Atari has been sitting on a ton of classic games all this time, and unlike Sega, which re-wraps each of its old games in a four-dollar emulator and sends them to the App Store for better or worse, Atari has deemed fit to shower us with 100 games in a single app. Even at $0.99 for each set of five, it’s a great deal for those who like to kick it old school, and it takes the top spot among the week’s best games. Check out what else made our list below.
Atari’s Greatest Hits (iPhone, iPad) Free (with in-app purchases of $0.99)
What’s better than one game on your iPhone? Well, it’s 100 games on your iPhone — or even just five, or any number between the two. That’s what you get when you download the free Atari’s Greatest Hits: Pong, for one, and the ability to purchase (in sets of five) 100 classic arcade and Atari 2600 games. It’s the ultimate old-school gaming app, and the ability to mix-and-match what you want to play, by purchasing five-game packs at $0.99 each ($14.99 for the whole shebang), is great. The games are exactly as you remember them, except that some have been updated with Bluetooth multiplayer, so you can get reasonably close to the old arcade-cabinet feel and play with friends.
Doodle Army 2 (iPhone, iPad) Free
Simplicity and shooting stuff — a winning combination in Doodle Army 2, which gives players dual-stick touch controls in a side-scrolling, 2D world. That frees the game up to be pretty intuitive as far as controls, allowing you to fly vertically for a short period or run along the ground while you shoot your machine guns in any direction you need to in this deathmatch shooter. You can run the game in single-player mode, taking down robots and gathering new weapons while avoiding death as long as you can manage, or take on other players over a Wi-Fi connection and get into Doodle Army 2 the way it was meant to be played. Fun, easy controls paired with a free price tag and online multiplayer support make this one a blast.
Tactical Soldier – Undead Rising (iPhone, iPad) $4.99
Turn-based squad-driven zombie-blasting mayhem is the order of the day in Tactical Soldier. It’s a story-driven title with nice graphics and a seven-hour tale of intrigue and the undead to work through. The turn-based style means the game is much more about strategy and planning than action, which is a nice change of pace from the billions of two-stick shooters that normally march through the App Store. The game allows you to use various kinds of weapons to fit your play style, and developer Full Control ApS pledges additional campaign levels to come in future updates.
Gobtron (iPhone, iPad) $1.99
Castle defense has never looked this cool, or this gross. As the peaceful pink Gobtron, you just mind your own business, until pesky, unevolved humans show up to jab you with their spears. Being a big, stationary armless monster, your only defense are the various goos that emanate from your face — boogers, burps and more. Humans keep returning through the ages over the game’s 18 levels, progressing technologically, but Gobtron evolves too by upgrading his various gross abilities. The art style and play mechanics make this one something a little different in a crowded genre, and it’s actually pretty funny to boot.
Cool Bean (iPhone, iPad) $0.99
Yeah, I know: climbing up the screen and falling down, it’s all a bit old hat in the App Store. Cool Bean is a little different. It’s a vertical-scrolling falling game, sure, but Cool Bean has some cool mechanics that make it addictive and set it apart from other games with the familiar hand-drawn “doodle art” look. Namely, that mechanic is a short-lived jetpack you can activate when you touch the screen, giving you an upward boost in a downward-moving game. The jetpack is also your only weapon and its flame isn’t very big, so using it takes some real skill and a light touch. Add to it the fact that if you die, you wind up in an “Afterlife” level where you really have to step up your game if you want to survive, and Cool Bean is just fresh enough to be a lot of simple fun.
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