GAMES OF THE WEEK - The 5 best new games for iOS and Android - April 9th
It's that time again! Time for another entry into our long-running GAMES OF THE WEEK series.
If you're looking for the best 5 games which have hit the iPhone, iPad or Android stores this week then you've landed yourself at the exact right place at just the right time. Lucky, lucky you.
With this article, we skirt around the droves of subscription services (Apple Arcade, Google Play Pass, GameClub, Hatch, and all of their friends) which have launched onto mobile platforms over the years. We also don't factor in things like Steam Link or Google Stadia which allow streaming to handheld devices - and would open up this list to almost every game under the sun.
What that means is that our list is a finely curated list of brilliant, fresh titles which you can download and play without subscribing to, or installing, any third-party initiative. Of course, there are some great games on those services, but, let's focus on the stuff that you can grab right now.
This week you're going to be kicking in doors, cooking up a storm and blasting along to your favourite songs, oh, and there's also a puzzle game about a dinosaur and a very cool looking post-apocalyptic shooter.
Remember, if you're looking to check through some of our previous selections then you can always do that at our Games of The Week Hub, it's a great way to find games to fill out that empty storage space on your phone. Or, if you like your news in bitesize chunks, delivered straight to your palm then maybe follow us on Twitter.
Anyway, without any further delay, click on the big, blue button below to find out more about our top five of the games which released on mobile over the last week.
1
Beat Hazard 2
Booming arcade shooters frequently come with their own extensive, EDM-heavy soundtracks, and whether you're fighting aliens or strange fish-robots they're normally a perfect fit to the action on the screen. It's fascinating that Beat Hazard 2, which has finally made its way over to mobile, is a sequel born of the success of a game all about applying your own music to the frantic, arcade shooter formula.
And it does fit well. Multipliers, enemies and general background chaos are influenced by the music, and so if you load in extremely heavy, or frantic music then you're in for truly chaotic time... and that's great!
2
Dino Dungeon
I remain a fan of the humble puzzler, and whether it's Sokoban-style block sliding or block-placing puzzles like Dino Dungeon, you'll find me dipping into those almost as much as you will any other genre. Dino Dungeon's simple play style - dragging and dropping blocks to complete a path - is about as simple as they come, and it very much only requires the ability to look forward and choose carefully... but that's fine by me, it is a really good filler when you don't want to put your mind too much into anything.
And, let's face it, games with dinosaurs in are still pretty cool, right?
3
Disorder
While it's currently only available in full release in limited areas, NetEase's next big thing, team-based shooter, Disorder, is starting to reach bigger and bigger markets.
Disorder is a post-apocalyptic team-based shooter which sees players fighting as one of the dozens of hero characters from various factions. As you might imagine from the setting, everything is a little bit grey and grim, but there's a lot of room for the game to expand as and when it needs. It certainly seems to be positioned to capture the strong points of the recent hero shooter and team deathmatch crazes, and - if you're not playing it now - will be one to definitely keep an eye on.
4
Door Kickers: Action Squad
Technically Door Kickers: Action Squad released last week, but it actually only hit the storefronts for download after I pushed last week's post live. So, one of this week's best games is Door Kickers: Action Squad... which definitely released this week!
If you're big into breach and clear style gameplay, or just kicking in doors and blasting baddies, then you're probably more than aware of the Door Kickers series, however, it's now back as a fast-paced 2D platformer entry, and well worth your time.
5
Too Many Cooks
Cooking-themed games are a niche which I'm more than happy to see expand, and if those games can manifest themselves into a co-operative experience then that is even better. Too Many Cooks manages both of these, and as well as its co-operative online it also has a competent single-player campaign too.
In multiplayer mode you and your friends will each have to manage your own workspaces, passing recipes, tools and ingredients between one another's screens in order to complete as many recipes in as short a time as you can. It gets manic, it gets furious but then... then it just works. Suddenly Michonne is handling all of the chopping, Stanley is doing the washing up, and Jared is... well, Jared is just being Jared, but the whole team is working with amazing cohesion. Too Many Cooks is one of those rarities where all the design pieces just slot into one another and everything works perfectly.
