iPhone Game Recommendations

Now that I’m an official beta tester of an iPhone game I thought I’d quickly list the games that dwell on my iPhone. Although I’m a life long gamer and a long time Mac fan, I was slow to join the iPhone revolution. I didn’t even have a cell phone until I moved to Japan. Now that I don’t have a job of course I have an expensive cell phone contract, well not bad (65 dollars a month) I had some time to try a few iPhone games.

I went on the whole old school RPG trip for a while, but generally I favour strategy games, the best of which at least implemented on the iPhone that I have found is Samurai which of course I suck at. I’m one of the worst 100 or so players in the world according to the official rankings.

The first game I bought for my iPhone was of course Civilization Revolution, but I think it is too involved and my iPhone screen too small for play. That said there are iPhone games (listed below) I’ve played games for several hours straight late at night lying in bed. I got the numbness in my arms to prove it. Recently I tend to use social networks or read more than gamed. So here are the ones that I’ve downloaded and in many cases paid for and that I’ve kept on my phone. I try to limit myself to one screen full of games.

In no particular order, except perhaps length of time they’ve been on my phone:

• Civilization Revolution
• Bejeweled 2
• Jewel Smash appears to be no more along with MiniNation
• Settlers of Catan, which has recently added more features supposedly…
• Fruit Ninja, which is very good value for the money
• Carcassonne
• Neuroshima Hex
• Samurai
• Dragon Scribe
• Final Fantasy
• Katamari
• Undercroft
• Rimelands: Hammer of Thor
• The Quest Gold
• Sword of Fargoal

As mentioned before I like Samurai the best, I play it most everyday online against strangers. I play one turn then wait up until a day to get to go again. You of course can play it at a faster pace. I even bought the original board game. Settlers of Catan is well implemented on the iPhone and a more famous board game but it doesn’t have an online challenge system yet, neither does Neuroshima Hex. Settlers of Catan does have a good AI and you can play hotseat against friends. Carcassonne is also a famous European style boardgame, but again online multiplayer is lacking.

Dragon Scribe is a kanji learning app, it is actually for Chinese, but I don’t use it much, as you need sound or perhaps that is one of the other language learning apps I downloaded. When I game, I generally do so with minimal sound, which is why I don’t play Fruit Ninja or Katamari as much as my sister and cousin. They both borrow my iPhone to game.

Katamari still should come out on the Wii, but after some crappy releases it seems to run pretty good on the iPhone but not as fast as on the Play Station. Still waiting for another old Owen and Thor favourite, Final Fantasy Tactics, to make it to the iPhone.

Undercroft is the best RPG on the iPhone. Rimelands looks cool, but doesn’t play that fun and autosaves in stupid spots. Quest Gold is a never ending click fest, but after 20 hours or so it loses its charm. Fargoal is a dungeon crawler that was originally written for the Commodore 64. It is actually quite fun, but takes too long. You can save your adventure, but I generally want games that I can play for 15 to 20 minutes rather than ones for which I need to plug in my phone and lie in bed to play.

Katamari can’t be played lying in bed as gravity and motion are major factors in the gameplay.

This post is now about nine years old. One of these games is still on my iPhone, Catan because some of my friends really like it, so we played “hot seat” style while traveling in Japan. The other games on my phone are Tetris not Tetris Blitz, Slayaway Camp, and Doomwheel.

I’m overdue for a new game and the good life but I have been trying to find a new job ever since I passed the third and final CFA® exam so if you have any game recommendations or job search tips you can leave them below.

This entry was originaly posted on February 9th, 2011, it was last edited on March 19th, 2019 and is filed under: Gaming and tagged: Civilization Revolution, Fruit Ninja, iPhone, Samurai, Undercroft.