28 of the best iPhone and iPad games

Drop7

Eugh maths. Surely something that teaches you basic arithmatic can’t be fun, right? Wrong. The simple formula of making balls drop down by making sure the relevantly numbered orb is in the correct numerical place, is devilishly obsessive. It might take a while to pick up, but you’ll soon be hitting high scores as if your pathetic life depended on it.

Stand o’ Food

Like working in a fast food restaurant but without the shame, Stand o’ Food is a tricky puzzle game where you have to make delicious sandwiches from conveyor belts of ingredients.

Fail to make a burger with cheese, onion and ketchup on it and the customers get mightily miffed at your tardy service and storm out. It’s tough to make sure your creation is in the correct order (e.g. bun bottom, burger, bun top), which adds another level of depth to the action.

Solitaire

A gaming classic that’s cheaper than buying an actual deck of cards.

Slice It!

This one is for those of you with an OCD for symmetry. You use your sweaty digit as a makeshift scalpel to dissect shapes in a way that creates equal portions once cut up. 

It doesn’t sound particularly entertaining, but it will bring out your inner perfectionist as you slice through loads of puzzles.   

Plants v Zombies

Whaddya mean you’ve never heard of this? The tower defence game is one of the most original, greatest and downright fun-filled titles to hit iOS. 

There’s a zombie invasion, and playing up to the gruesome stereotype, they want to eat your brain. To repel them you have an army of plants that will shoot, blow-up, freeze, block, burn or squash the lumbering undead. Developer PopCap even manage to squeeze some genuine humour into the game. Fancy that. 

Monster Dash

Mr Steakfries is back in another distance runner in the same vein as Canabalt, except this time you have monsters to send back to their maker with a juicy shotgun.

As you try to sprint for as far as possible – whilst jumping gaps and blasting foes – you get power-ups in the form of rocket launchers and a Terminator style hog to do that spinny shotgun wield thing that Arnie does.

Monopoly

At some point over Christmas someone is going to suggest you climb into the spider-filled loft to get the boardgames down. Sod that. Download this digital take on an all-time classic and you’ll avoid a face full of cobwebs.

Plus, all the family can gather round the warm, radiation glow of your new iPad and thus save fuel costs by keeping the heating switched off.

N.O.V.A 2

An FPS on iOS? Yes, sir. This Halo-homage not only packs a fairly hefty single player experience but you can also frag other other folk from across the world with a neat multi-player mode too.

Flight Control

Despite Billy Bob Thornton vehicle, Pushing Tin, doing it's upmost to make air traffic control appear even duller than it actually is, Flight Control manages to spice it up again.

Drag your finger across the screen to create a flight path to the runway/helipad for your various aircraft. Easy, right? Well, what if we told you that the planes come in different speeds meaning that in-air collisions are more likely, and that Game Over screen will arrive much quicker. 

Words With Friends

How the makers of Scrabble haven't taken Zynga to court over this blatant rip-off is anyone's guess. But their financial loss is our entertaining gain as this game allows you play against your chums over the interwebz.

Be warned: this has the potential to break friendships along the way. Especially if your opposition is constantly spelling out words like 'needy', 'debtor' or 'smelly'.

Canabalt

Our first attraction to this distance runner? The superb soundtrack. Second? The fact the little running man looks like Elvis in Jailhouse Rock. 

Regardless of our weird, personal attractions, this free-to-play browser game feels right at home on iOS. Simply tap the screen to jump objects scattered around to slow you down and aim for the furthest run you can. 

Tiny Tower

After careful consideration we can safely say that this isn't a game, not in the traditional sense anyway. No, it's pure addiction in micromanagement simulator form.

OK, so that's not exactly the big 'sell' that you're looking for with Tiny Tower, but opening new shops, tending to your Denizens' (read: tiny cartoon folk) needs and building upwards until you reach the heavens is a delightful formula that will take over any spare time you thought you had. Enjoy, but do be warned, it's hard to wean yourself off this.