Top 10 best iPhone games: November 2009

Things are getting congested at the top of the iPhone tree. A number of brilliant games have been released since our last Top 10 feature in September, so we’re going to bid adieu to a few old friends in order to make room for the up and coming whippersnappers.

So it’s out with the likes of Zen Bound and Monkey Island, both of which have had quite enough praise from us. Surely you all have those by now, right?

This list is an indicator of what’s hot on the App Store right now, as well as a reflection of the sheer range of experiences on offer.

Let us know what you’d have on your list.

One of the oddest and most oddly beautiful games on the iPhone, Spider truly is one of a kind. You guide the titular arachnid around a creepy old house, catching bugs in your webs.

This takes on a puzzle-game dimension as you strive to eat as many bugs as possible without touching the ground. The controls are intuitive, allowing you to leap and spin and walk on walls with swipes of your finger, and it looks stunning.

If that wasn’t enough, there’s a darkly suggestive story behind the manor if you choose to engage with the game on that level.

At the opposite end to Spider we have Dungeon Hunter - far from the most original of titles, but rather one of the most polished and accomplished traditional games on the App Store. What we have here is a good old fashioned hack ‘n’ slash RPG.

You must select from one of three classes before embarking on an epic quest to top your ex-missus, who’s gone a bit loopy. This is done in time honoured fashion - by laying into the enemy hordes with your weaponry, as well as some magical input from your fairy companions.

Dungeon Hunter presents one of the richest environments on iPhone, and shows that the platform can do traditional game genres justice.

Imitation is fine so long as it results in a memorable product. Soosiz is certainly that, borrowing bits from many of the best platformers (chiefly Nintendo’s Mario series) yet somehow creating a refreshingly quirky iPhone experience.

The chief gameplay mechanic here is gravity - each platform you negotiate has its own micro-gravity field that can pull you in from all angles. This means that you can, for example, walk all the way around small planetoids.

This gives Soosiz a refreshingly different feel from most other iPhone platformers. It also helps that it looks absolutely gorgeous.

“Super Mario Bros meets Pong,” is the way Tracy described Squareball in his review, which seems to sum the game up nicely. Taking the bouncing-ball mechanic and retro styling of the latter, the game encourages you to scroll the undulating levels with your finger, making it resemble the former.

It’s all delivered with an achingly cool minimalistic look, not to mention an artfully composed glitchy 8-bit soundtrack.

As a concept it’s been brilliantly realised with the minimum of fuss. It’s one of those rare games that feels simultaneously like a nod to the past and a bold new idea.

Sticking to the retro-futuristic theme, Space Invaders Infinity Gene is a masterful reimagining of the arcade classic. Starting you off in the typical style of a fixed-plane shooter, the game soon starts evolving in to something far more forward thinking.

Now you get to move your little space ship around the screen with your finger, avoiding enemy attacks and lining up your auto-firing guns. Each bite sized level brings with it an evolution in the play, or a new element to master.

As both an update of a classic franchise and an iPhone shooter, Space Invaders Infinity Gene is exemplary.

Though we’ve praised Real Racing to the rafters in the past, it retains its place on this list because it’s still the technological bench mark for all iPhone games.

Put simply, there’s been nothing released since that will let you show off your iPhone’s graphical prowess quite as well.

Real Racing manages to squeeze in a beautifully detailed, fully featured console-style racer onto the little iPhone. It handles like a dream too, thanks to its brilliantly calibrated use of the accelerometer.

Firemint’s racer is still the definition of a premium iPhone game, though it now has the added bonus of selling for a sub-premium price.

The racing genre seems to have driven itself into something of a cul-de-sac on other platforms. Even on iPhone, where do you go from Real Racing’s technical brilliance? RedLynx has the answer, and it looks a little like Flight Control.

Rather than steering your little red car directly, you must sketch out a driving line for it to follow, taking care to slow your finger down for corners. It works brilliantly, and possesses that priceless just one more go factor.

The icing on the cake is a brilliantly implemented online leaderboard that keeps you up to date as to how many players are better than you at each track.

Speaking of Flight Control, it seems that no iPhone top 10 list is complete without Firemint’s classic. It keeps its place for the simple fact that it’s had such a huge influence on the App Store, from its legions of clones to games that have been creatively inspired by it (such as DrawRace).

Oh, and it’s still more addictive than chocolate. The idea is to play air traffic controller to a string of air ports, guiding planes to the appropriate runways by sketching out a path with your finger.

Firemint has done well to keep interest alive with a steady drip of new maps, but it’s the sheer high score-chasing brilliance of the core gameplay that keeps us coming back for more.

While it bears a certain cursory resemblance to the likes of Rolando and Soosiz, iBlast Moki is actually a very sophisticated and demanding physics-based puzzler. The idea is to set bombs and build contraptions to send the Mokis in each level to the exit point.

Starting with simple explosives, you soon move onto complex, multi-sectioned devices that send the Mokis on their way in ever more creative ways.

If that’s not enough, there’s even a level editor that allows you to construct your own devious puzzles before sharing them online.

Despite all the young pretenders that have cropped up in recent months, Rolando 2 remains the iPhone’s signature game and contains its most endearing characters. This sequel improves on the original in almost every way, from the controls to the delightful 2.5D graphics.

At heart it’s the same game of gentle platforming and tactile puzzling, as you strive to guide you Rolandos through each hazard-strewn level. New features include water-based puzzles and chili pepper-powered companions.

With such a high quality game, and another sequel in the works, the Rolando series looks set to appear on top 10 lists for some time to come.