Apple Picks Best Games of 2009 on iTunes
posted by arn on December 8th, 2009 4:22 AM EST in News, iPhone games, iPod touch games
Apple has compiled a list of what they consider the best iPhone games of 2009. The list is part of their iTunes Rewind 2009 where they are highlighting the best content across 2009 in music, movies, TV shows, audiobooks, podcasts, and apps.
Apps are broken down into games and more traditional applications. Anyone who follows TouchArcade regularly should be familiar with most of the games on this list. While we've only recently given out star ratings, our currently rated 5 star games are well represented in the list.
The game names are linked to iTunes alongside links to our own reviews of the games.
- Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor – Review
- Real Racing – Review
- Zenonia – Review
- Ravensword – Review
- Earth vs. Moon – Review
- Sally's Spa – Article
- Ragdoll Blaster – Review
- Canabalt – Review
- Blades of Fury – Review
- Doom Classic – Review
- Sway – Review
- geoDefense – Article
- Flight Control – Review
- Alive 4 Ever – Review
- Fantastic Contraption – Article
- Samurai: Way of the Warrior – Review
- Backbreaker Football – Review
- Meteor Blitz – Review
- Rolando 2 – Review
- Star Hogs – Review
- Paper Toss – Article
- Boost 3D – Review
- Doodle Jump – Review
- Zen Bound – Review
- Stick Wars – Thread
- Eliminate Pro – Review
- Tap Tap Revenge 3 – Review
- Call of Duty: Zombies – Review
- iBomber – Review
- Jet Car Stunts – Review
Congratulations to the developers who made the list. We'll be compiling our own "best of" list for 2009 in the coming weeks.
WTH, not even ONE game from EA?? Seriously there are some games in this list I would not download even for free! Fail, Apple.
t.t
At least Apple realizes EA represents their polar opposite: huge amounts of products with little to no depth or quality.
So all the sports games they put out have absolutely no depth or quality what so all? Yet Nazi Zombies (although a quality app) is up there after a few weeks?
absolutely right. this list is so biased cannot even tell. but the sheep will run to d/l if they missed one. "HEY, SJ told us it's great!"
For anyone interested in purchasing Zen Bound, please hold until our price change comes into effect. The new price of Zen Bound is $1.99.
No Toki Tori? iDracula? Soosiz? Dungeon Hunter?
Exactly. Sally's Spa and Canabalt are on the list, but no Soosiz or Dungeon Hunter?? This list is flawed. Sally's Spa is a girly maintenance game that's popularly primarily because Megan Fox mentioned it, and Canabalt is a cheap 1 button game with about a week of gameplay. I demand a recount.
Where is Soosiz!?
Congrats to Jet Car Stunts – great game and relatively new to make this list, no?
Er… Civ? Does ANYONE at Apple actually know/feel anything about games..?
Thought Peggle would be on there
Blade of fury is there?! no MC or other games from Gameloft?
and where's EA?
Rock Band or FIFA 10 could be there
"Rock Band or FIFA 10 could be there"
The only award Rock Band deserves is the "polished turd" award. It's not a horrible title, but it's not exactly a well-designed or deep one. For $10 (now $7) you get very little gameplay with absolute crap for expandability. The controls are difficult for anyone with big hands (raises hand) and the different instruments are more gimmick than reality.
Rock Band feels like a cell phone game, plays like a cell phone game, and is thus recognized as a cell phone game. Until EA gets serious about the iPhone as an independent platform, they're not going to get very far.
Edge?
Thanks for the fuss, Langdell =/
Too bad my fave Orbital didn't make it…
I'm pretty sure these lists aren't hand-picked, and I believe they differ from country to country. Surely Hockey Night in Canada isn't one of the top apps of 2009 in the US store…and it's a pretty lousy app, so I really doubt it was chosen by a person.
From what I can tell these lists are just the top downloads of the year.
…In other words, there's no point in discussing the lists as if there was any thought put into them. Seems pretty clear they're automatically generated.
no, there's a separate list for top downloads
arn
Regardless of what stats it was generated from, it's obviously not a hand-picked list, since the lists are different in every store.
I don't see how that means anything. Apple can't have local people hand picking in each store?
arn
The lists are different for each country. The german list has Modern Combat and some EA and Team 17 stuff. Also you can see that the lists are created automatically: One of the _audio_ classics of podcasts is the _video_ podcast for Happy Tree Friends…
I don't see how this is an automated list. No offense to Boost 3D, but it's not going to make an automated list.
arn
The Settlers is hands down the most engrossing iPhone game out there – admittedly I was a big fan of the Amiga original, but after paying GBP£30 for the DualScreen version, I am astonished at how much better the GBP£4 version on the iPhone is.
Stick Wars? The rest must be pretty good, too… Or they just sold a lot.
I'm glad to see Earth vs. Moon make the list. What a superb, polished, challenging, and amusing game. It never seemed to get the attention it deserved, IMHO. It's the best missile command style game ever. But there are also levels that recall other classic games such as Pong and Space Invaders.
Thank you for your support Jase! You've been great.
too bad a price wasn't tied to each one of them. some of us do care about that you know
What, clicking a link too difficult?
Very cool, that Jet Car Stunts made it onto the list!
Many, many great choices, even if automatic ones.
Great list.
Thanks for linking alongside reviews.
I'll be passing this around toy iPhone buddies always asking me what game I would reccomend to them.
Where is the wonderful platformer Nicky Boom ?
You are joking right?
It's way beyond "wonderful".
It's sweet. But there are thousands of sweet games in the store.
There is nothing automatic, even the best-seller list is hand picked (at least in european countries)
Yeah to see some of those and not Soosiz, Labyrinth 2 (probably out too late..) etc. is a shame. Still, glad to see Illusion Labs have a game up there. I guess Skater Nation made it simply because it's the first of its type!?
Caveat – Skater Nation was on the UK list – doesn't seem to be on the US one.
Yup, IMHO is not automatic… We didnt have really big sales, we were not in top 100 apps in US … I think, that best place was around 50 in top game in US, but we were 5th in Japan, 2nd best game in Honkong, 1st in Taiwan, 1st in Poland, 1st in Czech…
Still dont know, why they choose us, because they dont promote us too much..
Anyway, Samurai is on best game without selling success
Anyway, thank you very much Apple !!!!
for doing their job?
No, for including the game he developed — Samurai — on the Best of 2009 list.
Of course no list is perfect, but I think this one is pretty good. Plenty of my favorite games on there like Spider, Samurai, Canabalt, and iBomber. Most of the other games on this list that I've played are quite good as well.
Where's Defender Chronicles. I know you can only have so many on a top (whatever) list, but to not include Defender Chronicles is injustice.
That's a good point. Defender Chronicles is one of the best games (quite possibly THE best) on the iPhone today. It's upsetting to see Apple miss it in their list.
Chillingo and Gimka still get the last laugh, though. All the way to the bank. Much better than any award.
It could be great.. if you didn't have to do all the grinding, which is a lazy man's way to extend a game.
backbreaker and jet car stunts deserve it 100%.
Where the hell is minigore????? So apple is saying that minigore don't deserve to be in the top game ha? Lol. Minigore should be the best out of best in there. apple such an epic fail….. If I need choose too tech brand. It would been. Sony,Samsung,Toshiba,Lg, and last Failed apple!!!!!
And yet you heap such slavish praise on a game that runs only on an Apple product. Ironic, isn't it?
Grow up! This is not even funny anymore!
What is worse than an Apple fanboy? A Minigore fanboy.
Wow, we are blown away by the placement of Spider on that list.
Thank you, Apple!
Yep…right at the top of the list. Just where it belongs! Congrats!
Hope to see another game from you guys real soon.
Thanks Gekkota!
We are very, very close to submitting our big Director's Cut update, and then it's on to Game #2. Exciting times
A reasonable list. Computer generated or no they seem to be picking titles
that aren't on other platforms.
I think I'd add Peggle and Minigore for their polish and great gameplay.
Archon, Groundeffect and "i dig it" are my favourites …
We are completely astounded and amazed that Earth Vs Moon was featured as one of the best of 2009! That is such an amazing honor and we wanted to thank TouchArcade and all of the TA users for the love and support. We're a tiny little operation and can't believe this! Our moms can finally be proud of us.
Congrats!
We've got 2 games on the list…Whoohoo for us!
To pick the 25 "best" games of 2009, out of the tens of thousands that were released in the app store, is very tough. But this is not a bad list. I think that I would have included "Archibald's Adventure", but most of these games are quite deserving of being in the top 1% of all app store games.
Yay, Sway!
uhhh…space invaders infinity gene??!
Strange that Apple give us a best of 2009 when the we still have a little less than 1/12 of it still to go. Some real crackers came along since Apple clearly couldn't help themselve….Sword of Fargoal for example….
I'd take all this with apinch of salt honestly. It's clear that Apple are releasing this early to peek interest for christmas sales.
Lists like these are good for casual gamers like looking for some starting points. There will always be games left off the list. But by reading these comments I've received more leads on quality games to check out.
Jet Car Stunts is the only one i really enjoy playing from that list (obviously haven't tried ALL of them though)
I don't see how Modern Combat is not on the list. It finally made FPS not just look good but play good on the iPhone.