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The 3 best iPhone and iPad games this week - Pokemon Trading Card Game Online, Adventure Xpress, and more

Monsters, rogues, and interplanetary deliveries

The 3 best iPhone and iPad games this week - Pokemon Trading Card Game Online, Adventure Xpress, and more

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

Galaxy Trucker
By Czech Games Edition - buy on iPad (£2.99 / $ 4.99)
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Galaxy Trucker is a sort of multiplayer boardgame version of FTL. First you have to race your opponent to assemble a ship from the same stack of face-down cards, trying to work out which bits should go where and discarding the duds face-up.

Then you set out on a voyage across the galaxy, turning over a succession of event cards that see you exploring abandoned space stations, enduring meteor storms, pillaging planets of their treasure, and so on.

You need to be in front to win, but being in front makes you more vulnerable to the dangers of an unkind event card. Then again, being at the back means missing out on the advantages of a generous one.

This brief account of Galaxy Trucker's frantic dance of risk and reward barely scratches the game's admittedly basic-looking surface. It's great, and that's why we gave it a Gold Award.

Adventure Xpress
By [adult swim] - download on iPhone and iPad (free)
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Puzzle RPGs, more than first person shooters or beat-'em-ups, prove that humans are inherently violent. It's thrilling to trigger a cascade of vanishing gems in Bejeweled, but the pleasure of watching icons explode to a rising fanfare is magnified tenfold when you know the spectacle about to be translated into pain.

Adventure Xpress sees you attempting to deliver a package while fighting off a succession of bandits along the way. There's a neat system whereby matching blocks of certain colours builds up corresponding spells, and different opponents are more susceptible to different colours of attack, but for the most part this is a fairly unremarkable puzzle RPG.

It looks nice, though, and its free-to-play energy energy system doesn't impinge on the experience too heavily, meaning you'd have to be a real idiot not to download it.

Pokemon Trading Card Game Online
By The Pokemon Company International - download on iPad (free)
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Pokemon Trading Card Game Online is the answer to a generation's prayers. More specifically, it's the answer to Mark Brown's prayers, growing up as he did at the height of the Pokemon craze, when children were routinely sent to prison or deported for trading card-related crimes of passion.

While it might seem to many like an infantile pursuit, Pokemon TCG is actually very deep and innovative tabletop game, able to stand shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Hearthstone and Magic. This new iPad version mostly succeeds in translating the experience to touchscreens.

There are some clumsy elements, such as the necessity to enter your password every time you play, and it won't strike the right balance of authenticity and modernity for everyone, but the sheer quality of the underlying game makes this free download essential for CCG fans.

Think I've missed any out? Say so in the comments!
Rob Hearn
Rob Hearn
Having obtained a distinguished education, Rob became Steel Media's managing editor, now he's no longer here though.