10 Best iOS Board Games

Despite the annoying pop-up ads, Boggle has a clean look and nice presentation. It's never been the most engaging word game ever made, but it's a good way to test your word building skills and see if you're smarter than your opponent. Boggle starts off our list of the 10 Best iOS Board Games.

The Game of Life is a pretty good adaptation of the board game with nice 3D graphics and quick gameplay. It's a dull single player experience against the computer, but with friends, it really comes to "life" and is a lot of fun. It's a shame the game is over so quickly, but that just means you get another chance at finally having that career you've always wanted as a veterinarian.

The game board and menus are crowded and confusing, but once you start playing Monopoly on iOS it'll take you back to the times you spent with your family trying to bankrupt them. Don't bother going up against the computer. For some reason it will always get the rolls it needs while 9 times out of 10 you'll end up landing on their properties. Besides, Monopoly games are meant to be played with humans, not computers. (We'll lump in Monopoly Here and Now and Monopoly Bingo to this entry.)

Risk has been the cause of some real wars between friends and family who tried to dominate each other in this classic conquest game. While the latest update has certainly caused some strife with hardcore Risk players, it is still a fun mobile port that can be played with your buddies, if they're not still angry at you for kicking their butt the last time you played.

Why would Trivial Pursuit make our 10 Best iOS Board Games list? You don't know the answer? Then you don't get that coveted wedge needed to win the game! Trivial Pursuit looks and plays great on your iPhone or iPad. Colors pop, the game runs smooth and you can choose the difficulty of the questions. It's a nice pick-up for all of you braniacs who like showing off to your friends that didn't drink your way through college.

While the "adventures" part of Yahtzee Adventures may be a little dopey, the classic game is still in here and runs great. Yahtzee is a pretty hard game to screw up, so it's nice to see that this version runs smooth and is easy to pick-up-and-play. And whether it's the digital version or the real thing, you're still going to curse the dice gods for not giving you that 5th matching number on your second roll.

Despite numerous efforts and updates by Electronic Arts to screw this app up as much as they possibly can, Scrabble is still playable and still fun. You can have more than one game going at once, chat with your opponent and marvel at the Teacher feature, a tool that educates you while showing you how bad you are at the game. Despite some loading issues because of its Facebook integration, Scrabble is still the undisputed king of word games. At least until EA puts out the next update and completely breaks it.

"You sank my Battleship!" is a cry you loved hearing as a kid, and now you can hear it again thanks to this slick version of the classic board game. With cool graphics, easy to play mechanics and different game modes, Battleship is still a lot of fun, even against the computer. And with the digital version you no longer have to crawl on your hands and knees searching for the scattered red and white pegs you accidentally dropped on the floor.

We loved Backgammon growing up and still play it to this day. But a lot of Backgammon apps either had sketchy A.I. where the computer always got the perfect roll, or they just looked terrible. Backgammon Masters is arguably the best of the Backgammon apps with great graphics, a nice selection of tables, and rolls that actually seem fair for both parties.

Carcassonne tops our 10 Best iOS Board Games list because it's one of the most addicting games you will ever play. There's a reason why there are so many five-star reviews for this in the App Store. With sharp graphics, helpful tutorials, rankings, different A.I. opponents, new features, chat and Gamecenter achievements, you will find yourself playing this classic for hours. Don't let the high price point scare you off. Carcassonne is worth every penny.