the game is to complete four block squares of identical colour by tilting your handset in the appropriate direction. Simple, huh?

Well, no, because a host of spooky enemies, not unsurprisingly, have it in for your fragile tetragon, and will seek, destroy, or inconveniently implode given half an opportunity.

Top-down shooting on iOS doesn’t get much better than this, the first in Meridian’s twin-stick zombie blaster series.

And as ever, the origins of the deadly virus that has infected the majority of the town’s inhabitants in Alive 4-ever are unknown. You, therefore, face a harrowing choice: rescue the last remaining survivors from the lurching legion or save yourself.

Luckily, you’re equipped with 16 different weapons with which to eviscerate the unruly mob across 30 varied missions, accumulating experience points for good measure and vaccines for good karma.

One of two slices of sporting simulation on this definitive list of Halloween-themed games, Com2uS’s arcade baseball game will appeal to fans and non-fans alike of America’s favourite pastime.

Homerun Battle 3D marries perfect presentation with a faultless online match-up system to create a slugfest worthy of Babe Ruth.

If you happen to hit one or four out of the park in an over-the-air scuffle, you can now sport a jack-o'-lantern in future skirmishes as a symbol of victory. Enough to put off even the most composed of pitchers, I’d imagine.

You may have heard of Angry Birds. If not, I don't quite know what you're doing on this site, to be honest.

Dubious search engine results aside, Rovio’s disgruntled fliers have returned in this Halloween special edition to exact revenge on those thieving swine once more.

Featuring the same menagerie of aggravated avian as the monstrously successful original, Angry Birds Halloween rewards precision catapulting in this physics-based puzzling phenomenon.

Concocted by the modestly named Super Awesome Hyper-Dimensional Mega Team, Pro Zombie Soccer swaps goals for ghouls, combining corpses, comics, and combos for lethal shooting of the footballing kind.

While it often felt like the England 2010 World Cup team resembled a pack of living dead during the summer, the staggering masses on pitch in Chillingo’s violently satisfying story are real ghostly phenoms.

If the art style and mechanics seem reminiscent of the #1 game on this list, Plants vs Zombies, that’s no coincidence, for the developer had a hand in the creation of PopCap’s TD titan.

Epic, deep, and gigantic go a lonnnnng way to describing Kyle Poole’s turn-based strategy game, which the man himself advertises as a cross between Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, Panzer General, and Final Fantasy Tactics.

High self-praise indeed.

If 200 scenarios spread across 15 major campaigns aren’t sufficient to occupy your brain matter, cross-platform multiplayer – v PC, Mac, and Linux gamers – brings some human challenge to proceedings.

As an extra treat, Battle for Wesnoth has been updated with a special undead campaign, boasting an additional ten+ hours of gameplay. Frighteningly good deal, don’t you think?

Another tower-cum-castle defence title to place on this definitive guide to Halloween-inspired iPhone gaming, Chillingo’s Monster Mayhem invites you to play the role of a frankly put-upon graveyard porter.

Charged with keeping the maniacal monsters at bay behind the rusty iron gates, your only form of defence against the likes of Frank Stein and Chainsaw Hewitt is all-out attack.

Kill enough of the critters then in the brand new Pumpkin Fever game mode, for instance, and you’ll unlock sabres, machine guns, and the ever-reliable nukes.

You may have heard... Hang on, we’ve done that gag.

Yes, Doodle Jump is insanely addictive, and, yes, it has been name checked in everything from Big Bang Theory to Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, but now it features a haunted Halloween theme!! Wooooooo!

Lima Sky’s intrepid hero Doodle has been subjected to the kind of misguided experimentation normally reserved for Mary Shelley characters, and, alas, the Doodlestein was born.

The perpetually climbing Doodler must dodge vampires, witches, and zombies in its inexorable ascent, making use of the incredibly taut tilt controls and, of course, the jet packs.