Our January game ratings are in place now, and here are the top of the heap. Our monthly “best of" round-up summarizes the top rated games that we looked at in the previous month. Each game reviewed receives a 1-5 star rating relative to the other games from that month. Generally, a 3 or higher is considered a “good" rating.
Our final scores are not the product of any traditionally objective measures such as graphics or sound, but simply reflect the games we would most recommend to others.
5 Stars
Broken Sword – The remake of this 1996 point and click adventure was wonderfully brought to the iPhone. The story and all around high-quality production values of Broken Sword sucked us in. Whether you’re an old fan of the original game, a newcomer to the series, or even someone who’s never played a point-and-click adventure before, Broken Sword is a game with mass appeal that will draw you in. (Review, App Store)
Sword & Poker – Mix poker with a loose RPG and you get one of the most surprisingly compelling games from January. The variety of monsters, weapons and levels adds enough content to kept us coming back throughout the month. Even if the premise sounds strange to you, give the Lite a try. (Review, App Store, Lite)
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars – A great adaptation of a DS/PSP game, Chinatown Wars offers a level of depth rarely seen on the App Store. If you complete everything in game, playtime will need to be measured in days, not hours. The weapon targeting system can use improvement, but barely detracts from an otherwise phenomenal game. (Review, App Store)
4.5 Stars
Cogs – Cogs is a mechanical puzzler that challenges you to bring to life a series of increasingly complex machines by way of arranging sets of tiles, gears, pipes, and the like in such a way as to connect varying energy sources to their ultimate outlets across 50 different 2.5D and 3D environments It has become one of our favorite iPhone puzzlers. (Review, App Store)
The Deep – The Deep is all about exploring environments and finding important items that allow access to other parts of the map or give unique abilities to the main character. Unique level designs, the pleasant art, and that addictive, upgrade-focused exploratory gameplay kept us captive for hours (Review, App Store)
The rest of January game ratings can be seen in their respective rating categories (also found in the sidebar navigation): 5 Stars, 4.5 Stars, 4 Stars, 3.5 Stars, 3 Stars, and 2.5 Stars.
As always, we expect there will be some debate about relative scores, but keep in mind that everyone’s personal ratings may vary based on individual tastes.
