Real Racing 3

by Electronic Arts (Free US/UK)

How the Game Works: Buy cars, race ’em, earn money to buy more cars. There are different types of races (drag races, time trials, etc.) and real cars/racetracks, though we know about as much about them as we do football. The app supports time-shifted two/multiplayer gameplay, which allows you to compete with people even when they’re offline by racing against AI simulations of their best completed race times.

“You can’t see right now because you’re racing but my face is not pleased. My face is not pleased.”

“Oh I got a clean race bonus! Oh they’re minusing things the bonus is falling oh… oh. The bonus is gone.”

F [ 3 / 5 ] ★★★☆☆

I’ve always been terrible at racing games (and even worse at driving irl) but I loved Real Racing 3, probably because the default settings give you lots of support with braking while turning corners and I’m the worst at that because I’m reckless. I also really like games that let you earn achievements and collect things, in this case cars, trophies and upgrades. But I’m marking it down because as a two/multiplayer game, it’s not particularly interactive and doesn’t feel much different from playing with NPCs.

N [ 1 / 5 ] ★☆☆☆☆

I’m afraid I know next to nothing about cars and racing, and don’t really care about them IRL. Also, I dramatically lack virtual-steering skills and the achievements/unlocking situation does not motivate me to improve very much. Your mileage may vary, etc.

Ruzzle

by MAG Interactive (Free US/UK)

Unfortunately I didn’t think to screencap it when I’d found “porn.”

How the Game Works: Ruzzle is a digital Boggle. You have 2 minutes to find as many words as possible in a 4×4 grid. In the two-player mode, you play 3 rounds with each other, and whoever has the most points at the end of it (based on number and length of words as well as use of bonus letter tiles) wins.

F [ 4 / 5 ] ★★★★☆

I associate Boggle (and Scrabble) with childhood trauma because my parents would gather us around these games… and then trash us at them. They showed no mercy, you guys. No mercy. But then I grew up and I played word games obsessively to get better and recover the scraps of my self-esteem, so – what I’m saying is I love this game. It’s not quite as fun as shaking the little letter cubes up in a transparent plastic box, but at least with this app no one can accuse anyone of messing with the sand timer.

N [ 4 / 5 ] ★★★★☆

I never played Boggle, but am pretty into this game! Am still below average at it, but it’s not infuriating enough for me to give up completely (see: Real Racing 3). The dictionary is a little arbitrary (it excludes ‘boi’ and ‘clit’ but includes other dodgy words), but nonetheless forgiving to the less aspirational player (depending on how good your opponent is, you can win on lots of trivial short words). There isn’t a single-player mode besides the practice round, so you need your random opponent/friend to be interested enough in it/you to keep playing.

SCRABBLE™

by Electronic Arts (Free US/UK, Paid US/UK)

Yeah that’s probably not a real word, but “qi” totally is.

How the Game Works: You score points by arranging letter tiles on the board, building on words put down earlier in the game. The game ends when all the tiles have been used.

“Should we review how the chat function works?” “Well we don’t really use it, except when you text me sexually suggestive things to try to distract me.” “…a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”

“I think I can make ‘lolcats’. Do you think that’s a word?” “I don’t think so. It is in my heart.”

F [ 5 / 5 ] ★★★★★

I really, really love Scrabble, and in particular, I really, really love online Scrabble because in real life no one believes that the two-letter words I play are actual words. I also really, really love playing Scrabble with Nat because no one else will play with me anymore and she still loves me even when I put seven-letter words on the triple word score tile. The dictionary is useful when you’re about to put down a slightly ridiculous, possibly made-up word (okay I’m terrible) but I find the Teacher (who tells you the best possible word after your turn and can, thankfully, be switched off) incredibly annoying.

N [ 3 / 5 ] ★★★☆☆

Fik is extremely good at Scrabble. The kind of good that makes her other friends stop playing with her. Since this app has a dictionary of two-letter words, you don’t even have to leave the app to be annoying about it. I thought I would not enjoy this game but found that my apathy to winning helped me keep playing. In other words, I’ll play it if it makes her happy.

Super Stickman Golf 2

by Noodlecake Studios Inc (Paid US/UK)

We’re really good at this game can you tell?

How the Game Works: You, Super Stickman, play Super Golf on gravity-defying, obstacle-ridden courses. Collect “bux” and level up along the way to enter the hat lottery. Hats! Hats are so great. The game has both real time and turn-based multiplayer modes.

“In the hat lottery I won a pirate’s blood hat that turns all the water red.” “That sounds like the start of a great feminist action campaign.”

“Clearly this is an opportunity for us to make jokes about holes.” “I feel like I could do interesting (read: dirty) things with you being ‘two strokes ahead’ but I don’t think they would fly in the review.”

“This is not working out so well. I liked it better when it was just the two of us. I think threesomes are not really our thing. This other person was invited without our consent.”

F [ 4 / 5 ] ★★★★☆

The real time multiplayer mode is excellent because you get to watch each other fake-hit a fake-ball, which can be hilarious (the screencap above shows Nat hitting the ball behind her stickperson, by the way) but – and this is a big but – the app also roped in some random third person, which made the game weird for us (and probably worse for them) because this person was like level 21 and we’re level 2 and 1. I didn’t find it to be the funnest game – nothing wrong with it, just a matter of personal preference – but if you like things similar to say, Angry Birds, this might be for you.

N [ 3 / 5 ] ★★★☆☆

I don’t have that many bad things to say about this game. Although I am uninterested in real golf, the game was not as disastrous for my self-esteem/feigned indifference to games as Real Racing 3. The real time multiplayer mode is a race that seems to require more than two players, but there was also a turn-based two player option. It looks like it has a whole bunch of levels, courses, and course/ball dynamics to keep the average player occupied (which is considerate since I paid for it) but I tried playing the second course and never finished on par, so I can’t unlock the rest. “Below average” is my brand here.

Worms™ 3

by Team17 Software Ltd (Paid US/UK)

How the Game Works: There is no easy way to summarise what goes on in this game. Your team of worms attack/kill other worms with an assortment of weapons ranging from grenades and air strikes to an exploding old woman. There are quite a few two-player game modes available, including Sudden Death and Forts, but we only played the straightforward one-on-one battles.

“Ow. Ow. Ow. Did you have to do that?! You drowned my worm.” “After I bazooka’d it.”

“You know my worm is standing on top of your worm? I kind of want it to do other things.”

“My spirit is too fragile for this game. My worms are like my babies. I dressed them, I named them… and you just drowned, like, one quarter of them.”

“I see you humping your own worm.”

F [ 5 / 5 ] ★★★★★

I loved the PC version of Worms as a child and this iOS rendition of it surpassed my expectations. The controls aren’t the most intuitive but it is a complex game (in one timed turn you have to position your worm, use utility tools, choose a weapon, configure that weapon, etc.) and I got the hang of it pretty quickly through the tutorials, though I’m already very familiar with how the game works. It’s best played on a larger screen (I used my iPhone) and perhaps not with both of you playing at the same time, because it takes quite a while between turns. Slightly uncomfortably, playing with Nat made me realise how much video games have desensitised me to violence and her sister called us “bad vegetarians.”

N [ 1 / 5 ] ★☆☆☆☆

This was incredibly stressful for me. It also weighs heavily on my conscience. If you aren’t comfortable launching campaigns against virtual worms, you aren’t going to like this game. It was also super difficult for me to get the hang of because I am the worst at games. I played it on my iPad and it was a little buggy, but restarting the app worked. On some level this game was funny because it is turn-based and I got to watch Fik make mistakes too. But mostly I don’t think I’ll get over poisoning a worm. Watching it go green was just too much.

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