Anomaly Warzone Earth [$1.99|$3.99] takes the concept of tower defense games and turns it upside down. Instead of defending yourself from wave after wave of enemies on your iOS device, this time around you are the one making your way through predefined defense structures. And I’m happy to say that the result is a game that feels very unique and stands out from the many casual games that are available for iPhone and iPad.

In Anomaly Warzone Earth our planet has been invaded by some nasty aliens and it’s your objective to fight back. Easier said than done, because throughout the campaign you’ll regularly have to face new alien structures that will try to stop you from succeeding. But it’s not just the aliens who are introducing new units every so often, you will also be given new troops to blast those defenses to oblivion. To make things more complicated, you can collect resources throughout the missions that will allow you to upgrade or swap specific units. But that’s not all, in order to keep things interesting as your troops are making their way through enemy lines, you are given a limited amount of special abilities which you’ll need to activate at the right time to support your troops.

As you can imagine by now, Anomaly Warzone Earth offers quite a bit of strategic depths that want to be explored and exploited. First, there’s the choice of troops, then there’s the route you plan to take, the choice of upgrades for your troops and the strategic placement of the special abilities. Such an amount of options could easily be overwhelming, but Anomaly Warzone Earth’s campaign does an excellent job at introducing you to each element and slightly increasing the difficulty. It manages to offer you a challenge that makes you feel you’ve accomplished something once you successfully finish a mission, without ever being too frustrating to move on.

Anomaly Warzone Earth was first released on Mac and Windows systems before it saw the light of day on iOS devices. So the first question that came to my mind was obviously if the controls translated well from mouse to touchscreen input. And what can I say, the folks at 11 bit studios really nailed this transformation. It actually feels as if the game was developed with touch controls in mind, that’s how well they work.

And it’s not just the controls that shine, the presentation is also more than satisfying. The mission briefings are fully voiced over and sound very professional. The music and sound effects fit the action on screen perfectly and the graphics are also nice to look at. Everything is very polished and makes sure that Anomaly Warzone Earth [$1.99|$3.99] feels like more than the sum of its parts. This is a game that strategy fans shouldn’t miss and I’m sure that it will introduce new fans to the genre!

If I had to give you an idea of what Tiny Tower [Free] is, I’d say something like: It’s free(mium), it’s fun, it’s highly addictive. With Tiny Tower, developer Nimlbebit has really hit the sweet spot when it comes to designing a fantastic freemium title. And if I tell you that the already great Pocket Frogs [Free] was from the same developer, you know what to expect.

The gameplay is rather simple: Your goal is to grow your Tiny Tower by adding new floors, moving in new citizens (called bitizens) and employing them in the various businesses that you set up in your tower. To get things done, you need two resources: Money in form of coins, and time in form of Towerbux. Everything in Tiny Tower has its price and after you bought it, it will take some time until it’s available. That’s where the Towerbux come in – you can spend them to shorten that time. So, how do you get hold of these two resources? Earning coins is very straight forward; just sell the stuff in your stores to your bitizens and you’ll get some coins for it.

Towerbux on the other hand are pretty hard to come by. Every now and then your bitizens tip you a Towerbux when you find someone for them or take them to the floor they want to. You’ll also get some for certain achievements like putting a bitizen into his dream job or fully stocking one of your shops. So you do come across them here and there, but you won’t get nearly enough to add new floors all the time.

Well, this is where the freemium concept comes in. You can buy Towerbux as an In-App Purchase to accelerate your progress. Unfortunately, Nimblebit has changed the way that Tiny Tower behaves quite a bit since its release. So while a few weeks ago you could build along pretty quickly without the need to buy any Towerbux, the game is nowadays significantly slower if you don’t make use of the In-App Purchases. While these adaptions to the gameplay mechanics are obviously not the most popular ones, it is understandable from Nimblebit’s point of view – something needs to put food on their tables after all.

But don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t mean that you can’t play the game without spending money on it. You definitely can. And it’s still fun, too. You just need to be comfortable with the slow progress and that there’s not that much to do all at once. The beauty about this is that, obviously, the game is available for free on the App Store, so go ahead and give it a try! But have in mind: Tiny Tower [Free] can become pretty addictive!

“More of the same” is often used as a negative expression. But if you think back at how great the original Cut The Rope [$0.99|$1.99] was when it was available for your iPhone not even 1 year ago, it’s clear that “more of the same” is a positive thing for such a great game. In the (unlikely) case you are unfamiliar with Cut The Rope, here’s the wrap-up: It’s a physics based puzzle game featuring a little creature called Om Nom that lives inside a box and wants to be fed with candy. And it’s your job to make sure the candy makes it into Om Nom’s mouth. Easier said than done.

Cut The Rope: Experiments [$0.99|$1.99] is not so much of a sequel, but more like an expansion to the original game. I’m sure that the devs at ZeptoLab were aware of that fact and that’s the reason why it’s not marketed as a sequel. Right now, the game comes with 3 boxes that each feature 25 levels. The first box is pretty much a recap of everything you’ve been introduced to in the original Cut The Rope and gets you back on top of its gameplay. The 2nd box introduces a new item, a button that automatically aims at the candy and, once tapped, shoots a rope at it. In the 3rd box the game gives you buttons that you can detach and reattach thanks to suction cups. It’s fun to start messing around with the new objects to get the hang of them. They give a completely new way to interact with the candy and it’s pretty satisfying to nail the perfect timing that the two buttons often require.

Besides these new items, everything pretty much stayed the same. Of course, there’s a new little intro video to set the scene as well as some new backgrounds and sound effects. But overall, everything’s still the good old Cut The Rope that we know and love. Why fix it, if it’s not broken, right? The UI works, the controls are tight and little Om Nom as adorable as always.

Like in the original Cut The Ropes, there are already new levels announced for you to download on the App Store in free updates. And that’s something I’m definitely looking forward to, because it doesn’t take long until you’ve mastered all of the 75 levels. But ZeptoLab offered top notch support and a ton of new content for the original, so I’m confident that Cut The Rope: Experiments will grow nicely over time. It’s worth mentioning that this time around, ZeptoLab released the game themselves without a publisher taking care of it. And I think that explains quite a few things about Cut The Rope: Experiments. If you’re a indie developer and you just separated yourself from such a big name like Chillingo, you should probably look into three things: Get your own name out there, strengthen the brand that you’ve established and get some capital to ensure liquidity and give you the option to reinvest in future projects. So in my idea, Cut The Rope: Experiments is more than just a sequel, it is ZeptoLab first and important step to become completely independent.

The quality of Cut The Rope: Experiments makes me confident that ZeptoLab has what it takes to release many more great titles on the App Store. But see for yourself, Cut The Rope: Experiments [$0.99|$1.99] is a great puzzle game that you shouldn’t miss if you’re a fan of the genre.

If you’re a fan of puzzle games, then you’re probably also a fan of the App Store – it has brought us an incredible amount of great puzzle games. And Burn it All, one of the newest entries of the genre, keeps the fun going with a simple idea that was translated into a charming iPhone and iPad game.

And the idea really is simple: You will have to burn down ropes, pieces of wood and bats (mean, isn’t it?), by dragging a flaming lava rock onto them. If done in the right order, all the ropes will have burned down within the levels’ time limit. That’s it. But the task will get more complicated as the game gradually introduces new types of ropes, obstacles and lava rocks. Later on in the game you will have to evade water drops that instantly cool down your flame and you will have to deal with with ropes that burn slower or faster than the usual one.

Depending on how fast you can clear the level, you will be rewarded with up to 3 diamonds. And getting all of them can be quite tricky, because you will not only have to figure out the right order to light the ropes up, but you will also need to be navigate the lava rock super fast and precise around the screen. But despite that, the levels never become really difficult. The game does offer a pretty clever twist in world 3, but while it’s a clever idea, it isn’t all that challenging. The most difficult levels are the ones where you need to avoid water drops, so more of them would have been welcome. It’s not necessarily a bad thing though, but with the levels being completed that fast, it would have been nice to see some more content. However, new levels are already announced via future updates, something I’m definitely looking forward to.

Despite these little shortcomings, Burn it All is a very fun and polished game and comes as universal app for $0.99.

Max and the Magic Marker combines classic platforming with physics based puzzles. But unlike your usual platform game, you wont be looking for keys and buttons to get through the levels. Instead, you are given a Magic Marker to draw your way around the various obstacles. The drawing is implemented very well and really gives you the ability to come up with your own solutions for the puzzles.

But before you can start drawing, you will first have to collect ink for the Magic Marker. That means in each level there’s only a certain amount of ink available to limit the size of your drawings. You can always erase what you have drawn before to refill the Marker, but the limit is necessary so you can’t just build one huge bridge from the start of the level to the end. It was fun to figure out the puzzles, but I would have like to see some more difficult ones later on in the game – the solutions are always rather obvious.

Unfortunately, the platforming controls aren’t as precise as you’d want them in a platforming game. And that’s not because of the touch interface, plenty of titles on the App Store can do it better than Max and the Magic Marker (League of Evil and Pizza Boy for example). There is some sort of input lag and a general unresponsiveness that can make it hard to pull off some of the trickier platforming which can be frustrating from time to time.

The presentation is a mixed bag. While the graphics do get the job done, there’s nothing really special or unique about the art style and I found myself turning off the music just after a few minutes into the game. What’s positive and motivating is the solid amount of achievements and the challenge to finish each level with all 3 collectibles within a certain amount of time to get the best rating. This adds quite a bit of replay value to Max and the Magic Marker and it was not only once that I came back to a level to finally get the best rating.

All in all Max and the Magic Marker is built around a creative concept and comes with plenty of levels, but suffers a bit from controls that don’t do it justice and a somewhat weak presentation. However, despite the set-backs I still had a good amount of fun with it. If you are into platforming and like to get creative, you’ll most likely enjoy what Max and the Magic Marker has to offer. And as I am writing this review, there’s currently a 50% sale on the iPhone version [$0.99] and a 40% sale on the iPad version [$2.99] – so you’d better be quick!

World of Goo is a physics based puzzle game. The goal is to rescue as many goo balls as possible buy utilizing their stickiness to build structures towards a pipe that sucks the unused goo balls out of the level. So your success depends on how effective you place the limited amount of goo balls available in each level to maximize the number you can rescue. There are different types of goo balls with different attributes such as stickiness so that each level will always require a specific type or mix of these goo balls. This results in a great deal of variety that’s put into the level design – you will have to construct floating bridges with the help of helium balloons and build towers and other crazy structures to navigate the goo balls around various difficulties that, if the goo balls touch them, will most likely destroy your structure. If you recover more goo balls than actually needed to complete the level, those will be available for you in a sandbox like game mode where you compete with players from all over the world to build the tallest tower.

World of Goo is an incredibly polished experienced from start to finish. The art design is very unique and nice to look at with some great animations. From the way your structure moves you always get the idea where you will face a structural weakness if you misplace the next few goo balls. It’s impressive that even if you fail quite a few times in a certain level, you will still be motivated to keep on trying yet another time. World of Goo always gives you the feeling that the outcome is 100% up to your actions – and if something goes wrong, you can almost always tell where the problem was and how to make it better next time.

World of Goo is available in two versions; The iPhone version requires at least an iPhone 3GS or 3rd Gen iPod Touch and will only run on those devices for a price tag of $2.99. The slightly more expensive iPad version will set you back $4.99 but comes as a universal app. As we have already pointed out, while World of Goo works great on iPhone and iPod Touch, it definitely benefits from the larger screen of an iPad. World of Goo is one of these games that you really shouldn’t miss out, so if you haven’t played it yet, go and grab it!

One of the games bad points is, strangely, also a good point: Sometimes it depends a bit on luck whether your oranges get hit by some acid rain or make it out alive. It won’t happen often that despite the correct solution you will lose, but it most definitely will. The good side of this: For every time it happens, you will come across another level where, thanks to a bit of luck, you will manage to find a really crazy way to solve the puzzle. So in the end it still feels fair. And at least to me it always feels very rewarding to have ‘tricked’ a game with an alternative solution.

The controls are very slick and simple since you only need to point to the place where you want an item to drop down. The game is also nice to look at with pretty, hand-drawn background images and cute animations. The sound is nothing to write home about, but the sound effects combined with the catchy music definitely get the job done.

Cover Orange comes with loads of levels. And by loads I mean a whooping 160! The crazy thing is there are even more to come in future updates. Now that’s what I call proper post release support! For that amount of content, the $0.99 price tag is more than fair and a lite version is also available. If you are still looking for a new physics based puzzle games, this is a clear recommendation.

And that formula remains almost untouched in Angry Brids Rio. The objective is still to tear down a structure that is put together out of different materials like glass, wood and stone. You will do this by shooting ‘Angry Birds’ via a slingshot right at the structure. The game gives you a different set of birds for each level, with each bird being especially good at destroying one type of material. So you will first have to identify a structural weakness and then go for it with the appropriate bird. A little twist is that you are now asked to destroy cages that are put into the structure to free birds that are trapped inside rather than hitting some mean pigs. But this is more of a visual change rather than having any influence on the gameplay. There are also bonus fruits and characters of the movie to be discovered. In the final of the 60 levels you will even come across a boss fight.

The presentation has been tweaked everywhere. The graphics are sharp and the 2 locations, warehouse and jungle, are really nice to look at (I especially like the warehouse). Rovio has also added some parallax scrolling that creates a bit of depth and gives the visuals a nice touch. Even the menus have been tweaked to be more accessible.

And there is more to come: On the level selection screen are 4 empty slots named ‘May’, ‘July’, ‘October’ and ‘November’ – so get ready for some more action to come within the next months. I always appreciate it a lot when developers keep on bringing new content to their games with regular updates, so kudos to Rovio.

Right now Angry Birds is the biggest brand in mobile(phone) gaming and rightly so. It just blends together the accessibility of a casual game with the challenge and depth of ‘hardcore’ titles so incredibly well. Angry Birds Rio is a great addition to the series and available on the App Store for iPhone [$0.99] and iPad [$2.99].

The gameplay mechanics behind Liqua Pop are very, very simple. You have to match water drops of the same color that are falling down to make them pop before the screen is completely filled up. Once you have combined 4 drops a timer will start to make the drop pop. But since you will get more points for bigger drops you can reset that timer by double tapping the drop to combine it with even more drops. Shaking your iPhone will make all the drops with an active timer instantly pop. The game will also one by one introduce bugs that are caught up in the drops. Each of these bugs will have a special effect like changing the color of all surrounding drops, if you pop the water drop it’s in.

On the left side of the screen is a frog called ‘Toadie’ climbing up a straw. Popping drops will help him climb up the straw to reach a shiny drop at the top. Once he reaches it, the level is complete.

The presentation of Liqua Pop is stunning. The drops come in bright colors and feature a great looking liquid simulation that is fun to mess around with. The sound gives the game a relaxing touch to it thanks to its nature sounds with brids tweeting in the background.

The game is available for $1.99 on the App Store. But have in mind what I mentioned at the beginning: This is a casual game through and through. So while this might be great news for people who just want to start up a game every now and then while waiting for the bus, it could be a bit of a setback if you appreciate more complex games.

The title of the game basically describes what to expect from the gameplay. You will have to collide zybbles of the same color into each other without touching zybbles of a different color. The controls to make this happen are very straight forward. If you tap a zybble, it will have a gravity effect on all other zybbles of the same color which makes them instantly fly towards the one you just tapped.

Collision Effect comes with two different modes, ‘Action’ and ‘Puzzle’. The ‘Action’ mode will throw wave after wave of new zybbles at you which you will have to clear. As usual, this is getting more and more difficult with each new wave and becomes pretty hectic after just a few waves. The ‘Puzzle’ mode on the other hand will challenge your brain and your timing. It features 60 levels in which zybbles are waiting for you in fixed patterns. Again, only zybbles of the same color are allowed to touch each other. While these patterns never become too difficult, it is sometimes tricky to get the timing right. You can slow down the speed of the zybbles once you start moving them which makes it much easier to get the correct timing.

While the ‘Action’ mode is undeniably fun, I have really enjoyed the puzzle mode. I hope Chillingo will keep on supporting this game with more (and more challenging) levels in future updates. The game features some beautiful particle effects and great sound that perfectly fits the gameplay. All in all Collision Effect is one of the more outstanding action-puzzle games on the App Store. At the moment there is no lite version available, but since the game was just released a few days ago we will maybe see one pop up over the next few weeks. However, if you are a fan of the genre I don’t think you can go wrong with Collision Effect for $0.99 – And the fact that it comes as a universal app makes it even more attractive.