It's not often I can be completely sucked into a world on the tiny screen of my iPhone. Don't get me wrong, it happens, but in the back of my mind I always know that there are dozens of other games waiting for me at the press of the Home button, all ready to feed my ADD-riddled gaming habits at a moment's notice. It's like I can never fully forget all the cool stuff my iPhone is capable of long enough to get lost in a game for any great length of time.

That certainly isn’t the case with The Hacker [99¢], though, a story-driven faux hacking game from developer Angry Bugs. When I fire it up, my iPhone is transformed into a Glider OS-equipped computer that becomes my gateway into an international tour de hacking which leads me to uncover a devious plot involving my former employer. It’s far from the first game to let you take on the glorified role of a top level hacker, but it executes the idea incredibly well and offers a fantastic level of immersion with a fairly compelling story.

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I love Halfbrick's Jetpack Joyride [Free], and if you like good iOS games, chances are you like Jetpack Joyride too. In fact, I'd like even more Jetpack Joyride, which, oddly enough, is where Big Pixel Studios' Off The Leash [Free] comes in. You're likely thinking to yourself, "But it seems obvious from the name alone that Off The Leash has to do with dogs, what does Jetpack Joyride have to do with anything?" I'll explain.

You know how we raved about Jetpack Joyride's mission system, its hefty in-game store full of customizables, and other single-user consumable perks? Well, Off The Leash does an incredible job of utilizing incredibly similar underlying systems to keep you playing game after game while feeling entirely new and fresh. In fact, in light of the recent NimbleBit cloning drama in the past week, it's seems particularly important to tip our hats at games like Off The Leash that utilize these mechanics that work so well, but only as part of building an entirely new game experience.

In Off The Leash you initially control a single dog. It almost has a Mega Jump [Free] feel to it in that coins are everywhere, and you tilt your device to move your dog around to collect them. There's also food to eat, and various power-ups to snag.

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It's safe to say that cave flyers have been around the block a few times, and that a few of you might just be sick of 'em. Hey, that's fair—I know my enduring love of endless runners and cave flyers isn't shared by everyone. But do me a favor: take a look at Blot's [$0.99] trailer before writing it off. Yeah, it's just another cave flyer, but goodness, it's gorgeous.

We've seen the control scheme and basic design a thousand times before, and there's nothing new about collecting coins for upgrades, cosmetic or otherwise. Blot won't win many points for fundamental originality. But it's a solid, fun cave flier that also happens to be beautiful, with an underlying sense of humor that's sure to please.

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Smash Cops [$2.99] from Hutch reminds me of Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, as the main objective is to take bad guys off the road by catching up with them and then ramming their vehicles until they catch fire and roll in slow-motion. Sounds good, right? In Smash Cops the police pursuit is set in an urban neighborhood more like Grand Theft Auto, so there's heaps of intersections and front lawns to skid around.

The most distinctive feature of Smash Cops are the controls, which have become a talking point in our discussion thread. The default touch controls involve placing one finger behind your police car and using it to "push" your vehicle along, like a toy car, with acceleration being automatic. This "push" mechanism has received mixed feedback, with some absolutely loving it and others loathing it and preferring the alternate virtual joystick option. Personally, I enjoyed the new push controls, but found the virtual joystick jerky and awkward for steering.

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I'm a little out of touch with the Kindle and Facebook game world, so pardon me if you already know this: Triple Town [Free] is amazeballs. Yeah, that's right. Amazeballs. It's also freemium, so I'm not actually sure what you're waiting for. Go download it.

You know how Dungeon Raid [$0.99] took the match-3 thing and made it completely soul-consuming? That's exactly what TripleTown does. But for those of us not into gaming in our browsers or on our e-book readers, it's brand spanking new, something Dungeon Raid hasn't been for a while.

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If you enjoy Tetris, match-3 games and Boggle, then Puzzlejuice [99¢] from Colaboratory might be right up your alley. That's because this falling-block, color-matching, word-finding mash-up combines these things into a nice-looking bundle of pleasure.

Puzzlejuice starts with falling puzzle-blocks, just like Tetris. You can rotate each falling block by tapping the screen or drag it left or right. A ghost image of the block shows where it will end up at the bottom. When you're happy with the position of the block, you can swipe it downwards to speed up its descent. And the idea is to form a solid row. That should all sound fairly familiar for anyone who knows Tetris, but that's just the start of this game.

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I've played a lot of iOS games in my time, and have gone through varying levels of addiction with certain titles. Even so, that usually doesn't last for too long. I've never found my own personal Angry Birds or Tiny Tower. That is, until I picked up Hero Academy [Free] for the first time. Shortly after, I noticed that I was playing a match while cooking, waiting for people to come over, or pretty much any other time I had three free minutes or more at a time. At that point, I identified that I might have found that game that I feel the need to play endlessly. Good news is, all my other friends seem to have the same problem, so that works out for me.

Hero Academy is Robot Entertainment's first iOS offering, and I think it's the sign of good things to come. The premise is very basic: You are playing a tactical battle against another team, and the goal is to destroy their crystals before they destroy yours. Each round allows you five moves ("action points"), which you can use to either place team members and items on the board, or move and attack with your preexisting team members.

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How long do you need to play to have a good time? Windosill [$2.99] is a straight up terrible value proposition if you like serious length from your games. It doesn't take much longer than 15 minutes to run through and there's no real replayability. But damned if it isn't a great 15 minutes while it lasts.

If you take it down to fundamentals, Windosill is a puzzle game about traveling. A toy car drives from room to room. Each is locked, each has to be solved with creative thinking and exploration to open the next. There are only eleven rooms, and they're over in a snap. Yet whimsy and charm makes it ever so memorable.

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So I made all kinds of resolutions for the New Year. Yes I am aware of how dumb that sounds, and I know what you’re thinking. "Oh, resolutions never work, you have to make gradual lifestyle changes" or "You make the same resolutions every year" or "Why would anyone need to resolve to not get arrested outside Jeff Goldblum’s apartment?" etc. etc. But hey, it’s my life and my dreams, OK?!

Besides, one of my resolutions, the one striving to reintroduce simplicity in my life, led me to discover a really charming puzzle game for your perusal. That game is Blockwick [Free] by Kieffer Bros. It’s my new favorite puzzle game, and it may just become yours, too.

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The easiest way to describe 5th Cell's Run Roo Run [$.99 / HD] is to call it Canabalt, but with levels. That works. In the game, you control a kangaroo in search of its joey, and the path to finding it involves plenty auto-running and manually hurdling obstacles. To jump, you tap the screen. To run, you tap the screen. It's as much of a triumph in that style of minimalist design as Canabalt is, and it has similar elements and mechanics.

The "but with levels part" is a pretty big game-defining departure. Run Roo Run's world has oodles of color and instance-based content. In all, it rocks over 400 levels, all of which are clumped into individual chapters that introduce new mechanics. You'll bounce on tires, float on fans, play around with a double jump, and avoid retracting spikes as well as the rest of its outback's hazards, like cactuses, jagged trees and wood, and so forth. The way the game builds on itself, considering it has just a single, super-easy action, is pretty impressive.

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I adore tower defense titles, but they tend to be just a bit samey. More than most genres, they rely on a number of standard elements that are rarely done without. Kingdom Rush [$2.99] isn't a mold-breaking game. There are towers, yes, and upgrades and creeps. There is a set path, there are levels. Sometimes the creeps fly. Sometimes there are bosses. You really ought to know all this by now.

Despite the familiarity of its formula, though, Kingdom Rush is absolutely fabulous. With good-natured charm, with clarity of purpose, and with a touch of clever design, this game makes a place for itself in its crowded genre. It's no wonder Ironhide Games Studio's original Flash version is so very popular (a Flash version you can play right here, minus the premium content included in the iOS port).

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Living in Southern California, I spend most holidays in front of a space heater watching White Christmas on TV and wishing I was one-half of a musical comedy duo trying to gain the affections of two sisters while saving the inn of my old Army commander.

But more than that, what I want more than anything is the snow that the movie is named for. I sit inside daydreaming about that beautiful, luscious blanket of powder covering the ground (yes, I realized that they probably filmed that movie on a sound stage not far from me, but a girl can dream!) while red-faced children fling snowballs at each other. Alas, as that is unlikely to occur pretty much ever, I’ve been making do with Snow Fight [Free].

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In April of last year, iOS gamers scored big when longtime Japanese developer CAVE decided to task their mobile division with bringing some of their classic shooter titles to the Apple App Store. All of these games – Espgaluda II, Dodonpachi Resurrection, and Deathsmiles – received critical acclaim from media and gamers alike, and set the benchmark for what we should expect from our bullet hell shmups on the App Store.

In between two of those releases, CAVE decided to branch out into something different, and brought out an iOS exclusive game called Mushihimesama Bug Panic. It was a departure from their typical offerings as it was a dual-stick action game, but it retained the frantic nature of their bullet hell games extremely well and was equally adored amongst critics and fans.

Now we have CAVE’s latest release, which kind of brings things full circle. Mushihimesama is a vertical shmup released in Japanese arcades back in 2004. It’s seen a sequel with Mushihimesama Futari, and a spinoff title called Puzzle! Mushihimetama. Bug Panic on iOS is actually based in the Mushihimesama universe, featuring the same female main character and insect-based enemies. Now the original Mushihimesama title is available on the App Store as Bug Princess [$4.99].

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Prior to Grand Theft Auto III I'd say I had fun messing around in Grand Theft Auto games, but never really enjoyed myself. The top-down view felt incredibly claustrophobic, and, at least for me, made getting immersed into the game world incredibly difficult. I don't think it's hyperbole at all to say that GTA 3 changed everything.

Originally released in 2001 as a Playstation 2 exclusive, Grand Theft Auto III featured a full 3D game engine for the first time in the game series. At least for me, this transformed a silly and entirely too controversial set of video games into a living and breathing universe. It's debatable how well the game has aged in ten years, but in 2001, after the initial cut scene rolls and you're driving through the beginnings of Liberty City, there was no way your jaw wasn't on the floor.

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Containment: The Zombie Puzzler [$4.99] from Bootsnake Games is definitely not your typical match-3 game. In fact, you don't even need to match three of anything. Instead, the goal is to surround zombies with cops, soldiers, scientists or punks. This is far more interesting than matching colorful gems, tiles or bubbles, and once you've contained some zombies they'll be eliminated in a blood-splattering burst of gun-fire.

Each type of human unit has a different advantage and a different weapon for taking out zombies. If you surround zombies with cops, you can earn a sniper-shot, whereas soldiers earn grenades. Containing some zombies using punks can earn a molotov to throw, while the female scientists can help you obtain a zombie resistant suit.  Three slots are available for storing these life-saving items.

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