Reviewing this game is a lot like discussing Nancy Pelosi or Sarah Palin. There's a clear love/hate divide and those on the love side say the haters just don't get it. Color me ignorant. Steam Pirates is an RPG staring Kat, whose introductory scenes – something about being a mercenary trying to rescue a rock band and encountering mermaids – are promising enough. What ensues is a hybrid 2... more.

I'm perfectly amicable to abusing animals. "Cat football" was one of my first internet searches and my all-time favorite name for a pet is "Punt." It's a well-known phenomena among family and friends that their shelter rejects invariably plant themselves in my lap for interminable stretches as a sadistic form of revenge. So Boxing Zoo ought to be the ideal Punch Out clone to tote around on my i... more.

By Mark Sabbatini So how do the ghosts decide to chase in a two-player game? Programmer Marcin Wichary says he had lots of help translating most elements of Pac-Man's original source code into a playable Google logo that set off a frenzy – and fury – for 48 hours starting March 21. But a drastically different maze, the option of having two people play at once and certain quirks in the ... more.

Playing the iPhone update of this ancient classic is a lot like taking back a spouse that had an affair. There's love and a desire to reunite, but you're just not sure you can ever fully trust your partner again. Which isn't to say it's not worth messing around a bit for old times' sake. Prince Of Persia Retro revives the 1989 Apple II classic that launched a prolific gaming franchise and ut... more.

A cute 2D platform creature trying to eek out a living in a cruel 3D shooter world. That's as close to "you had me at hello" as I get. I've long been a sucker for this now-underdog genre, which when done well matches the best of its rivals in offering new things to explore and discover. But Goro's Way is like that pretty girl who turns out be not all that bright (or, in my case, probably acti... more.

Odds are you probably already have and love this game, so all that's left for a poor reviewer to do is try to tell you something about it you don't know. For starters, behind the pay wall of The Wall Street Journal's Web site is this gem of an incentive for aspiring app developers:  "'Angry Birds' has generated about 2.35 million paid downloads since its launch in December…It costs 99 cents... more.

Not only is this alleged 3D shooter awful, but it's an insult to the ultimate battle of World War II. There's ambivalence about reliving war as entertainment instead of just blowing away the aliens in Doom, but gamers have made their peace with it for various reasons. As a history minor who's spent  a good chunk of his career analyzing politics, I'm part of the classic school of wargamers inte... more.

A 3D, true-to-physics iPhone pinball game featuring complex logic without roaming cameras or "RGB-like quest on an eight-screen playfield" X-tremism. OK,  a few exist already – the revived Amiga classic Pinball Dreaming: Pinball Dreams in particular – and this isn't the most in-demand genre around. But as a former kid willing to tolerate dad's beatings for staying too long at the ice rink'... more.

Nothing written in this reviews matters, since this app is as critic proof as it gets. But I'm wasting time writing it anyhow since, unlike the Double Down, this effort actually justifies the hype. All-In-1 Gamebox is a perpetual contender on bestseller lists because it offers a wealth of constantly increasing titles – 30 as of this writing – for a mere 99 cents. The logic for buying it is ... more.

It's incredible how thin the line is between a great game and utter trash. And incredible how even the most tired gaming concepts can shine in the hands of a creative programmer. RPG Snake takes one of the world's oldest and most copied games – something so simple it was among my first projects in the archaic language of BASIC – and makes it fresh and fun by meshing it with another old genr... more.