There are games that hark back to history, there are games that have a retro flavour to them, and then there's Autoslalom. If 'you young ones' want to know what mobile gaming was all about back in the day, then check out this apparent labour of love from Wojciech Poniatowski.
Ubisoft's Babel Rising 3D has already picked up some rocky reviews through its Xbox Console version, will the jump to Windows Phone take the opportunity to improve the God-game where you need to stop the terrible tower of Babel reaching into the sky? The short answer is no.
'Virtual pets' is an interesting topic and one that many have tried to tackle on a smartphone, with varying levels of success. The initial love of the Tamagotchi never made a successful jump to smartphones, but that's never stopped developers trying. Now it's the turn of Selvarine to bring Pet Fishy to Windows Phone. Will this artificial aquarium keep you coming to the aquatic life?
There are two schools of thought about 'crazy golf'. One is that it's utterly trivial and not even worthy of the 'golf' bit in the name. The other is that it's a bit of harmless fun for families on a day out and that the first school of thought is being pretentious and elitist. I'm in the latter camp, which is good because I'm perfectly positioned to appreciate what is one of the very best game titles on Windows Phone.
Chilingo are known for puzzle games with a bit of physics thrown in. After taking some time to enjoy Extraction on Xbox Live, I'll be thinking about them for action games as well. The one man vs. an entire army genre is on show here, along with some great graphics and a control system that's very well suited to a small screened mobile device.
Strategy games are a favourite of many gamers, and with 3D graphics things go to a whole other level. With ARMED!, Windows Phone gamers can now get their fix too. With this game, the action can get intense even though gameplay is turn based, rather than real time strategy. ARMED! is a total mecha fest too, so if you used to play BattleTech or MechWarrior, this is definitely a game that you should check out.
Nertz, also known as Solitaire Party, is a variant of Solitaire (or Patience, depending on which continent you grew up on). While you still have the 'build up on the aces' and 'red/black' below them, you're doing it at the same time as three other players in simultaneous competition.
Gameloft's football franchise 'Real Football' comes to Xbox Live, and I drew the short straw to review it. Look, I know I'm Scottish and our reputation on the world stage is not the best, but the Tartan Army has got far more respect than Gameloft will ever have for this 'effort' at a football game on Windows Phone.
Picture a time when it took four minutes to open a game, when your games ran at a resolution of 256x192 pixels with just 15 colours, and when the religious war was "Commodore vs Speccy". Now get ready to relive it on your Windows Phone with MetroSpec. This is a full blown emulator of the first ZX Spectrum , the popular range of 8-bit computers from the 80s that started with the 16K model, and finished with the disk-drive enabled Plus 3. MetroSpec emulates the 48K and the Spectrum Plus, which is effectively the same model but had a fancier keyboard than the rubber chicklet of the 48K model.
Time for a little bit of fun on Friday as I look at 'Save The Roundy' from AE Mobile. It's another gravity powered puzzle game that takes a level-based approach. The physics is spot on and it's a good diversion, but it's missing a little bit of sparkle to lift it out of the 'average' game category.
