Touch Arcade

What you get here is a game that straddles that balance between challenge and frustration, has a player-friendly free model to it, and is amusing and charming to boot. Definitely download Does Not Commute, whatever you do.

There's a solid game here in Spirit Lords, with great production values, writing that's not terrible, and a game that's got more 'free' to it than you would expect from a major free-to-play publisher. If you want a solid, friendly-enough hack 'n slash, Spirit Lords isn't a bad choice, but not essential.

Unfortunately, the levels themselves aren't very satisfying to explore, and the battle system that sits at the heart of the game is just unpleasant. The enemy AI is predictable, the terrain has little variety, the hits lack impact, and the spell-casting system wears thin in a hurry. Too much of a battle's outcome has little to do with your actual strategy, instead relying on having the right numbers and nimble, accurate fingers. The more I played this game, the less I liked it. With tons of great choices in the strategy RPG genre on iOS, there's little reason to spend your time or money on this.

All that said, if you've enjoyed Ravenous's other games so far, you'll find Devious Dungeon 2 to be up to their usual level of quality all-around, with excellent virtual controls, a consistent presentation, and a healthy batch of content for your money. If this happens to be your first game from this developer, you might even be in love with it. For everyone else, it's a slight improvement over the original game in some respects, but it still can't avoid that feeling of deja vu that pervades this developer's work. About as testing as a coloring book, to be sure, but not without its enjoyment.

Sorcery! 3 is easily the biggest and most robust gamebook inkle has produced to date. It offers all of the strengths of the previous chapters and builds a ton of improvements on top of them. I strongly feel you should play the previous games first just to get the proper context for this one, but it certainly stands alone better than the original book did.

As a sequel to Halo: Spartan Assault, it would make sense that Strike seeks to improve upon its predecessor and it succeeds in that regard. While the changes to the formula feel more evolutionary than revolutionary, those improvements are on a game that was already great to begin with making Strike an even better dual stick shooter.

The limited scope makes Tiltagon an interesting game to check out, but not quite an urgent must-download. I like its concepts, and the way it slows things down a bit. Plus, the tilt controls are great. And the monetization is pretty cool. But I wish there was more here.

Dragon Hills takes the core idea of flying a dragon, strips it down to its absolute basics, and goes wild. It's a game that you play solely for the joy of movement. ...There probably isn't a great deal of longevity here, but Dragon Hills is a fun toy to tinker with for a couple of hours and, for some, that's what mobile gaming is all about.

Still, a strategy game being exclusive to iPad is hardly an unusual state of affairs. It's a whole different world on that side of the App Store, but I think Crowntakers holds it own quite well with its unusual blend of elements from roguelikes, strategy games, and RPGs.

Football Manager Classic 2015 is a fantastic game not just for those who love the sport, but also for anyone who enjoys RPGs and choose-your-adventure gamebooks. With its great help system, you'll rarely feel like you're drowning in numbers and menus despite the game's complexity, and the UI makes navigating the game very intuitive.