100 Best iOS Games: #20 – #11

It is a rare thing when puzzle games venture into other more narrative driven genres. The Room is a puzzle game that dips its toes into the waters of mystery and intrigue. Unlike most puzzle games where you only solve them for the satisfaction of exerting your own intelligence over a computer and its programmer, you solve the puzzles in The Room for a more enlightened reason. Intrigue. The Room is a game with numerous types of puzzles for you to solve, but it provides you with a different sort of motivation. Your own curiosity is one that drives you along to figure out what goes where and how to solve these mind bending and sometimes quite tricky quandaries. Couple that with some amazing looking graphics on the iPad and you have the recipe for a title worthy of our list of the 100 Best iOS Games.

Sonic CD was one of the greatest Sonic games ever and gets a fitting retrofit to the iOS. The already simple controls fit well on the touchscreen and the graphics are up to date with a little dab of the retro, enough to make them nostalgic. Sonic has lasted for a long time and we think his new home should be right here on the iOS. Where else would a hedgehog in the fast lane want to be than in the hands of a passenger in the fast lane on a road trip?

If you gave the creators of the original Castlevania some acid and let them play Super Ghouls and Ghosts, even they wouldn't be able to come up with Punch Quest. This game fulfills every man's dream of punching his way through hoards of enemies without ever stopping to look back or even consider that he's in the wrong. In Punch Quest, you just barrel along punching bats out of the sky, skeletons back into the ground, and beasts and bosses into shiny bits of dust. It is one of the few games we know of where you can go from punching a skeleton to leaping onto the back of a dinosaur that shoots lasers out of its mouth. Yeah, it's that awesome.

Original ideas arise from a remix of familiar ones. When you take a farming game and mash it up with a puzzle game, you are left with Puzzle Craft. In this addictive and enjoyable little game, you get to create your own living and breathing village by solving puzzles. You can match up like elements to mine resources from the mountains, or manage your crops with the simplest touch or swipe. The graphics are cartoonish and enjoyable to gaze upon. Puzzle Craft is a game that lets you relax while you play and provides a welcome respite from those games that bombard you with gunshots, screams, and things exploding. We like them too, but sometimes you just need some relaxation.

Sometimes you need to chill out and absorb your surroundings. Osmos is a sort of microbial Katamari game that lets you do just that. There is no frantic running against the clock, no enemies trying to kill you around every corner. Osmos is a simple game where you play as a little sphere just looking to get bigger by absorbing anything smaller than it. You can explore each level with relaxed abandon as you look for power ups and other "motes" to absorb. Osmos even has a multiplayer function where you can see which of your friends can absorb the most motes. Even though Osmos seems to be a high concept game, that doesn't mean it is devoid of any fun. It is just a more calm alternative to the fast and furious shooting games dominating the App Store.

Speaking of frenetic shooters, N.O.V.A. 3 is an insane futuristic shooter that is bound to get fans of Vanquish tapping feverishly at their phones. As usual, the fate of humanity hangs in the balance and it is up to you to repel the alien invaders with a hailstorm of hot lead and laser blasts. N.O.V.A. 3 is a game that pushes graphical boundaries like no other FPS. In addition to an awesome single player campaign, the multiplayer is rock solid and features 12 player battles. Now you can bring the multiplayer action with you wherever you go and headshot some noobs when you are miles away from the nearest copy of Halo 4.

Infinity Blade was the first game that ever made us look at our phones in absolute awe. The graphical fidelity that it achieved as well as the tight and concise gameplay made Infinity Blade a must have. This hack and slasher was much more than a violent way to pass the time in line at the grocery store. In fact, it is more of a commentary on gaming itself and the infinite nature of chasing that high score. As you play through the bloodlines only to die again and again, you start to see the futility of your repetitive actions until you finally grow strong enough to bring down that bad guy on the throne. Infinity Blade is a classic.

The best tower defense game has to be Fieldrunners 2. This game is the stick to which all other tower defense games are measured. The graphics are cartoony and enjoyable. The gameplay is fast and frantic. The sheer amount of weapons and upgrades you can use is fantastic. What sets Fieldrunners 2 apart is the insane amount of enemies that eventually start storming each level. Each time you prepare for a wave of little guys, it makes you a little bit anxious. Will you survive the next round? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, you'll want to go back and play some more.

We never thought that we'd see the other side of the Angry Birds conflict. But since Rovio released Bad Piggies, we now know the hardships that those little limbless pigs went through to get their hands on some dinner. With only your finger to help them, the little pigs have to build some insane contraptions to make their way to the end of each level. Bad Piggies is a surprisingly fun, unique, and enlightening entry into the Angry Birds universe, and we can only hope that Rovio has some more interesting inventions up their developer sleeves.

If Real Racing 2 was the Camaro of racing games, then Real Racing 3 is the Ferrari. A game that looks like it belongs on your home console system, Real Racing 3 offers more cars, more tracks, and the graphics are something to behold. Each car was modeled to the correct specs of their real-life counterparts, making for a car lover's wet dream. But the best thing about Real Racing 3? The game is free. Put that in your Hankooks and smoke it.