7 Great iPhone Games for Your Enjoyment

It's no secret that the App Store is home to tons of amazing games. From Modern Warfare rip-offs to clever puzzles games, you can find just about every type of game on Apple's virtual store. Seeing as I own just about every great game on the iPhone, I often find myself searching for fun new games to play. To save you the same hassle, I've compiled seven of the iPhone's best games.

1. Soosiz

This cute Mario-inspired platformer is one of the App Store's greatest gems. It's charming, it's fun, and it's got some of the system's most accurate controls. Although touch controls are often criticized for being inaccurate, the truth is that when done right they can be just as good as physical controls. Soosiz is a great example of that, and it helps that the gameplay itself is addictive. And the best part? As of this writing, the game is completely free. Grab it while it's cheap, but don't hesitate to buy it even once the price goes up.

2. Cut the Rope

This game is brand new. It just came out a few days ago, and it's already the #1 paid app, while the lite version is the #1 free app. That should give you an idea of how great this game is. The goal of the game is to guide a piece of candy into an adorable little monster's mouth. The game seems easy at first, but puzzles become much more challenging once elements like bubbles that lift the candy into the air and spikes that destroy your candy come into play. Getting the candy into the monster's mouth is fairly challenging, but collecting stars to unlock new levels is where you'll really have to think. All this for only $0.99. But if you're skeptical, then there's a free lite version to try.

3. Sir Lovalot

Sure, I could've taken the easy way out and recommended Doodle Jump, but Sir Lovalot is a bit more unique. The game plays similarly to Doodle Jump, but with stylish graphics, loot to collect, and a 3D tower to hop around. The game is fairly bare-bones, but it's okay because what's there is addictive and fun. And the $0.99 price tag doesn't hurt either.

4. Modern Combat 2: Black Pegasus

If you've played Modern Warfare 2, you've played Modern Combat 2. The campaign consists of down-the-sights aiming, convoy escort missions, slow-motion breaches and light stealth sections. But don't let the fact that this is a blatant rip-off keep you from trying this game. In addition to the fun single-player campaign, Black Pegasus also contains an addictive online multiplayer mode for ten players. It's far more complete than previous Gameloft efforts, with a persistant character, customizable loadout, and special abilities. For $6.99, you're essentially getting Modern Warfare 2 on the go.

5. Banzai Rabbit

Essentially Frogger but with a rabbit, Banzai Rabbit is an extremely attractive, extremely fun arcade game with solid controls and a lengthy story mode to play through. It's occasionally frustrating, and occasionally tedious, but it's nonetheless worth the price – especially while it's free.

6. Monster Mayhem

Unoriginal name aside, Monster Mayhem is good fun for a buck. Gameplay consists of using a variety of weapons – from knifes to pistols to flamethrowers – to eliminate monsters and protect your fence. You'll fight zombies, werewolves, a giant yeti, and much more, all while earning cash and purchasing and upgrading weapons. All of this is wrapped in a colorful and attractive art style.

7. Mr. Bill

Based on the lovable and oft-abused Saturday Night Live mascot, Mr. Bill consists of flying around levels and avoiding obstacles. Tapping the screen flaps your arms to make you go higher; an ability that requires energy, which you earn by picking up popcorn and soda. You can choose to fly through the levels quickly, or you can earn a gold medal by completing specific goals. The game is a lot of fun, and well worth the $0.99.

Gone But Not Forgotten: Spyro the Dragon

I'm a rather huge fan of the Spyro the Dragon games. I own all of the PS1 and GBA games, and I still play them regularly. In fact, I just beat the third game again a few days ago. But even as a huge fan, I can't deny that the my purple friend has run his course.

It all started with Enter the Dragonfly. Spyro's first PlayStation 2 entry promised us Gnasty Gnorc's return, over 120 dragonflies to collect, a frame-rate of 60 frames per second, and over 25 levels. Clearly, someone at Universal had the right idea. But in a rush to get the game out by Winter of 2002, none of these features were added, and we got a practically non-existent story, 9 levels, 90 dragonflies, and a constantly chugging frame-rate. Sure, the game had colorful graphics and a lot of charm, but the frame-rate made everything way more difficult than it should have been, and a host of glitches made certain parts impossible.

Gameplay-wise, the game was somewhat playable, if you could look past its flaws, and there were some creative levels. But all the issues mentioned above really hurt the experience. As much as I wanted to like the game, I just couldn't; I can't.

After several entertaining GBA games, we eventually got A Hero's Tale. This game boasted colorful graphics, but there seemed, to me, to be an unintentional feeling of isolation. Every area was surrounded by rock walls that gave the whole game a rather lonely feeling. But that was far from the game's biggest issue. The controls were clunky and the level designs were confusing, and the redesigned characters were nothing like their PS1 counterparts. Moneybags was turned into a fez-toting pirate, and Hunter was missing his trademark yellow fur.

Eventually we got the DS game, Spyro: Shadow Legacy. This game attempted to combined the top-down gameplay of the GBA games with RPG elements, with awful results. The frame-rate chugged, the controls were clunky, and the combat was some of the worst I've seen. Charging your enemies just makes Spyro run against them as they occasionally flash white to indicate a hit. You can burn them, but it's equally frustrating. The game also attempted to tell an RPG-like story, but it wasn't deep or interesting enough to hold my attention, and I found myself quitting the game after a few hours.

After that, we got The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning. This is the only Spyro game that I've ever owned and sold. I beat the game about three times, each time in about three hours. The transition from a light-hearted platformer to an overly-serious beat-em-up was strange and unnecessary, and the fact that Vivendi stuck to this design for several more games was frustrating. Sure, the graphics were nice, but this simply wasn't Spyro. There were no portals, no eggs, no home worlds, and the gems were just used to power yourself up. (Or, at least, I think they were. I'm not sure, since I made it through the whole game without powering anything up)

From then on it was all down hill. The Legend of Spyro games got drastically worse each time, and eventually stopped altogether with the release of Dawn of the Dragon. Now all we can do is go back and remember the purple dragon's glory days on the PS1, and just pretend that the following games never happened. Every day I wish that Insomniac would make one last game to redeem the series, but we all know that's not happening.

And that's just sad.