The 15 Games You Need For Your New iPhone (pg. 03)

Rolando • Hand Circus • App Store Link • Lite Version • www

Even with Hand Circus's 2.5D enhanced sequel just around the corner, the original Rolando still remains an essential addition to your iPhone library: a terribly thoughtful take on puzzling platforming, the game was one of the first games to come to the App Store that showed the potential of the device as as much a place for longform handheld adventures as quick burst time-wasters, and creator Simon Oliver has done a fantastic job of continuing to support the game with a steady stream of new levels to tide us over while we wait for the Golden Orchid to bloom.

Star Defense • Rough Cookie • App Store Link • www

Like Reflexion, Star Defense is a new entry in one of the iPhone's most populated categories, with scores of other tower defense games also vying for your time and attention, but Rough Cookie's debut is the one I keep returning to, mostly for the very nature of its spherical conceit, which constantly keeping both your fingers and attention span active in flipping and zooming in and out of its tiny worlds to plan your next attacks, rather than statically waiting for single-screen waves to make their way from one side to the other.

It's also, of course, the debut showcase game for publisher Ngmoco's Plus+ gaming service -- a sort of firmware 3.0 enabled Xbox Live for the iPhone, which lets you challenge friends and compare achievements and leaderboard scores from a unified interface that will soon stretch across all Ngmoco releases. For that, it too is one of the first games you should experience on your new iPhone, if only as a taste of what the future will hold for the device.

Sway • Illusion Labs • App Store Link • Lite Version • www

Early comparisons to LittleBigPlanet were little more than skin-deep: aside from the felt puppetry of it's characters, Sway has much more in common with the GBA/DS's Donkey Kong spinoff King of Swing/Jungle Climber.

How does it work? Each half of the screen controls your ragdoll's grip, and careful holds, releases and swings (or, well, sways) helps you toss each character around its cork-board levels, with smart bonuses to unlock as rewards for exploratory derring-do, and attributes individual to each new unlockable character -- all just part of the game's polish that make it a top pick.

Taxiball • Self Aware • App Store Link • Lite Version • www

Taxiball comes with the simplest pitch line that tells you everything you need to know: it's Crazy Taxi meets Monkey Ball, and it must drive Sega crazy that they didn't think of it first.

There are a lot of tilt-labyrinth games on the iPhone, but none reward you with bigger tips for more adept playing as you roll from point to point, and none come with the gorgeous isometric pixels that Self Aware have managed to cook up for their debut game, alongside one of the best baked-in social networking systems of any independent release, with its own smart friend-finder and stat-comparison capabilities.

Zen Bound • Secret Exit • App Store Link • www

It's almost impossible to describe why Zen Bound works. There's almost no way to describe to someone how 'wrap a wooden frog with rope' equals like anywhere near a compelling game experience, and yet Secret Exit have proven it twice, both with their 2005 demoscene PC prototype, and again, far more, on the iPhone, where the direct contact with the object lends a fantastic sense of actual physical tactile reality. Another top showcase of what the iPhone does best, and what can't be done as well on any other platform.