6 iPhone games to help you celebrate the Chinese New Year

The Chinese New Year commences this Saturday 28th January, heralding the year of the rooster. This occasion will be celebrated around the world wherever there's a thriving Chinese community.

To celebrate the Chinese New Year, we thought we'd highlight six games that have drawn inspiration from - or have had a notable impact on - China's rich culture.

Autumn Dynasty

This mobile real-time strategy game is rich and beautiful, with a painterly art style and a hefty online multiplayer mode. But what wins Autumn Dynasty's place on this list is its involved single player story campaign, which takes its narrative and aesthetic cues from feudal China.

Jade Empire

Jade Empire isn't explicitly set in the country, but its rich fantasy world and accompanying lore has clearly been inspired by Imperial China. The game's beautiful landscapes, varied martial arts combat and epic plot essentially makes it a giant love letter to Wuxia fiction.

Mad Rooster

As we mentioned in the intro, these Chinese New Year festivities will mark the beginning of the year of the rooster. Including a rooster-themed game is a bit of a no-brainer then. In this case we've gone for the colourfully chaotic endless flier, Mad Rooster.

Vainglory

Competitive eSports are massive in China, and one of the big mobile eSport hits in the country has been Vainglory. Super Evil Megacorp's slick MOBA shot straight to the top of the Chinese App Store when it launched in November 2015, and it continues to be rather a big deal today.

Angry Birds Seasons

Rovio's perennially popular bird-flinger is very big indeed in China, but Angry Birds Seasons makes this list for a different reason. Over the years it's expanded massively with a host of new festival-related levels - and one of those prominently-featured festivals, over the years, has been Chinese New Year. Check out the Year of the Dragon levels, in particular.

GTA: Chinatown Wars

GTA: Chinatown Wars offers a particularly Americanised, tongue-in-cheek take on Chinese culture - and you might argue that it's not a massively positive one at that, thanks to GTA's customary mix of guns, drug deals and car chases. But this is a big-budget narrative-driven action game with a Chinese protagonist, and that's a combination that's well worth celebrating.