Game end Joy

Almost half way through the year, here are the best IOS, Android and WP7 titles so far, with the help of the team of handpicked PocketGamer

Last year was all about Angry Birds. The physics-based puzzler unlikely catapult seen 100 million downloads as well as translations into all smartphone formats (now 200 million!) - And a movie tie-in to do. Yes, really boggle the mind.

So what is the smartphone gaming highlights of 2011 have so far? there is a contender for Rovio 's bird-spin masterpiece? Today and tomorrow we 'll be listing what we think the 25 best titles of the year so far, the three major platforms. To decide to help me, I asked for the contributions of the authors of the mobile gaming news site, Pocket Gamer, and they 've provided a few helpful words of their favorite releases.

So if you have prepared a long-haul flights air travel this summer or just expect that on a reduced number of trains stuck, you might want to check this out ...

Big Boss

Chillingo, IOS (link here), ? 1.19

It 's about time that someone has the monster-on-the-loose brilliance of the classic arcade game Rampage, and brought it to smartphones. Big Boss is that - and much more. Here, players build their own monsters migrate to a fantasy realm mauling teeny busting their castles and knights. "At its core, it 'sa simple iPad beat' em-up," says Pocket Gamer 's Will Wilson, "But it' s in the execution of that Big Boss really shines, a taste for more RPG combination-lite upgrade system and a fantastic selection of customization options. The difficulty curve is just right, with the seemingly simple task (you 'much re bigger than the enemy) to a much more difficult, as you thanks the wide range of defense and advance their various anti-big boss contraptions. "

Bird zapper!

Namco Bandai, IOS (link here), 59p

This rapid to defaults 'match three' puzzle gives you a variety of birds migrate along a series of power cables - your role (like a squirrel looking for revenge on the Avine Community - don 't ask) is on the lines of the screen to targets with the same plumage, so electrifying to pull them to connect. Of course, you get higher the more birds that you connect with a train, while collectable power-ups give you additional skills, such as the freezing of the conveyor belt of the feathered victims. There are three modes to try and give you time or free play experiences, but essentially, it 's just a well-constructed, beautifully marked on a smartphone extremely familiar genres.

how Swedish indie duo Simogo has turned a score-based scrolling puzzler into a quietly moving meditation on the nature of love, but that is what they have beautifully achieved with Bumpy Road. Your job is to control a couple's car journey by prodding the road around them, creating hills that their vehicles zooms up and down. On the way, you need to avoid obstacles as well as collect objects which provide you with bonus sections. The visuals are exquisitely loveable, mirroring the cooly cute design of Bob Staake, but it is a title with its own style and its own message. A game to fall in love with.

Ragtime Games, iOS (link here), 59p

EA, iOS (link here), ?3.99

Nyarlu Labs, iOS (link here), ?1.19

Want a retro arcade game, but can't decide which to go for? Boy, has Nyarlu Labs got the solution for you: Forget-Me-Not is about 15 early eighties coin-ops rolled into one. Essentially, it's a Pac-Man-style maze game, but the mazes are random, and you can also shoot, so it also feels a bit like Berserk; but then you collect lots of goodies, while tactically working your way through the monsters, so it's a teeny bit Gauntlet as well. Meanwhile, the audio is all glitches, bleeps and electronic cascades, so it sounds like a whole 1982 arcade has been captured on your phone. The controls are perfect too with simple swipes handling everything, plus, there's a two player mode. A really clever and enjoyable game.

Hard Lines is a stylised re-invention of Snake (or Tron if your cultural reference points go back even farther) with lots of added depth. Guide the increasingly long line around the neon maze, forcing the other lines to hit yours, thereby killing them. There are bonuses to collect and six modes to play through, and it's astoundingly compulsive stuff, requiring a controlled, focused gameplay style. "Hard Lines is to Snake what Pac-Man Championship Edition is to Pac-Man," says Pocket Gamer editor, Rob Hearn. "But instead of making you feel like a gawping addict with its biomechanically engineered gameplay, it makes you smile. Also, the real magic ingredient is the chirpy personality of the lines on the screen, conveyed through hundreds of phrases in multicoloured neon text."

Hot Springs History

Kairosoft, iOS (link here) Android (link here), ?2.39

Last year, Japanese studio Cairo soft gaming fanatics around the world addicted to their brilliant management title, Game Dev Studio. The neat sim put you in control of a growing development team, hiring artists and programmers to create games and trying to beat by many strange topics. The follow-up is soft Cairo try the same thing with, uh do, spas, you need to keep your punters happy by providing the right equipment, comfortable rooms and exotic treatments. "The complaint is in the pace of progress and the sheer breadth of the game", says Pocket Gamer editor, Rob Hearn. "You must deal with everything from flower pot placement of advertising on structural expansion. As with Game Dev Story and other games of this type, the drip-feed of minor achievements it difficult wondering makes." It 's an addictive aside until the company is continuing its promised Game Dev Studio.

Ilomilo

Southend Interactive, WP7

Okay, it was making last year in some networks, but what the hell, if you have a Windows 7 handset and haven own 't already seen this ridiculously cute puzzle, you' re a terrible mental errors that are corrected immediately needs. Imagine LittleBigPlanet crossed with Pengo and Jon Ritman 's 8bit classic Head Over Heels and what you have in your head is not a million miles away from Ilomilo. The idea is to combine two cute characters, Ilo and Milo, by switching between them and the navigation of the duo through a series of maze-like levels. There are switches to pull and move blocks, and it 's all set in a comfortable, fluffy world of handicrafted upholstered furniture. Thereaputic hours of fun.

Originally developed by Dutch coder Jesse Venbrux as a series of Flash puzzlers, Karoshi is now on smartphone, and the excellent conversion retains the central concept: you have to kill your character. Yes, Karoshi is Japanese for 'death from overwork' and the idea is to seek out all the platforming elements you're usually meant to avoid, from rampaging enemies, to deadly spikes and traps. There are also little sequences to work out which will usually end in Mr Karoshi being crushed or electrocuted. "It's all quite breezy and tongue in cheek," says Hearn. " However, the workplace setting and the presence of Mr Karoshi's boss, whose mood determines how high Mr Karoshi can jump, invite more sinister interpretations if you're inclined to make them. The occasional appearance of Mrs Karoshi, who frustrates her husband's suicide attempts by turning spikes into flowers, is a moving touch."

Prices are a guide only and will vary between platforms and during promotional periods.