There are a little less than two days left before the onset of 2012. In the new year there will be new games, new tops, new hits, so it seems to us that now is the time to get acquainted with the best games of the year 2011 according to our portal.
On the eve of the New Year, we have compiled our own top of the best games for iOS. When compiling the top, we were guided by three criteria: the fascination of the gameplay, the beauty of the graphic execution and the quality of adaptation to the “apple” platform, or, in Russian, the convenience of management and the absence of glitches. Of course, there was subjectivity involved, but we tried to minimize it. By the way, every game presented in our top has either occupied a leading position in the American top for a year, or was included in one of the iTunes charts.
Draw Race 2
This game is loved even by those who can’t stand racing, and treats cars with disdain. It’s all about an unusual approach to the familiar and, as it seemed, unable to surprise the genre of arcade “rides”. The game, instead of forcing the user to steer his four-wheeled monster along a winding highway, suggests drawing a route along which the car will rush after the start. What happens next almost does not depend on the player. After all the cars take off, he can only passively watch what is happening and cheer for his car (well, and press the “acceleration” button at a critical moment).
Tiny Wings
This game has captivated many with even simpler gameplay than Angry Birds, original exploitation of the bird theme and light psychedelics. It is difficult to call the hypnotic process Tiny Wings otherwise. Throughout the game, a sparrow with bulging eyes jumps from one striped slope to another, managing to collect coins with a rounded belly. All this is accompanied by sweet electronics and pigeon cackling.
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP
The most art-house project on mobile platforms. A pixel adventure of an incomprehensible girl through a mystical forest, in which there was a place for battles with demons, visiting ancient temples, rescuing local residents, witchcraft books, magic spells, contemplative philosophy and, most importantly, a wonderful plot. A very rare and very valuable combination, not only for an iOS project, but also for a good game in general.
Ticket to Ride
One of the most successful and, perhaps, successful ports of board games, despite the terrible country music and the same map of the United States as in the original. Plus, a very important multiplayer feature: the ability to play four on one mobile device (and, by the way, the system keeps records itself, so you no longer need to recalculate points for each turn for the tenth time). The latter plays a very important role. Ticket to Ride turns from desktop hardcore into a cute tablet casual.
Gesundheit
The game is about a piglet sick with the flu, who fights terrible monsters by throwing snot. An important point adds a certain sharpness to the gameplay – he does not throw boogers at opponents. It’s useless to throw at them, they eat these snot with pleasure. So the piglet has to aim at traps, or rather at fish that pretended to be traps that eat monsters. In general, if it were not for the graphics in the style of children’s notebooks painted with crayons, then one could safely come to the art director of Gesundheit with people in white coats.
Jelly Defense
The usual tower defense, painted under acid after viewing paintings by Salvador Dali. At least this is the feeling that is created when you get acquainted with the Polish project: mushrooms, smooth curves in the style of soft clocks, white checkered backgrounds, tentacled laughing monsters, farting mustachioed centipede towers and Slavic electronics with a central accordion part. The output is a meditative project, from which it is doubly difficult to break away: on the one hand, proven mechanics, on the other, an abnormal art design in a good way.
Infinity Blade II
Role-playing action from Epic Games, a kind of milestone in mobile gaming and just a good story about a knight without a princess. If the first part in 2010 was perceived as a demonstration of the capabilities of Apple devices and at the same time the talent of Epic programmers who put Unreal Engine into a mobile phone, then the second part turned out to be a real triple-A project without discounts on the platform. A big world, a sea of content, fascinating gameplay and a strong plot by the authorship of fantasy master Brandon Sanders.
Bumpy Road
A love story in retro style, whose gameplay in many ways resembles a game on a xylophone. More precisely, a child’s fuss with this musical instrument, when the child insistently carries a stick on the boards from “to” to “si” and back. In the case of Bumpy Road, the player carries out a “fuss” so that a cute couple on a miniature typewriter collects coins to romantic music a la “France”.
Contre Jour
Lyrical Ukrainian psychedelics with inderect control, which the project subtly resembles Bumpy Road. One of the saddest and most atmospheric games of the past year, which, in fact, touched many. The only thing that confuses is the main character, who looks like a big black sperm, hunting for strange glowing blue balls. However, it is probably in this ambiguity that the charm is hidden, inaccessible to any drop from Gish, nor to the mysterious boy from Limbo, nor, moreover, to the dead cat from Naughty.
Where Is My Water?
The crocodile Swamp has conquered the women’s hearts of our editorial staff and, judging by the leading positions in the Christmas Top Grossing in the App Store, not only them. A well–fed, greenish monster, not inferior to the frog from Cut the Rope in terms of tenderness, and also prone to cleanliness is the main star of the outgoing year. As for the game itself, there were some surprises here: the realistic physical model of the game water forces you to replay simple-looking levels more than once or twice. So most of the time poor Swampy has to sit in an empty tub.