Many mobile gamers still fancy Flipping burgers and a twist of strategy added to it, which is why G5 Entertainment released its third installment of the Stand O’Food series in the App Store for both iOS devices and the Androids. Ronnie the Chef is back in his Stand O’Food chain in Tinseltown where he meets Mr. Clarence and Nikki with whom he hooks up to tackle the evil Mr. Torg. Let’s see if your burger flippin’ skills are good enough to flip this troublesome douche! Stand O’Food 3 is now available for iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad.

When Crime City debuted, sweeping conclusions were made that it would fill the void in the iOS market for a new Grand Theft Auto (GTA). Others drew on the fact that former Zynga GM Ken Chiu was CEO of the new company and claimed his debut game would lean more towards a standard Farmville or Mafia Wars, backed by the bland, generic name.

In a rare display of universal foresight, it turns out that everyone was right.

Like Farmville, you have to build your city up. Depending on the strategy and the goals of the gamer, it can end up as an urban ghost town of empty buildings or a metropolitan culture mecca with statues, decorations and stores.

Like GTA, the game boasts a variety of cars and weapons you can acquire. Unlike it, though, most of these are gained by spending money, but you gain that money by fighting, mugging and robbing. A crime boss has to keep his city in line, and that requires no small amount of effort. As anyone with a criminal justice degree can tell you, controlling a group of criminals requires a firm hand and lots of time.

Also like Farmville and Mafia Wars, the game’s lifeblood exists in social media. Though you can play with no social interaction whatsoever, the structure of Crime City wholly encourages the game to act as a virtual thug-life playground for your network. You can connect with other players by sharing your unique nine-digit code. Once connected, the success of others in your mob helps your own progress in the game.

If you find you need some time to devote to other activities (school, work, sleep), you don’t have to worry about your empire falling out of your grasp. The program continues to run while you’re away so you can collect money, participate in fights and build your influence in your neighborhood without being on the app.

With a little effort and some money, your inventory can boast hammers, combat shotguns, pistols or even a tommy gun. The game’s graphics look innocent enough, but you can use these weapons to execute other gang members and pull off heists. Players reach new areas each time they level up until they reach level 40. Assuming you have some time to do the initial leveling up, the app is totally worth trying out.

If you’ve even heard of an iPhone, there’s no doubt you’ve heard of angry birds, which is, by now no doubt the most recognised “casual game” in existence, and perhaps even the most widely available game currently available for mobile or social platforms. For those of you unaware, angry birds is a physics based game released in December, 2009. The game focuses around launching “angry” birds of different colour and type into makeshift buildings with structure and materials which differ from level to level filled with pigs.

The game is controlled, obviously, entirely through touch. The birds are pre-loaded into a slingshot, and the player must use their finger to guide the angle and power that the bird is launched towards the pigs. The pigs, however are protected by various materials which are constructed to make a fort like building. The part of this construction the birds hit and the power they hit it at determine the way the building collapses. The separate parts of the collapsed building can then hit the pigs, who will then die.

As the levels progress, different types of birds become available for use, which have unique abilities, such as breaking into multiple birds, and different strengths against different materials. The levels themselves also become harder to beat, with bigger (harder to destroy) pigs, protected by stronger and better built fortresses.

The primary motivation for continuing through the levels is to unlocked new ones, as each level requires completion of the previous one to unlock. The levels are also divided into sets, which are also unlocked through the completion of the previous set of levels, which have their own scenery and style. A level, once completed, will give a score and a number of stars between one and three, which is based on how much destruction is caused and number of birds remaining. Collecting these stars is the secondary objective in the game, to give completionists something to do after all the levels are completed.

Overall, angry birds is an amazing casual iPhone game, with some serious gameplay value that will keep you addicted and playing the levels over and over again. It is definitely worth the £0.59 that the game costs, and is almost a must have app for anyone with an iPod touch or an iPhone. Although it may have you labelled as a “casual gamer” accompanied by being looked down upon, the fun the game brings with it is a worthy trade off.

iPwnGames score: 4.5/5

The creativity behind this game is truly inspirational. Where do people think of such great ideas like this? It’s such a good concept and I wish I had thought of it first… but credit is given where it’s due to Launching Pad Games for an exciting and more importantly FUN game, which is how games on the iPhone should be.

So you are a fish who has accepted the offer to go on a “suspiciously cheap round-the-world holiday”. There are lots of hidden dangers along the way and it is our job to make sure he picks up all the coins and doesn’t get eaten by a penguin or impaled by spikes. The screen is divided; half is water and the other half is the sky. To make the fish dive, you tap the screen. For him to come back up again, you stop touching the screen. If he has enough momentum, he will jump out of the water and into the sky. This is often necessary to collect all of the coins on offer. A great feature on this game is the combo pointing – if you collect a certain number of coins in a row, your score increases faster. I love this because it gives you the drive to do better.

Don’t forget about the hidden dangers though. There are crabs, seagulls, jellyfish and many other obstacles you will have to manoeuvre to pass each level. Don’t be disheartened. You can always visit Sal’s Discount Souvenirs and change your fish’s costume (a very nice touch).

This game has now become my new favourite and I honestly can’t fault it. The sounds are top notch and the whole interface is very intuitive. Hands down, I couldn’t recommend this any higher. It is guaranteed to give you hours of fun and I promise you won’t get bored of it quickly. Go out and buy it – now!

iPwnGamers score: 5/5 (should be a 6!)

No longer do blocks randomly fall out of the sky in a random box with no context. In Zzed, you are an alien who is cleaning space of meteorites. This is done by shooting coloured meteorites at other coloured meteorites. When the same colour touch in a group more than 3, they will disappear. And when a meteorite crashes into your spaceship, you receive damage; a very similar concept to Tetris, but with a twist.

So what makes this better? Well it doesn’t end with just firing meteorites. The cleaning company who have hired you to clean space are surreptitiously planning something, and you want to find out what. There is an alleged rumour of a conspiracy. Intriguing huh? But it doesn’t just end there (I told you they’ve done this well and I wasn’t lying). Our very own space alien has a girlfriend. Just when you thought this game couldn’t get any better, it has.

Zzed brings context and meaning to Tetris. It gives you the motivation to guide our little space character further and assist him in his quest for love (and if you’re playing this on a Saturday night while your friends are out clubbing then it’s probably the only girlfriend you’re going to have for a while), and at 59p, it’s worth every penny.

There are 10 zones and 60 levels in total. They start off easy but they get difficult quickly so this game is likely to keep you interested for a long time. The physics are also pretty realistic, and the ability to bounce the meteorites off the walls is a very good feature (and yields bonus points if you cause an explosion of meteorites). If you’re struggling and the meteorites are slowly closing in on you (a nice function – I imagine it is replicating the light gravitational force of all objects), you can actually drive your spaceship away to a more tactical position. Sometimes the game is kind and throws you a bomb or rocket which causes mass destruction.

This game is going to hit it big time. It is such a simple concept, but they have approached it with such flair that they have made it into an app of its own. This has gone into my “Games” folder and I look forward to testing the new updates.

iPwnGames Score: 5/5

Are you looking for a game which makes you need the toilet every 15 minutes? Worry ye not, Fatal League is here, adopting a medieval music soundtrack which features what can only be described as running water… Nitpicking here I know, but is it really necessary?

On initialisation of the game, my first impressions were bad. You have to read 8 paragraphs of writing, which sets the game in context, before you can proceed. It is quite long-winded and frankly no fun at all. To condense it all into a couple of sentences for you, your team is taking part in the “Fatal League” where you must fight against opponent teams in tournaments and matches. The winner of the entire league has to attack the King’s enemy, Hydra.

This isn’t the sort of game where you can just dive in and start playing like Doodle Jump. You will probably have to refer to the instructions quite a lot, but it only takes a couple of minutes to get your head around the concept. You begin with 3 fighters: a ranger, a warrior and a scholar. For each fight you partake in, your fighters gain experience and you win money. This money can be spent on upgrading weapons, armour, and magic spells, or hiring new fighters. It’s basically a mini-game of Runescape.

The game runs in a monthly cycle with 6 fights in each. At the end of each month, you will be given the opportunity to enter a major tournament for your fighters to gain experience; however they are very difficult to win because of the big prizes on offer. As time progresses, you work your way up to the 1^st division with the big fish. After each month, the capacity for your army increases, so you can hire a new fighter to train up. The actual gameplay itself resembles a chess board. You make your move, the opponent makes their move. It’s quite a slow way of playing it and doesn’t do much to keep your interest.

This is not the sort of game I’d normally go for so I think it may well appeal to the die-hard medieval role-players out there. However, for me, it kept me interested for about 15 minutes and all seemed very unmotivating and pointless. Then again, is there a point to any iPhone game?

iPwnGames Score: 2.5/5

Maybe it’s just me, but attacking cute, fluffy, pink rabbits on Bunny Shooter isn’t quite as gratifying as annihilating those patronising pigs on Angry Birds. It just makes me feel bad. They’re bunnies! But once I got past my self-righteous moral concerns and actually started popping some caps, one thing became very clear….

It was an hour later and I hadn’t mowed the lawn, I hadn’t emptied the dishwasher and I hadn’t fed the cats. I looked at the clock and thought, ‘5 more minutes and then I’ll do it’. Naturally I was still sitting there after a further half an hour, murdering adorable bunny rabbits. Occasionally I’d receive texts, but I didn’t have time to reply. Not now. I was busy.

If this game is anything apart from cruel, it’s addictive. The format of the game is very similar to Angry Birds. You are given a bow and arrow, and have to kill as many rabbits as possible with the fewest number of shots. At the end of each level, you get 3* if you’re a totally awesome rabbit killer, 2* if you’re an average rabbit killer and 1* if you’re, well… me. They make things a bit more exciting in the latter levels with the introduction of anvils and rocks which are precariously positioned directly above rabbits’ heads (seems a bit unfair if you ask me). But you can only fire an arrow at a rabbit so many times. Angry Birds has the added touch of having different types of birds to fire (some explode, others go fast, etc). If Bunny Shooter added this kind of functionality, I think they’d be onto a real winner. At the moment, the game just needs more flair to keep it interesting for longer than an hour.

The other downside to this game is that there are only 15 levels (oops, I stand corrected. Turns out there are 60 levels. My apologies). In comparison to Angry Birds, which has well over 100, this game is relatively short and won’t take you all day to complete. Then again, Angry Birds is a paid app whereas this one is free, so I suppose you get what you pay for. Although there is still hope for all you sadistic bunny murders out there, because those 15 levels are part of World 1. There are purportedly an additional 3 worlds being released soon in later update which hopefully will include some nice extra features to keep us all interested.

At the moment, I wouldn’t pay for this. It’s just too repetitive and feels like the whole Angry Birds idea has simply been ported over, replaced with bunnies and arrows, and given a new name. It’s a nice way to pass an hour, but until more functionality is added, I will be deleting this from my iPhone.

iPwnGames Score: 3/5 4/5

The afterlife has been thrown into disarray with demons and angels scattered about the universe. It is your job, in Angel Bounce, to restore the powers that be to their rightful afterlife locations. Angels and demons both fall from the sky and you, acting as a cloud, choose to bounce the angels back to heaven and allow the demons to fall to the depths of hell. The story line is interesting; basically there has been a cosmic upset and angels and demons have been bounced around. They need to get back to their rightful homes and it is your job to get them there.

Angel Bounce is a pretty basic and easy to navigate game. It has all been seen before and the mechanism is nothing special. You navigate the cloud across the screen to bounce the angels back to heaven, much like many other app store games. The only catch is you must avoid the demons that are also falling from the sky. When you bounce the demons back into heaven they are considered “saved” and will lower your overall score. If you happen to let an angel fall into hell they are considered “condemned” and it also lowers your score.

There is fruit that falls from the sky as well (kind of weird) that you catch for extra points. There is no real rhyme or reason to the falling fruit and, honestly, it seemed like a weird afterthought on the developer’s part. Apples would make sense with the whole Adam and Eve component to heaven and hell, but strawberries seem a bit out of place.

The game breakdown includes how many angels you have saved, how many demons you have condemned, and points are taken away for angels that you condemned (allowed to fall) and demons that you bounced back to heaven (saved). Angel Bounce is Game Central enabled which allows players to compete against their friends for the high score. Game Central is one of the bigger draws of this game as healthy competition between friends always ups the fun-factor.

While the game presents nothing too unique or over the top in terms of game play the story line is cute, and the angels and demons tumble from the sky in a pretty comical manner. The music is whimsical, but repetitive, and has a tendency to grate on your nerves after a little while. Considering the sweet story line, comical graphics, and ability to mute the music this app might be worth a buy. After all, it is only .99 cents and likely will provide several hours of entertainment. Get your friends on board too to create a competitive Angel Bounce tournament. It is worth the buy, in my opinion.

Right after Apple announced new Game Center and its November release, Firemint sent us an email to let you know that it will seamlessly incorporate Apple Game Center features into its hit games Flight Control and Real Racing via the Cloudcell platform. The Game Center features for these games will be available on the supported devices (iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPod touch 3rd and 4th generation), and will also be mirrored on Cloudcell to offer the same features to the non-supported devices. The Game Center features should be introduced right after Game Center is released, updates will of course be free.

Firemint will seamlessly incorporate Apple Game Center features into its hit games Flight Control and Real Racing via its Cloudcell platform. The features will be available on supported devices (iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPod touch 3rd and 4th generation), but will also be mirrored on Cloudcell whenever possible to offer similar functionality on older devices. Features such as achievements and leaderboards will be available in the game itself, on the Cloudcell web site or via Game Center. We hope Game Center features will be available in our games (as free updates) as soon as Game Center is released.

Who Gives A Toss?

Thankfully, Paper Toss gives you all the realism of the game without any of the drawbacks which means you can wile away the hours in the office without disturbing your more industrious colleagues. The game has three difficulty settings: easy, medium and hard, which basically means that the bin is a further distance away. To throw your paper ball all you have to do is flick you finger in the desired direction and the watch it hurtle towards the centre of the hole or bounce agonisingly off the rim. Each shot requires you to judge the wind speed (actually a fan) correctly in order to get the right trajectory to the target.

Paper Toss won’t win any awards for its innovation or game play but the graphics are well constructed and the actions are slick and precise. The sound effects create a realistic ambience and an ego boosting round of applause each time you set a new record will certainly raise a smile. Overall, this is a game that you’ll keep coming back to every time you’ve got a few minutes (or hours) to kill. Beating your own scores as well as those of players around the world provides enough motivation to keep that throwing arm loose and for pure mindless entertainment this game can rival any top end game available.