Pick of the pop: Best Windows Phone Games

I’m mad for my Windows Phone and thanks to the new range of Nokias and HTCs many more of your are coming over from the dark side of Apple to realize that you can get Xbox games on a phone! ON A PHONE! That means the satisfactory ping of an achievement is now no longer confined to bedrooms and lounges, it can happen anywhere, the bus, clothes shopping with the other half, even in a lecture (not that we advocate it, obviously)

 

AlphaJax – Free:

This is one for all the word geeks out there, much like Scrabble or words with friends, AlphaJaz is a word based game. It’s simple and innocent enough. When we get matched with expert players though we begin to wonder if our £10k degree is ultimately worth it when the best we can come up with is Cat,

 

Angry Birds Star Wars Edition – £0.79:

These days it wouldn’t be a list of top games if it didn’t include birds and pigs fighting it out. Angry Birds Star Wars has taken the franchise o a whole new level, a whole new galaxy infact,  from the moment the title screen appears with the Star Wars theme we’re launched into a Padawan state of excitement and bliss.

 

Cut The Rope – £0.79:

The cute candy-eating monster has gone a long way to make Cut the Rope one of our favorite games for Windows Phones. It’s a simple principle that is easily understood.  We only wish that more games like this were available from the store for 79p.

 

Wordament – Free:

 

Before we event start talking about Wordament one thing must be understood, you will never come first. The highest we’ve managed in a good 6 months of playing is 32nd, and we could have cried. Wordaent can be played alone or you could get friends/relatives/pets to help but remember, three is a crowd!

 

Roll in the Hole – £0.79:

Roll In the Holl is one of our favorite games that uses a phones gyroscopes, the cute backgrounds and collectible lollies sent us rolling right back to our childhood. We learnt the hard way though, this game is to be played in a stable environment, not in any moving vehicle.

 

Ilomilo – £3.99:

Arguably the cutest game available from the Store Ilomilo is a simple concept where you have to reunite Ilo and Milo. It sounds simple, and innocent however when you start to get to the later levels the little red and blue characters stop being cute and start being little … well we shan’t say.

 

I love Katamari – £3.99:

This quaint unknown is a favorite for a quiet few, the game sees you the Katamari rolling a ball to pick up as many objects as possible, starting of with the small and working your way up to the insanely big. It was once a PSP game but now praise the lords we can get it on our mobiles. We’ve never managed to play it laying down, sitting or standing seems to be best for tilt mode. Royal Rainbow!

 

Doodle God – £0.79:

If any of you ever played Alchemy the simple game of combining elements Doodle God is much like that, only it doesn’t make you want to tear your hair out as much. There is the standard mode which sees you trying to make as many elements as possible as well as guest modes with specific objects such as saving the princess. At 79p this is well worth it to see some of the crazy combinations.

 

Easy G:

These games are best for a quick flurry for 200G some are inexpensive, some aren’t as cheap. Depends on how much you value your Gamerscore.

Who Wants to be a millionaire – Though some of the questions are frustrating most are easily answered with a quick search on Google. And if you can look past the worse than painful graphics the 200G is yours.

James Patterson’s Women’s Murder Club – Sounds sill, sounds lame. We know, but getting the maximum 200G took no more than 2 hours.

Minesweeper – This is easy, but only if you can play Minesweeper to begin with, some are born with the gene some are not.

Kinectimals – A few minutes a day, for a week or two can get you a cute and rather enjoyable 200G, just maybe don’t play it on the train if you’re 6Ft5 220lbs, you might get a couple of strange looks when you’re getting you’re pet to twirl.

Monopoly – All 200G can be obtained in a rainy afternoon, the ability to play as two human players using one device helps when trying to get the Taking Sides achievement in property Auctions.

 

Dashing for dinner

Tried & tested: Diner Dash

You might have played this on your phone, on the Internet or perhaps you got a free demo with your computer. Either way you’ve probably played this.

The highly addictive mini-game involves you serving customers as fast as possible so you can make enough money to upgrade the diner and bring in more customers.

You can get this game for most platforms and whilst I’ve played many of the sequels to the game online or on my phone, I tested Diner Dash by purchasing the game from Xbox Live Marketplace. For just 800 Microsoft Points you can play this directly from your console and go on to unlock the achievements.

You play as Flo and it’s your job to:

• Seat the customers
• Take their orders
• Deliver the orders to the kitchen
• Serve the customers their food
• Take their money
• Clear the tables
• Take the dirty plates to the sink

 

As you complete more levels you will unlock extra features. These could include speedy boots to make Flo walk faster, coffee machines so you can keep customers satisfied, upgrades to the interior to attract more customers and more tables so you can serve more people at once. You will even move on to serve at new restaurants after you’ve achieved a high enough score.

The tricky thing with this game is if you don’t serve the customers fast enough they will leave and you’ll lose money. The levels get harder as you progress and I must warn you, the Xbox version is pretty tough.

But I love this game, always have ever since I was a child. It’s just such a simple concept but so addictive because it tests you’re concentration skills. You’ve got to be quick to do multiple things at once.

But one thing that takes it from being fun and addictive to being frustratingly difficult is some of the levels. I still haven’t been able to achieve the goal that is a score of 10,000 on the final level of the second restaurant. You will get a higher score in the game by performing the same actions multiple times in a row but this is just impossible to attempt when you’re trying to concentrate on all the customers at once.

So if you have managed to complete the game or you’ve got further than I have then get in touch and tell us how you did it!

And if you’ve never played a Diner Dash game before then It’s probably a good thing because it’s amazing how much time you can spend serving virtual customers.

Fun at the ‘Ravenwood’ Fair

Tried & Tested : Ravenwood Fair

Developed by Lolapps and first appearing on our screens in 2010. Ravenwood Fair is one of those highly addictive yet extremely pointless social networking games.

Most commonly played on Facebook, this game has no ending and literally just swallows your time.

Your aim is to clear the forest to make space for your very own fairground. You chop down the trees, collect the wood then use the wood to build your rides and attractions.

How busy your fair can be once you reach level 34

But be careful, there are monsters lurking in the woods and these could frighten your guests. It is your duty to ensure all the monsters are defeated by walloping them with your shovel!

You’ll encounter all kinds of beasts in the forest including crittle bears, grocks, rattlers and vultures to name a few. As your level increases so will the amount of different things you will encounter.

The more time you put into this game daily, the faster you will level up. Levelling up gives you access to more attractions and you level up by collecting experience from building and walloping.

Trees grow back every day giving you more wood to collect. You will also be given new energy every hour and this is what you use to chop down the trees. The higher your level the more energy you’ll receive per hour.

So it works like this…

Full energy -> chop down trees -> collect wood -> build attractions -> empty energy

Wait an hour then do it all over again.

Like I said before, a complete time waster with no real point but like other Facebook games; still very addictive.

A task you might get set during your game

You will be set tasks throughout the game by your animal guests. These will include building specific attractions or walloping a certain amount of monsters for example.

Like in most games now you can unlock achievements, in Ravenwood Fair these are called ‘badges’. These might give you more of an incentive to play.

One terrible feature (as per usual with Facebook games) is the fact you can’t do certain things without ‘neighbours’. These are your friends who have agreed to play Ravenwood Fair too.

When building attractions you will often need other materials as well as wood. The easiest way of getting these materials is by asking your neighbours to send you them. If you have no neighbours then you simply just have to wait for them to fall out of the trees as you chop them down.

Time consuming and frustrating; you will always get a zillion ladybugs but when you really need a wedding bell it just won’t appear.

The other option for you is to purchase Facebook credits with your own REAL money. You can buy your way further into the game if you really want to..

So if you’ve always wanted to run your own fairground then why not give it a go? You even get to play as a bear or a racoon!

All images were screencapped by Sophie from the Ravenwood Fair game on Facebook