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Three must have iPad games

This week I thought I’d take a slight detour from the usual hardware reviews and tell you about three iPad games that I’ve played a lot lately.

As it happens, I’ve traveled a lot lately and these games have kept me sane during those long hours in a cramped cabin.

Anomaly HD

TAKE tower-defence and flip it over; the towers are already set and you control the troops trying to make their way through the veritable obstacle course. The setting is somewhere in an urban desert environment and you’re tasked to your tanks, battle droids and other mechanised units through increasingly difficult levels.

For each level you have to plot your units’ course to try to maximise your firepower and avoid the strongest of the enemy units, which are plotted on the map. Once you’re on your way you can collect powerups and you need them as you’re fired upon from all sides. The graphics are excellent as is the sound and there’s enough action to keep you entertained for hours.

Contre Jour

THIS is among the most innovative games for any mobile platform that I’ve ever played. Contre Jour is suitable for gamers of all ages in which you play a blob, a cute tadpole-like being with one eye, known as Petit. For each level it’s your job to get Petit to a glowing and pulsating cloud, which will take you to the next level. Along the way there are smaller blue clouds that you should hit to get points. Petit has no way of moving on its own, it’s all down to you to modify the environment so it can move.

For example, raise the ground a bit behind Petit and it rolls down. If all you had to worry about was the ground it would be no problem. But you will also have to get Petit up in the air by using bungee cords that also have eyes. Making Petit swing from bungee to bungee in a particular order gets pretty difficult fast. The graphics are very nice but make sure you follow the instructions in the game and put on a headset; the music and audio in Contre Jour are well worth it.

Monster Island

ANOTHER game for all ages is Monster Island. If you’ve played all the Angry Birds you can take but like the genre then this is a game for you. You play a monster throwing “minis” across the screen and you control the aim and the force with which you throw. The minis bounce around and will eventually settle which is when they explode, taking barriers and other monsters with them. And that’s the aim of the game, to destroy other monsters with as few minis as possible. Sounds simple? It is, but then so is Angry Birds in the first few levels. The graphics in Monster Island are super cute and there’s plenty of audio to match.

· Magnus Nystedt talks and writes about technology as much as he can. Follow him on Twitter as @mnystedt for the latest on consumer technology in the Middle East.

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