The best games in the iTunes App Store this week seem to be physics puzzler games. Leading the charge is Cut the Rope: Experiments, a new version of the well-loved casual game. After that, there’s Gravity Lab!, which requires players to think about gravity in their puzzle-solving, and Hungribles, which uses gravity in a few different ways from the others. Check out all three and a few other gems on our list below.
Cut the Rope: Experiments (iPhone, iPad) $0.99
Cut the Rope is one of the most fun physics puzzlers in the iTunes App Store, and Experiments is a great addition to the Cut the Rope family. The game isn’t just a rehash of the standard Cut the Rope gameplay, although the familiar mechanics are all here. There are still ropes to cut and bubbles to carry candy pieces upward against gravity, but instead of swinging candy toward stars that are in stationary positions, Experiments has them moving around, requiring precise timing and speed. Experiments adds new tools and items to use in the game’s 75 levels that add a great new challenge to the title, while staying easy for seasoned rope-cutters to pick up quickly.
Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (iPhone, iPad) $15.99
At long last, the PSP version of the phenomenal Final Fantasy Tactics has made its way to the App Store. Optimized for the iPhone (although not the iPad as yet), the game features everything that made the original great: its characters and story, plus solid, stylized graphics and heavy strategy gameplay. Players get to take a team of several characters through the game’s story, with battles being fought in a team-based manner on a large grid. Final Fantasy Tactics is a bit of an expensive title – much like Square Enix’s other games – but its high production values make it worthy of the investment.
Gravity Lab! (iPhone, iPad) $0.99
Another physics puzzle game, Gravity Lab! is similar to a lot of other titles in the App Store: shoot a thing at a structure and knock it over. In Gravity Lab!, however, instead of shooting the object at the stars you need to collect in each level, you need to knock crates over into them to rack up a high score. The kicker is that each set of crates, which are color-coded, are affected by gravity differently. Some fall up, some down, some sideways, which will get your brain moving in some different ways than other puzzlers. Gravity Lab! packs a lot to do for just a buck.
Shift 2 Unleashed (iPhone, iPad) $2.99
Another of Electronic Arts’ racing titles in the Need for Speed series, Shift 2 Unleashed taps quite a few of the strong notes that earlier Need for Speed titles have hit. There’s quite a bit of racing fun to be had in EA’s 3-D title, which includes an easy mode that helps guide new players into the game, plus new locations and 40 different Quick Race events to get you into the action fast. Unleashed is a solid racer especially for the price, and while it won’t necessarily blow away Shift fans, new players should have a great time.
Hungribles (iPhone, iPad) $0.99
Okay, one more physics puzzler this week. Hungribles is all about shooting little mushroom things into the mouths of hungry little animals. It’s not unlike Angry Birds (or Gravity Lab!) in the way you shoot the mushrooms in straight lines, or bounce them off things to get them to the animals. But to mix things up a bit, all of the animals have a bit of a gravitational pull to them, allowing you to bend your shots around them to reach other animals or objects that can earn you additional points. It’s a challenging and engaging title with a cute art style.
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