The 3 best iPhone and iPad games this week - Super Obstacle Boy, R-Type II, and Dungelot 2
Three-to-play
Every Friday, Pocket Gamer offers hands-on impressions of the week's best new iPhone and iPad games.
Roses are red. Violets are blue. There are loads of new iOS games, but most of them are poo.
Luckily, we've gone through the lot with a fine-toothed comb and picked out three that are worth your money.
We've got an arcade game you can pay without feeding it 50p pieces, a free time-sapping dungeon-crawler, and a platformer that will make you invent new swear words like "bum meringue!".
Think we've missed a top new iOS game? Shout at us in the comments section at the bottom.
Super Obstacle Boy
By Matthias Falk - buy on iPhone and iPad (£1.99 / $2.99)
This rock-hard retro-style platformer is like Super Meat Boy in miniature.
You're still a boxy little boy saving your boxy little fling from a big boxy bad guy. And you're still doing it by bouncing over spikes and making ridiculous leaps with perfect timing.
Different levels have different visual styles, including Game Boy green and arty indie favourite "silhouette against colourful backdrop".
But all 128 of these levels are as hard as iron. Play this while we wait for Meat Boy mobile.
R-Type II
By DotEmu - buy on iPhone and iPad (£1.49 / $1.99)
Port specialist DotEmu has reworked another retro relic for modern-day touch gizmos. This time, it's 1989 coin-op shooter R-Type II.
If you never played it, it's a feisty horizontal side-scroller about killing waves of baddies with two types of laser beam, handy spaceship attachments, and an anti-ground unit smart bomb.
You get the same six levels as Irem's arcade edition. But you also get leaderboards, achievements, different input schemes, controller support, aspect ratio settings, CRT-style scanlines, and multiple difficulty settings.
Dungelot 2
By Red Winter Software - download on iPhone and iPad (Free)
Just like the first Dungelot, this is a super-simple (and ultra-addictive) roguelike. In each room, you simply tap on grid tiles to find the key, uncover loot, battle monsters, and boost your stats.
This sequel is just as compulsive as the original, so you'll keep on trying to venture farther into the dungeon than you did on your last attempt.
Red Winter Software has, however, dropped the cartoony graphics in favour of more hardcore RPG art. Oh, and it's added massive boss monsters to the mix.
It's worth noting, by the way, that this follow-up is a free-to-play game. So, you can expect to encounter a bunch of pernicious micro-transactions here, like being able to resurrect yourself, boost your initial stats, or top up your energy when you run dry.
Proceed with caution, adventurer.
