Fred Topel has been an entertainment journalist since 1999 writing about film, television and games for websites like About.com, Daily Radar, Sci Fi Wire/Blastr, Canmag, E! Online and currently Crave Online, Fanhattan, Starpulse and Arcade Sushi. He has owned Coleco Vision, Atari 2600, NES, PC, Sega Genesis, N64, Sega Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox, PS3, Nintendo DS, PSP, Android and now iPhone and iPad. Teachers used to complain he played too many video games. Now who's bad!
Fred Topel
Pilot’s Path Review
Pilot’s Path is the second most addictive game I’ve played on iOS, second only to my beloved Puzzle Craft. Part open world mission game, part real time strategy and part arcade style flight simulator, there’s no limit to the hours of fun you could devote to Pilot’s Path.
Jumpster Review
Jumpster is a new physics game in the vein of Angry Birds, and it is such a rip off it’s not even worth playing. We expect that many games that are free to download might encourage in-game power-ups, but Jumpster is basically a bait and switch gaming experience.
Amazing Runner Review
Oh my God, they just made the best endless runner game of all time. Temple Run is fun and I wasn’t personally fond of Agent Dash, but Amazing Runner gets the basics right and adds a bunch of new twists that totally invigorate the genre. It makes you feel like a Parkour runner.
House Pest Review
Yeah, I know why I was assigned House Pest starring Fiasco the Cat. Everyone knows I love cats. I have cats, I volunteer with cats, so if you’ve got a cat game, you give it to Fred, right? It’s okay, I can speak to the authentic cat qualities and this sort of mini-game compilation is up my alley anyway, felines or not.
Gibbets 2 Review
Sometimes you think to yourself, “Who came up with this game?” Gibbets 2 is about people hanging from nooses. I get Grand Theft Auto. That’s the vicarious thrill of violence. Who says in a pitch meeting, “We need a game about people hanging from nooses?” And it’s a sequel so you know there was so much demand for people hanging from nooses that they needed to make another one.
Rail Rush Review
Any boy who was a kid in the early ‘80s has a hard wired predilection for mine carts. And you know the reason why if you had seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in the theater when it came out. Years later we’re still chasing that Thugee railway. Does Rail Rush give us the fix we've yearned for since we were kids, or does it fall off the rails completely?
Cosmic Bump Review
It seems they can’t come out with new physics games fast enough to satisfy the demand for people to obsessively drag and tap on their iPhones and iPads. While we’d all probably prefer if they’d just make new Angry Birds levels every week, Cosmic Bump adds a fun new wrinkle into the physics canon. It’s physics meets pinball.
10 Best iOS Word Games
Word games are perfect for phones and tablets because you can play them on the fly. You don't need dexterity or hand-eye coordination. You just need to be able to place letters and try to be smarter than your opponent. The game is really in your head, but the device gives you the challenge. Her...
Slingshot Racing Review
Slingshot Racing sure made me appreciate how much gaming you can accomplish with a simple tap of the screen. The frustrations it adds can be even greater than a console game with full controls, and that may be part of the fun/challenge depending on how you see it.
Critter Escape Review
Critter Escape has a simple premise with enough subtle complications to keep it endlessly entertaining/frustrating, but some of the mechanics make it lean more towards the frustrating. It wasn’t for me, but I can see how a certain type of mindset would obsess over the structure and possibilities of the game.