Top 10 iPhone games with Game Center support

Now that Apple’s long awaited achievement, leaderboard, and multiplayer platform Game Center is finally out on iPhone and iPod touch (with iPad support promised for November’s 4.2 firmware bump), gamers have been scrabbling to download supported games and bump up their measly gamer scores.

Support for the platform has been strong, but not all apps are created equal: some games should be way higher up your must-buy list than others.

We’ve compiled a list of the top ten games that offer Game Center support - be it achievements, leaderboards, or multiplayer - to show off some of the best App Store games that have jumped on board with the new system.

The old faithful. The only three certainties in life are death, taxes and Angry Birds on the App Store Top 10. And before Chillingo trotted out its new ride, Cut the Rope (see below), Angry Birds held the iTunes Number 1 spot.

If you don’t know the rules of Angry Birds by now, where have you been? Here’s a recap: Pigs steal eggs. Pigs build forts. Birds catapault themselves into forts, retrieve eggs. Everyone with an iPhone loves it, including PM David Cameron, Conan O’Brien, and footy star Gazza.

The game has a massive 43 achievements to unlock - from simply hitting a pig in the face with a catapulted bird to getting three stars on a huge chunk of levels - and leaderboards for each world and each episode.

Already heralded by some as 'the new Angry Birds', Cut the Rope is the addictive, charming, and smart puzzler that's taking the App Store by storm. Don’t look now, but it’s probably sitting at the number 1 spot in iTunes.

The game’s all about getting a dangling sweet into the cavernous gob of a monster by - you guessed it - cutting the rope. Add in bubbles, spiders, sets of bellows, electric gates and timers, and you’ve got yourself one heck of a game.

The game only boasts 14 achievements and four leaderboards, but it’s totally worth it. Download it now.

Halfbrick’s multi-million-selling fruit slasher is addictive enough as it is. Add in competitive friends through OpenFeint or Game Center, and the app will never leave your home screen.

It’s simple enough: different types of fruit are lobbed in the air, and you’ve got to slice them with your pinky before the produce hits the floor. Don’t slice the bombs, though, or it’s Game Over.

The game has achievements and leaderboards on Apple’s service, as well as online multiplayer so you can go head to head, simultaneously, with another budding food samurai.

Australian developer Firemint has taken Game Center rather seriously. Both uber realistic driving sim Real Racing and addictive plane landing time sink Flight Control have leaderboards and achievements on the service.

We picked Flight Control as the one to choose: it’s cheaper, more addictive, and perfect for mind numbing queues, bus journeys, and bowel movements.

You have to direct incoming planes to their colour co-ordinated landing strips, but the simple task becomes a lot harder when the air space is littered with a spaghetti of flight paths.

It’s got a modest 12 achievements to pine after, and a few leaderboards to enter into. If your iPhone or iPod touch isn’t new enough to feature Game Center, you can get the same achievements in the game itself.

Bulkypix’s smart puzzler was one of the first games to get Game Center support, and rightly so. It’s about time the world knew just how many levels I’ve got gold medals in.

The app is all about dropping a woolly infantry, deep within enemy territory, onto flat ground by shooting away boxes and other nuisances obstacles. It’s about working out the physics to make sure your sheepy soldier gets to safety, and not into the toothy gob of a wolf.

Like Cut the Rope, the game’s meagre Game Center support - just one leaderboard and only 18 achievements - is forgotten when you consider just how fun the game is. Get this one too.

Don’t let the title’s low number fool you. All things considered, from Game Gear racing games to awkward Bioware role-playing games, this must be the hedgehog’s 50th or so outing. Still, it uses the single digit moniker to remind you that the game is back to its roots.

Remember when it was just about running and jumping and avoiding spikes? None of this Big the Cat or Cream the Rabbit or Werehog nonsense from the franchise’s spotty history. That’s what this iPhone game delivers.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 doesn’t have Game Center support just yet, but Sega has surreptitiously announced - via the game’s iTunes description - that achievements and leaderboards are coming very soon.

Like Where’s Wally for the pop culture obsessed nerd, Time Geeks is about picking out tiny details from a pixel-art painting of poindexter references and obscure characters. Oh look, there’s Moss from the IT Crowd, next to Oceanic Flight 815 from Lost and a giant statue of the Android logo.

Alongside the 100 challenges, you’ve also got addictive mini-games and a level editor so you can make your own nerdy collage. A serious bang for your buck at 59p.

And if that wasn’t enough, the game packs Game Center support with achievements and leaderboards. Let your mates know just how many Dragon Ball Z, Pac-Man and Lost homages you can spot. Be proud of your nerdy knowledge, show it off to the world.

Spooky proceedings in a bug filled home. Spider is all about snatching insects in a custom made cobweb, created by making a triangle of silky leaps between the manor’s ancient furniture.

If that doesn’t sound amazing, how about the mansion’s back story that’s slowly revealed as you move between levels. Yeah, thought that’d get you excited.

The game recently added in achievements and leaderboards (you get better scores and combos for netting more bugs), alongside its HD visuals.

This addictive retro game from Bulkypix and French designer Pastagames uses ancient game systems to render its simple, pixelated world.

As you bump up your score, defeat more enemies, and avoid taking damage, the game morphs through a series of archaic platforms, from the green haze of the dot matrix Game Boy to the vomitous red of the Virtual Boy.

Do really well and maybe you’ll unlock some achievements, or show up on the leaderboards, in Game Center. Apple’s gaming service was added to the game close to Game Center’s launch.

Finally, one for the cheap skates. If you want to start earning achievements without splashing any cash, this is the best free Game Center supported app out there.

A simple word game, Zynga’s Scramble Challenge has you spelling out words from a selection of tiles. You’re working to the clock, though, and the pressure will get to you. I promise. Earn lots of points, and you can unlock special versions of the game.

The game uses leaderboards, to show off your vocab-strutting high score (I managed a measily 18. Not great for a proffesional writer, eh?), offers up 46 achievements.