With close to 40,000 games available in the App Store, it can be difficult to find not just the good games, but the best of the best. We’ve compiled a list of the 150 best-reviewed iPhone games of all-time.
1-25:
Screenshot | Description, Avg Review, Price |
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1. Cut the Rope (5 stars, $0.99) is a casual puzzle physics game where the object is to cut ropes so that a piece of candy falls into the On Nom’s mouth. Your task is complicated by candy-eating spiders, floating bubbles, and other challenging obstacles. Beautiful graphics, and clever, not-too-easy, not-too-hard puzzle designs make this one of the best casual iPhone games ever. | |
2. Bastion (5 stars, $4.99) may be 2012’s Game of the Year for iOS. It is a stunningly beautiful action RPG that has received critical acclaim on other gaming platforms as well as iOS. The game’s controls have been adjusted perfectly for the iPhone—there are no compromises or clunky control schemes. This is a game that gets every element of game design right: fun combat, a good story, and great voice acting, and it maintains challenging and surprising gameplay through the end. | |
3. Plants vs. Zombies (5 stars, $2.99) is a tower-defense/strategy game where you use plants to protect your home from invading zombies. Use the various plant types and their unique powers to kill zombies and gather energy to build even more plants for protection. Features 50 levels in Adventure mode. | |
4. The Room (5 stars, free, $0.99 IAP to unlock full game) may be the best puzzle game ever for the iPhone. The premise starts out simple enough: a box in a dark room with a few items. But the smallest details become the biggest clues that let you open the box, layer after layer. Beautiful graphics, stunning surprises….this game has it all. Who knew a game about a box can be so thrilling? | |
5. Where’s My Water? (5 stars, $0.99) is a whimsical puzzle game from Disney. The object is to direct water down to Swampy the Alligator so he can take a shower. Too bad the other alligators have sabotaged Swampy’s plumbing. You must build paths with your finger, remove obstacles, and use various objects to direct the flow of water so there’s enough water for a nice clean shower. With over 200 puzzles to solve, lots of humor, and tons of collectibles, Where’s My Water is one of those casual gaming bargains that makes the iPhone a great casual gaming device. | |
6. Fieldrunners 2 (5 stars, $2.99) is a sequel to the best-selling tower defense iPhone game. Few thought the developers could improve on the game, but they have, with beautiful graphics and sharpened gameplay. Place weapons strategically on a map so that they efficiently destroy waves of enemies that march on screen. Call in airstrikes, set traps, and conquer the new maps. Likely 2012’s game of the year, just about every professional iPhone game critic gave it a perfect score. | |
7. Infinity Blade (5 stars, $0.99) features some of the most stunning graphics and sound effects of any game on the iPhone and iPad. Infinity Blade is a fighting game where you take on warriors one-on-one, using swipes and taps to attack and dodge. Collect treasures to update your equipment. Brilliant all-around game design makes this one of the best iPhone games ever. | |
8. Rayman Jungle Run (5 stars, $2.99) is a 2012 Game of the Year and a beautiful game where you run, jump, and helicopter through dozens of perfectly designed levels. There is plenty of replay value for each level as well. The game also comes with iCloud support, so pick up where you left off on the iPhone and iPad. A quirky mood keeps the game light, but it also can be challenging at times. Another personal favorite, and a game that only gets better the deeper into the game you get. Highly recommended for those who don’t want to get too serious with a game. | |
9. Bejeweled (5 stars, $0.99) is the classic match 3 game, and there’s a reason it has long remained one of the most popular iPhone games and survived the ages. This is polished match 3 play. Match 3 or more jewels of the same color to remove them from the board. It’s easy, sure, but there are also subtle strategies that reveal themselves over time. Bejeweled is a casual game that can be played anywhere for any length of time. Features 5 game modes to keep things interesting. | |
10. Walking Dead Assault (5 stars, $1.99) is a squad-based tactical game based on the now famous comic book (and now TV show). Control Rick, Shane, Carl, Lori, and the others, each with their own abilities and strengths (ranged, melee, etc) as they fight their way through 11 levels of zombies. Walking Dead Assault utilizes an iPhone-friendly control system—no direction pads here. The developers have promised more episodes in the future. | |
11. Tiny Wings (5 stars, $0.99) is a fun casual game where you fly a little bird as far as you can before the sun goes down. Ride down slopes of hills and launch yourself into the air. Develop perfect timing to keep yourself aloft as long as possible. Beautiful graphics and a play-anywhere casual style make this one a winner. | |
12. Plague Inc. (5 stars, $0.99) is a strategy game where your goal is to destroy the world by developing and spreading a plague. Evil, huh? Fun and challenging, too! Choose a country of origin, then begin to strategically develop the plague’s characteristics. Do you want your victims to spread the disease by sneezing and coughing, or simply by touching each other? Earn “DNA points” that allow you to upgrade and mutate your disease. Just make sure you dance around the annoying good-hearted doctors trying to find a cure. | |
13. Peggle (5 stars, $2.99) is the classic, time-tested casual game that is well-suited for the iPhone. Launch pinballs and try to clear all the orange pegs from the screen. Part strategy, part luck, the game features 55 levels of play. Colorful graphics and fun music make the game a pleasurable experience. | |
14. Ski Safari (4.5 stars, $0.99) is a lighthearted gamed that puts you in control of a skier who has just been pushed out of his bed by an avalanche and sent careening down a mountain. Your goal is to keep up enough speed to outrun the avalanche. What’s so special about this game is the beautiful and detailed design that has gone into not only the artwork but also gameplay and animations. Especially fun are the animals and items you come across during your unexpected journey, like Abominable Snowmen, penguins, eagles, and snowmobiles. Sure, Ski Safari borrows (steals) its basic gameplay style from the popular Tiny Wings, but Ski Safari takes things up a notch to not only be better, but one of the best iPhone games ever. | |
15. Superbrothers: Sword & Sorcery (4.5 stars, $4.99) is one of the most unique games on the iOS platform. The developer describes it as “an exploratory action adventure with an emphasis on audiovisual style.” It really is a beautiful game visually, and it comes with a soundtrack of completely original music. Some say you either love this game or you hate it, but professional app reviews show that most love it. A truly revolutionary game. | |
16. Angry Birds (4.5 stars, $0.99) is a challenging physics puzzler with deep gameplay. Launch birds and knock down the pigs’ protective barriers. Utilize various powers (split birds into three, accelerate their speed mid-air) to reach and destroy the pigs. A fun combination of logic, skill, and trial and error. Features over 195 levels—dozens of hours of casual gameplay for $0.99. And it has a rare 5-star average review rating in the App Store. | |
17. Fruit Ninja (4.5 stars, $0.99) is a unique, fast-paced swipe game where your finger becomes a ninja sword, slicing up fruit and avoiding other obstacles like bombs. Chop all the fruit and please your sensei. | |
18. Angry Birds Star Wars (4.5 stars, $0.99) takes the casual puzzle game and adds a Star Wars theme to it. Over a 100 levels to solve with more being added periodically. Use the force, wield a lightsaber, and fight against Darth Vader (who’s now a pig, of course). | |
19. Space Miner (4.5 stars, $1.99) takes the basic elements of the classic arcade Asteroids and adds in a money system, upgradeable ships, and a funny storyline. Blast away at asteroids and enemies in 48 unique sectors of space while taking on monsters and special side missions to earn extra cash. | |
20. Trainyard (5 stars, $0.99) is a puzzle game that make look somewhat plain graphics wise, but is still one of the most clever casual games I’ve played on the iPhone. The goal is to get trains to the end station by creating tracks with your finger. Red trains go to red stations, blue to blue, etc. The game starts off easy enough, but soon you are splitting trains, combing colors to create a third, and other wicked gameplay twists. A perfect casual game for the iPhone | |
21. Monster Dash (4.5 stars, $0.99) is a survival platformer where the object is to jump over gaps, navigate obstacles, and blow away enemies as you constantly run left to right on the screen. Features a fun cartoon monster theme, large collection of weapons, and lots of humor. From the creators of Fruit Ninja. | |
22. Solipskier (4.5 stars, $2.99) is a unique skiing game where you draw a path for your skier to navigate a course. Create jumps and slopes for your skier using your finger all the while guiding him through gates and tunnels. The longer you survive, the faster your skier moves. | |
23. Sally’s Spa (4.5 stars, $1.99) is a time management game that puts you in charge of a running a beauty spa. Manage customers as they arrive, and move them along through the various stations while making sure they never wait too long. Buy new equipment to assist you in the task and use strategy to make sure the impatient customers get moved along the quickest. Fun and quirky. | |
24. Crosswords (4.5 stars, $9.99) gathers daily crossword puzzles from the top newspapers, including the Washington Post, New York Times classics, Wall Street Journal, and many others. Nearly unlimited crossword puzzles to solive, and constantly updated. Perfect app for crossword addicts. | |
25. Mushroom Age (4.5 stars, $2.99) is a hidden-object game that pulls you along with a great mystery and sci-fi story. Travel through time as you try to find hidden objects and solve puzzles. A nice healthy dose of humor as well. |
Words With Friends is my favorite. In addition to being a good time-waster, I can tell myself I’m keeping my brain sharp as I hit middle age…
Cut the Rope, definitely.
As an added bonus to the great gameplay and gadgets that add complexity – you can just pass your phone over to anyone and they can play the game immediately with just a one sentence explanation of the mechanism. They’ll even be able to advance quite far since the levels are quite easy if you’re not going for the three stars.
Honestly, surprised that “Tilt to Live” isn’t here. So even though it isn’t, I have to go with it as my favorite. By far the best game for me. Simple, but while other games lose their luster, Tilt to Live keeps me coming back for its addictive gameplay and ultimately superior replay value.
~Daniel
Angry Birds by far. Although I’ve just started playing Cut the Rope and it is almost as addicting.
From this list – Fruit Ninja is my favorite! Great list.
I have several of the games listed here and enjoy them immensely. My favorite game listed here has to be Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars. Most games play through in a couple of days. I am still playing through GTA.
Angry Birds, always; it’s so addictive an fun. it’s my number one.
btw: great list!!!
Out of the 150+ listed here, I’ve only played a few. I’m a word puzzle kind of gal, so most of these don’t appeal to me. Crosswords was some of the best $10 I ever spent. I’ve never run out of puzzles yet!
Angy Birds. The best.
I’ve been addicted to Angry Birds when it first came out. I still play it every day.
I go back a long way with Myst.
Tower Madness for sure.
It’s not easy to pick just one but Canabalt is my favorite. I love the simplicity, graphics and the fact that is not time-consuming.
Osmos is my favorite.
chopper 2!!!!!!!!
The Best!!!!!!
Bejeweled and Angry Birds are the two I keep going back to. Many others have come and gone, but these two had stood the test of time.
Angry Birds is the best!
Surprisingly, Trainyard was my favourite. I just kept coming back to it and enjoyed every second I played. Simple and elegant. Hope that there’s more in the pipeline!
Space Miner, easy!
Bookworm is my favorite game and that bow-tied dirt creature would sure sound good on some Denon headphones I tell you what.
I have to say Words with Friends. I have ten games going now and love to trash talk as I play
Angry Birds is still my favorite.
Tough choices. I’d choose Gangstar: West Coast Hustle, only because it was my first game and I became immersed, obsessive even. I was amazed at what could be done with my little Touch. It will be interesting to see how great games get in a year or two.
Fishing Kings!! Think fishing is gross in real life, but love it on the iPhone! Great list, thanks for this mammoth wrap up!
Not sure how Field Runners is so far down on the list, that game rocks!! No matter what games I end up playing, I’ll always play a good round of field runners for some fun.
Also high on the list of that type of game is an original, Tap Defense :)
Of course there is Angry Birds and Plants V Zombies no question those should be high on the list, but what may as well be called “crack for the iPhone” is Bejeweled Blitz!! Talk about a distraction. Whether it be in work meetings, walking around shopping or dare i say while driving, that game is absolutely addicting!!
Angry Birds! I have wasted way to many hours with this game. Love it.
I love The Simpsons Arcade game!
Angry Birds is my favorite. Rovio upgrades it often enough to keep it fresh and it’s endlessly challenging and entertaining. It takes skill and some smarts to win. Classic.
meteor blitz
I like a lot of the games here, but I keep going back to Angry Birds. The game has so many positives. It starts up fast and playing for 3 stars is such fun. Such a kick.
Radiant is my favorite, although it’s not listed here. For games in this list I would have to go with Predators as the best.
I love racing so I have to go with Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit.
Tie between Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja for me…!
I have many games from top, I love playing on IPHONE, it’s great to play so many FULL version games on IPHONE since you don’t need a computer also they turn out to be cheaper.
Can’t get enough Words With Friends. All the game needs is a poke function for when you’re frustrated your opponent hasn’t played in a while.
Angry Birds hands down. I will crush those pigs!
It’s gotta be peggle or angry birds for me.
I really like plants vs. zombies…. I couldn’t put it down.
Street Fighter IV would be my favorite
As of Christmas week, Osmos and Plants vs. Zombies are my newest favorites. But, my vote will go to WWF (words with friends) because that’s the only app that I’ve been activly using for well over a year and counting.
As much as I love Angry Birds, Words With Friends, Plants vs Zombies and Doodle Jump, I’m gonna have to say that Soosiz has definitely been my favorite this year. I spent wayyyy more time with that game than I originally thought I would, and loved every moment of it.
Also, thank you guys so much for adding Vay to the list! I had no idea that game was remade for iOS.
I like puzzle games and Unblock me is the king of all.
off topic : this is probably , one of the most useful sites about iphone. keep it up !
Angry Birds cause I HATE pigs.
Trainyard
Definitely Cut the Rope
Cut The Rope!
The game I always keep on my phone is Canabalt. It is one that I keep playing over and over. I just need to get a few more yards so I keep getting sucked back in. Good music, graphics and user interface is the best. One tap is all you need.
I was surprised that SimCity was no where on the list though. The Deluxe version is finally getting the experience as close to the PC version as possible.
cut the rope … it’s too addictive
Ive found myself turning into an angry bird trying to rebeat the game but with Three Stars on each level. For me its a toss between Words and Birds…
Angry Birds is fun but Plants Vs. Zombies was by far the best! Well it certainly decreased my productivity at work in 2010 haha.
Definitely Plants vs. Zombies
Gotta go with Infinity Blade! Slice and dice away…
Fragger, the best. 2 times in a row finished all over again…
I have to say that Angry Birds, Cut the Rope and Infinity Blade. But I am surprised that JOSE COMES TO USA and Dead Space are not in the list.
So here are my suggestions-
151-JOSE COMES TO USA
152-DEAD SPACE
ANGRY BIRDS, DOODLE JUMP, CUT THE ROPE, MINIGORE, JELLY CAR 3, PLANTS VS. ZOMBIES, ZOMBIEVILLE, BATTLEHEART, CALL OF DUTY ZOMBIES, AND HUNGRY SHARK PART 3 ARE ALL THE ABSOLUTE BEST AND UNBEATABLE APPS EVER! BUY THEM ALL!!!
Hector is by far the best game I have ever played – even better than Angry Birds – and I never thought I would say that about any game.
SO FUNNY!
Yeah, Angry Birds really cool, also I like “Finger Snake” game from my childhood :)
Cut the rope is the best!
Puzzle Man Pro is my second