I may be dating myself here, but there was a time when I was completely obsessed with Windows Solitaire. I wanted to see every pixel of the game's window covered in the cards that hopped down at the end of the game, and the obsession lasted just as long as it took to make that happen. Since then, stacking cards onto other cards hasn't held the same charm. Then I picked up Fairway Solitaire [Free / HD] and now I'd kind of like my life back, please.

It's not that Fairway Solitaire is particularly challenging—quite the opposite, in fact. It follows Big Fish Games' usual mandate of making everything as player-friendly as possible. But between the dead simple gameplay and the weirdly compelling golf metaphors, I'm totally engrossed. And reading around online and in our forums, I'm not alone. This game gets its hooks into people more than one might expect from a golf-themed card game.

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Hot off the recently released Dungeon Crawlers [$3.99], the folks over at Ayopa Games are back with Mailmen [$1.99], an enjoyable stealth-based tale showcasing the eternal battle between mail carriers and the canines that chase them. Featuring a crazy story, good team-based gameplay, and well done level design, Mailmen is well worth checking out.

Mailmen follows the tale of three postal employees as they try to deliver letters and packages to the public while thwarting the plans of the nefarious Newman, a former member of the team that turned to evil. Standing in their way are packs and packs of dogs eager to catch, chase and bite our heroes. The story is off-beat, ridiculous, and completely appropriate for the style of game Mailmen offers. This is also echoed in the development of the team itself, which does a great job imparting personality into each of the characters in every little thing they do.

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One of the coolest things about the rise of mobile games is watching the platform evolve in fast-forward. Every day we see new ideas forming out of old ones, business models adopted, abandoned and rebuilt, and the capabilities of iOS reaching brand new heights. Case in point: Ragdoll Blaster [$0.99]. In 2009, this was a doodle-style physics puzzler with a barebones interface. It was massively popular, but the App Store was young. In 2011, Ragdoll Blaster 3 [$0.99 / HD] is an explosion of color and whimsy, with few sacrifices made to what makes the series great: damn fine physics puzzles.

I love how these games make you think a bit about applied physics. It's not just knocking over this tower, stacking that block without letting the whole works fall, it's levers and pulleys and magnets on top of all that. So it's great to see the puzzles wrapped in a much more appealing package. That's the best sort of makeover, wouldn't you say—one that makes the outside as fine as the inside?

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When I heard there was a multiplayer sequel to last year's Puzzle Family [$2.99/Free], I was pretty psyched. Though the game was stuffed to the gills with in-app purchases, at its core it contained a pretty excellent collection of mini-games. I was looking forward to trying them out against a friend or two. That was not to be. As it turns out, the defining features of Puzzle Family must have been the wacky stylings and in-app purchases, because those are what have been brought to Puzzle Family VS [Free]. I guess the mini-games didn't make the cut.

Instead, we're looking at a single Tetris Attack-style game that pits players in a frantic block-matching competition with opponents from around the world. It features much of the lunacy of the original, but little of its variety. The letdown could easily have been enough to turn me off of Puzzle Family VS, but here's the thing: I really dig it.

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Train Titans [$1.99] by Sad Cat Software is a puzzler focusing on train and train track management. While the game offers a refreshing amount of freedom for a puzzle game, a lot of its execution (especially in terms of controls and gameplay) leaves the game as something less than it could have been.

The premise of Train Titans is relatively simple: each train and depot has a certain color and your goal is to guide the trains to their respective (same colored) stations while helping them avoid other trains on the field. This is accomplished by laying out train tracks in whatever way you see fit (such as bridges, switch tracks, and more). Of course, there’s a wide variety of power-ups, obstacles, and various special buildings, but the end goal is always the same. Still, Train Titans succeeds in providing players a decent amount of flexibility in placing tracks. I’m a fan of flexibility in these types of puzzle games simply because it offers a wider array of solutions.

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I didn't really mean to play Eufloria [$4.99] and Mass Effect at the same time during the last few days, but accidentally playing two games on opposite ends of the science fiction spectrum has been fruitful. On the one hand, Mass Effect seems absurdly violent at first glance, sporting photorealistic visuals and third-person shooting. Your character can, quite literally, be a renegade. On the other, Eufloria is relaxed and ambient, full of soft lines and leisure. It's a game about growing flowers.

But Mass Effect is about saving lives as much as ending them. And, beneath the surface, Eufloria is a killing ground: no quarter for your enemies as your troops get sent again and again into the breach. That same incongruity between mechanics and presentation infects the rest of the game.

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Most of us have played the game "Snake" which came pre-loaded on Nokia phones back in the day. You know the one: Eat pellets to make your snake longer, but avoid your own growing tail. There's various snake incarnations on the App-Store, such as Hard Lines [99¢] which we reviewed favorably back in June. But right now, I'm really enjoying Hyper Snake [99¢] by ClawHammer-Games.

Hyper Snake uses accelerometer tilt controls to steer the snake and there's no other control options. This will put some people off, but the tilt controls are really superb, with three different tilt configurations available depending on how you hold your device. I used the slightly-inclined setting and the tilts were totally responsive. It's easy to move slow and precisely, or to accelerate the snake rapidly.

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When I unlocked a moustache and created Ron Swanson Pizza Bagel (Ron to his friends), I fell a little bit in love with Pizza Vs. Skeletons [$2.99 / Lite]. I mean, how many games let you play - and customize - a 10 foot tall pizza that's out to crush every skeleton it finds? And it's not all skeleton crushing, oh no. We've also got Pizza Rescues Trapped Puppies, Pizza Balances on Rolling Skulls and a hefty handful of other games in here, taking full advantage of everything a giant pizza can do.

The common thread is the pizza (or tire, or moon, or...), and its three capabilities: rolling, jumping, and pounding the ground. You roll by tilting your device, jump by tapping the screen once and hit the deck by tapping again. Any of those moves can crush skeletons, which simply can't stand up to the weight of a giant pizza. If you're worried about the tilt controls, give the free version a try. I can tell you they're better than most, easily calibrated, and fit perfectly with the gameplay, but try for yourself to be sure.

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You could say we've been looking forward to Simogo's Beat Sneak Bandit [$2.99] The developer announced it just a few months back in November, but it feels like we've been waiting forever. After all, these are the folks that made Kosmo Spin [$0.99] and Bumpy Road [$2.99] two fantastic (if divisive) games, so who could blame us for a little eagerness? Now that the wait is over, you've gotta ask: does it live up to the hype?

And I have to tell you that yes, it totally does. I don't know of any other stealth rhythm puzzle games, but I'm pretty sure Beat Sneak Bandit could take on all comers. Every aspect has been expertly crafted, from the high level game design down to the details of the menus. Oh, and you guys? It's so very, very fun.

You should check out the trailer if you're mystified about the idea of a stealth rhythm puzzler, but here's the scoop in broad terms. You play the Beat Sneak Bandit, breaking into the mansion of Duke Clockface. He has, for undoubtedly nefarious reasons, stolen all the clocks from Pulsebury. He's kind of a jerk like that, I guess. Your job is to take back all the clocks without being caught.

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Dodonpachi Blissful Death [$4.99] is a port of Cave’s 2002 arcade title Dodonpachi Dai Ou Jou, and is a direct prequel to their previous iOS effort Dodonpachi Resurrection [$7.99/Lite] (which also happens to be my favorite of the Cave iOS shooters, FYI).

Blissful Death is similar to its sequel at a basic level, but it lacks some of the complexity and strategy found in Resurrection. But, like Cave’s last release Bug Princess [$4.99/Lite], its simplicity is also its strong point for those who maybe aren’t hardcore bullet hell people or those who just like to blast the crap out of everything without much fuss.

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Considering how much attention 100 Rogues [$2.99] has had in the past, I was a bit surprised by how quietly Fusion Reaction’s latest title entered the App Store. Taking its cues from the rogue-like, 100 Trials [$1.99] isn’t quite the sequel that some would have hoped for, but rather more of a puzzle spinoff with some inspirations from 100 Rogues. While not as ambitious as its predecessor, what 100 Trials does offer, however, is a decent strategy puzzler that takes place in the (under)world of 100 Rogues.

100 Trials takes place sometime after the ‘completion’ of 100 Rogues. A Dungeoneer (think, secret agent man) has been tasked with investigating the bowels of hell to determine if Satan was actually destroyed. Along the way, he’ll find three other heroes that will aid him in reaching his destination.

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Lyst Ignition [99¢] from Steel Games is a fascinating – and sometimes frantic – color-matching game which involves tapping little orbs as they descend down the screen. By learning and tapping different combinations of orbs, you can create explosions and other effects. There's a few rules to learn initially, but the main objective is to destroy orbs of matter.

There's five types of matter which fall down the screen. Basic matter is the most common and is shown as a black circle, but there's also orange, blue, critical and multiplier matter. Plus power-ups and "catalysts" appear. A series of interactive tutorials explain how the various types of orb can be combined. This tutorial is totally necessary to understand the game.

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Telltale's offerings have been received rather frigidly of late, especially after we called Jurassic Park "technically messy" and "poorly optimized." I'm happy to report, then, that "Ice Station Santa" -- the first of five episodes in Sam & Max Beyond Time & Space [$4.99] -- is a solid iOS port of the 2007 point-and-click.

To wit: in the four or so hours it takes to beat the game, I didn't experience any crashes, frame rate drops, or audio stutters. "Ice Station Santa" runs smoothly and stably, and Telltale's newfound technical prowess is matched with a great touch interface.

Unlike, say, the Hector series, Sam & Max Beyond Time & Space is in three dimensions, and Sam is controlled with a virtual analog stick. A two-finger pinch highlights all the click-able objects in a given area, and the game's touch implementation is remarkably precise, even when there are dozens of items on the screen to interact with.

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Sick of dual-stick shooters? Gunning down spaceships lost its shine? I hear that. But let me just say this: unless you're really, truly, and utterly sick of the genre, you really shouldn't miss Beat Hazard Ultra [$0.99], an outstanding music-generated shooter from Cold Beam Games.

It has a few problems - awkward menus, fiddly controls, limited music sources - but I can't think of a more compelling reason to grab a pair of virtual sticks and let the bullets fly. This version is just about on par with its PC and PSN counterparts for a fraction of the price. There's no better way to light up your screen with insane strobes of gorgeous color. Just mind the photosensitive seizure warning, because it's not kidding around.

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We've been watching for Furmins [$0.99 / Universal] for a while now, because when you hear Housemarque is launching a game on iOS, you sit up and take notice. These are the guys behind Super Stardust HD, Dead Nation and Outlands, some of the best games on the PlayStation Network. Furmins hasn't blown us away like their console titles have, but it's a gorgeous little physics puzzler that's great fun to boot.

Only one little problem—Housemarque jammed things up a bit with a pretty off-the-wall in-app purchase system. I'll get into that a bit deeper once I tell you what the game's all about, but suffice it to say that you may end up stuck behind a paywall before you're done. It's a bummer, because you're going to want to get your hands all over as much of this game as you can.

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