I still remember with the original Chopper Game hit the iOS store so many years ago. It was fun, but I for some reason never got into it. I always seemed to die, and never really liked the “get to the end” gameplay (oh and the rockets were a b***h).

Ever since that game came out, I have subconsciously been watching the app store for other Helicopter games that were engaging, and a bit more approachable. Just a few short weeks ago, Dustoff Vietnam fulfilled my Helicopter desires with a great flying app.

It takes just a few minutes to understand and use the basic controls of Dustoff, but it takes several hours to master the gameplay enough to fly a maze in a Chinook. The gameplay is predictable: rescue GI’s or collect missing equipment. The challenge comes in flying your chopper through the wind, dodging enemies, and fly through mines to find all of the GI’s. It was a time consuming challenge to get all the way through (and earn all of the gold stars), but I loved every minute of it.

Wow, Terraria…

It takes forever! As an iOS gamer, I have been following the pulse of iOS game development. It seems like three genres of Games have been steadily growing over the past year. Those genres are Crafting, Card, and Survival Games. Terraria is one of the most popular iOS Crafting/Survival games on the market.

The basic premise is that you are stuck on an alien world and need to survive. With rudimentary tools (at first), you create your own kingdom. As the game progresses, you have access to more intricate tools and resources, allowing you to create more and more items. Games like this tend to drag on forever! With Terraria, there is an end. You do reach the end of the crafting table after many hours in the game, and you can then spend your time developing your holdings.

FTL is a game that has been out for some time. I have been playing it for months and it still has me firmly within its grip. The basic premise is that you command a ship that is fleeing an aggressive fleet. As you progress, or jump, to new systems, you are presented with missions. Those missions earn you commodities that you use to upgrade your ship and destroy your enemies.

The gameplay is fairly straight forward, but the game is insanely challenging. After a few hours of playing, I had not beaten a single game. To this day, I still have not progressed to defeating the final boss of the game. It will take you hours of gameplay just to make it to the final confrontation, and even then, you will be lucky to survive. FTL is another game with an insanely high Game Hours / Dollar ratio. I still continue to play hoping that one day I will unlock all of the ships – it seems unlikely, but I am still hoping. Check out my video below for Gameplay analysis.

In case you have not figured it out yet, I am a bit of a Nerd. When I was a teenager, my friends and I played a lot of Magic: The Gathering. As I grew up, I started chasing girls more than I roamed the plains. That continued throughout my adult life, focusing more on social interactions than epic card games. Well that is until I started playing Hearthstone.

Hearthstone has reintroduced me to the genre of Epic, Deck-building Card Games.

What a game! I have always wanted to be able to fly across the galaxy and build my own vessel. Galaxy on Fire allows me to do that, and I can do it in style! The main story line is that you are taking on a hostile alien race that is destroying the galaxy. As a former military fighter pilot, and now a pirate, you engage the enemy and eventually destroy them (with a bunch of help from some scientists). GOF2 is a Space Piloting game in the truest sense, giving you the ability to control, upgrade, and fight with the ship of your choice.

In the Genre of “Console Ports” there are relatively few options for iOS. With EA Releasing the Mass Effect and DeadSpace titles, there was some hope… it continues to fizzle. The Knights of the Old Republic port is a fantastic console quality game on the iPad, but for those of us who played that game to death on the PC or Xbox, it is an old hat. iOS gamers have been chomping at the bit for another Console quality game to hit the store.

This year, we saw the most notable game of our generation hit the App Store: BioShock.

World of Tanks – Simply one of the best iOS Shooting games out there!

You roam a small set of maps in a wide range of tanks trying to wage war and destroy the rival team. There are now more than 50 tanks in the game that meet all gameplay styles, from running-and-gunning to sniping. The game is monetized, but for additional experience boosts (aka. spending less time on the leveling grind). The interface is smooth and crisp, with a great dual analog style. Unfortunately when I play the game with my connected SteelSeries Stratus, the game is clunky and the control mapping does not seem to match with gameplay.