2012 was another stellar year for iPhone gaming, with quite literally thousands of titles released on the App Store. Some of them were brilliant. Some of them weren't.
This annual round-up of iPhone software is here to highlight the former and shun (in the nicest possible way) the latter.
While
Punch Quest sparked an outbreak of high score fever in 2012, and
Anomaly Korea easily lived up to its "most anticipated iOS sequel ever" tag, which were the best-reviewed games?
To answer that very question (oddly enough), here's the
iPhone Quality Index (Qi) round-up for 2012.
Aggregating the reviews from the world's best websites, such as
148Apps,
Pocket Gamer, and
Gamezebo, the
Quality Index uses a unique metric to create a single definitive score for each iPhone title.
The First BastionAccording to the
Qi chart,
Bastion was the best-reviewed iPhone game of 2012. This lush action-RPG with an ambitious story started life on the Xbox 360 console, but it works beautifully on the small screen, too.
Down at #4 in the chart, Rocketcat Games's aforementioned
Punch Quest impressed a whole host of iOS app critics with its novel mash-up of the modern endless-runner and old skool beat-'em-up.
In seventh place,
Reckless Racing 2 - from Polarbit - followed up the success of the
original with a tighter, sharper, and altogether more generous top-down arcade racer.
Finally, in tenth position,
Wimp: Who Stole My Pants? HD showed that it was perfectly possible to craft a slick and engrossing platformer for the all-touch iPhone - with added head scratchy puzzles for good measure.
Qi's Top 10 iPhone games of 2012
N.B. While we only display the average score to one decimal place, the list is generated to further significant figures. We just don't show them all.
And, naturally, this is a static graph based on live listings which are subject to constant change as new releases and reviews emerge.
In order to provide a regular marker of the critical zeitgeist, however, we will continue to round up the best of the iPhone games released each month to provide definitive Qi top tens throughout 2013.
iPhone Quality Index
Joined:
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Post count:
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RB10 | 16:00 - 7 January 2013
@mr_bez,
Those are both excellent points.
We have considered raising the review 'threshold' in the past. Will keep you posted.
And, yes, latecomers will naturally gain a slight advantage. Let's call it the 'Oscars hopefuls' effect. ;-)
Rich
Joined:
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Post count:
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mr_bez | 15:44 - 7 January 2013
Yeah, I figured as much. Just a shame that this skews the chart in favour of late releases that are there by virtue of a very low number of reviews (2 critical reviews and an App Store average). I'd argue about raising the required review quota for the end of year list, but I wouldn't want to knock Wimp out of the charts - that's definitely one of my games of the year!
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Post count:
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RB10 | 14:55 - 7 January 2013
@mr_bez,
Thanks for this feedback.
The line in the sand for the iPhone Qi Top 10 games and apps was actually drawn on January 1st. So, the Top 10 list in this news piece reflects the make-up of the chart on the first day of the year.
It's just taken a few days for me to get around to publishing this article. :-)
Look out for the iPad and Android round-ups for 2012 over the next couple of days, btw.
Rich
Joined:
Nov 2011
Post count:
172
mr_bez | 14:00 - 7 January 2013
Interlocked is already down to an 8.5 and out of the top ten, based on a review published 5 days ago. Stone Age is also a 9.2 now. Not sure if that's enough to push it out of the top 10, as further decimal places aren't listed.
I know the list is STC, but you could at least check you have an up to date list at the time of publishing.
GameHubs
