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The best iPhone and iPad games this week - ALONE, Appointment with F.E.A.R., and more

Super, heroes, and superheroes

The best iPhone and iPad games this week - ALONE, Appointment with F.E.A.R., and more
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iOS
| New releases round-up

Every Friday, Pocket Gamer offers hands-on impressions of the week's three best new iPhone and iPad games.

ALONE
By Laser Dog - buy on iPhone and iPad (£1.49 / $1.99)

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ALONE is basically Canabalt in a ship. You career along in a blisteringly fast pod, swiping upwards to descend and downwards to ascend, travelling as far as you can before you hit too many floating rocks or plough into the cave wall and explode.

And that's it. The graphics are simple and elegant, and so is the gameplay, but ALONE really stands on its intuitive and responsive controls, which allow you to feel like a cross between a swallow and Han Solo as you swoop over rocky outcrops and swerve between floating boulders.

The fact that the default mode (and the only one available at the outset) is called Veteran tells you straight away that ALONE is a difficult game, but it's strangely meditative at the same time, and a near perfect slice of twitchy goodness.

Appointment with F.E.A.R.
By Tin Man Games - buy on iPhone and iPad (£1.99 / $2.99)
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The virtual gamebook must be the most reliably acclaimed sub-genre on the App Store. Appointment with F.E.A.R., by gamebook specialist Tin Man Games, is the latest to earn a coveted Gold Award from Pocket Gamer.

The game marks a dramatic departure from the studio's other titles, dispensing with virtual pages and dice in favour of a comic book-style succession of panes that rush by like the opening credits to a Marvel movie.

After (quickly) choosing your character and his or her super powers you're plunged into an adventure that sees you balancing the demands of ordinary life, such as eating breakfast and trying not to be late for work, with those incumbent upon any self-respecting superhero, such as rescuing people and assaulting jerks.

The Nightmare Cooperative By Lucky Frame - buy on iPhone and iPad (£2.49 / $3.99)
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The Nightmare Cooperative is the unlikely offspring of any number of grid-based roguelike dungeon-crawlers and Threes!, in that you have a party that moves as one whenever you swipe the screen in a direction.

This control mechanic adds a tactical dimension to The Nightmare Cooperative's gameplay as you strive to avoid inadvertently ramming one of your heroes into a spiky-shelled monster or sliding them into the path of a flame tower.

There's also a generous supply of heroes, powers, and monsters, making for a surprisingly deep and rewarding game. The Nightmare Cooperative is the roguelike to beat, and it rounds off this week's trio of Gold Award-winners.

Rob Hearn
Rob Hearn
Having obtained a distinguished education, Rob became Steel Media's managing editor, now he's no longer here though.