We now live in a post-Dr. Mario World world, and I gotta say, things don’t feel too different. Nintendo continues to squirt out bad games on phones, causing all but the most stalwart fans of mobile games to question why they even bother downloading games from the App Store.

Things don’t have to be this way though! Nintendo could make a good phone puzzler if they wanted to. To prove it, here’s a list of great mobile puzzlers that can provide in all the ways that Dr. Mario World doesn’t.

There has been an auto chess explosion on the App Store. Within just a few weeks, three games in this new genre have popped up and are all competing for your attention.

If you’re not sure what auto chess is, welcome to the club. This new genre was born out of a mod for Dota 2, which is a game based on a mod for Warcraft 3. After taking off on PC and having over 300,000 concurrent players daily, it was only natural for it to make the jump to mobile in a big way.

This has a lot to do with the gameplay of auto chess games. If I had to describe it, I’d say auto chess is like a slowed down version of Clash Royale, but with an in-game store that gives you random units to buy instead of using a deck of your own creation. There’s a bit more to it than that, but it’s focus on management and paced-out auto combat makes it relatively well-suited for touchscreens.

I’m sure it’s a kind of game that isn’t for everyone, but if you want to try auto chess out, you want to make sure you’re doing it right. So with that, I decided to check out the current offerings of auto chess on mobile to let you know which one you should be playing:

The App Store is bursting at the seams with all kinds of apps and games of varying quality, but one of the most consistent issues with it is discoverability. Despite having what seems like unlimited money and a full App Store editorial team, Apple is astonishingly bad at celebrating games that aren’t already hugely successful.

To be fair, Apple doesn’t have much reason to do this. It takes more work, and it’s far easier to sell people on games with name recognition and/or a mass market appeal than it is to actually explore a huge backcatalog and dig up some hidden gems.

Don’t fret though, that’s where we come in! See below for some amazing App Store finds that you probably haven’t gotten around to yet, though you probably should:

Sled Dog Saga - download for iOS

"Dog Sled Saga is a really solid management game that will charm you if you have any affinity for dogs. The races might feel like they get a little too easy once you figure them out, but the loop of continuously upgrading stays satisfying throughout."

Read the full review

With the recent release of Rush Rally 3, it's easy to be excited about mobile driving games. Figuring out what games in this genre are worth picking up, on the other hand, is a whole other story.

Forget things like the Asphalt series, CSR Racing 2, or Need for Speed No Limits. Those games all may promise fast and fun cars, but they are all compromised experiences at best, not to mention the fact that they're all free-to-play. Check out these picks for the best premium driving experiences available on the App Store.

Absolute Drift - download for iOS

“Absolute Drift feels positively incredible when you finally learn to coast around a corner in a perfect arc, but doing this takes quite a bit of practice and feels nigh impossible without a controller. If you happen to have an MFi controller handy and a bit of patience though, it can be a really rewarding experience that feels completely unlike any other driving game on the App Store.”

Read the full review

Were you disappointed by The Elder Scrolls: Blades? You're not alone. It's a bad game that gives off one of the worst first impressions I've ever seen.

If Blades was your first foray into mobile games in a while though, I feel for you. Why? Because Blades is a poor representation of what mobile gaming can be. It plays into the platforms worst tendencies, but there are lots of mobile games out there that don't do this and are better for it.

In fact, there are quite a few games available right now on the App Store that can give you exactly what you might have wanted from Blades but didn't get. Don't believe me? I made a whole list to prove it. See below:

This week Activision has revealed that Call of Duty Mobile is real, it's coming soon, and it looks pretty awesome. We got all of that from a trailer, but it also got us thinking about what other Activision games we'd like to see coming to mobile. Because that's the sort of thing we think about here at 148Apps towers.

We've not included any Blizzard games in the list, since we had a bit of a deep dive into how they might work for mobile when the big B revealed it was looking to bring all of its franchises to mobile. Instead we've focused on Activision published titles - specifically ones with plenty of action, since everyone loves action and explosions.

Got your own suggestions as to which Activision games you'd like to see coming to mobile? Then do let us know in the comments section at the bottom of the article. It's a huge company with a massive back catalogue, and we'd love to hear your ideas about how it could bring some of those games to mobile.

In case you missed it yesterday, Tencent and Activision announced they are putting out a new Call of Duty game for mobile. While details are pretty scant, they did put out a trailer (see above) and have a page where you can pre-register for the game, which might give you in-game rewards when the game actually launches.

Based on what's shown in the trailer, it looks to be a no-nonsense attempt to shoehorn every facet of mainline CoD games into a mobile package, which could be good. Though personally, I have my doubts. There are already precious few first-person shooters on mobile that are any good at all. Many of the best ones, like Call of Duty: Strike Force, have disappeared off the App Store completely. Meanwhile, things like Modern Combat 5 persist, which is a prime example of how to faithfully recreate the feeling of a big budget shooter on mobile while also leaning heavily into every worst tendency of free-to-play mobile design.

In light of all this news and speculation, I decided to dig back into our archives here and pull up a list of the best shooters on mobile. Many of these are not first-person shooters, mind you (as most of the good ones of those are gone), but they can still scratch your shooter fix while we all wait and see if Call of Duty Mobile is any good or not.

The Bug Butcher - download for iOS

Hi there, and welcome to our ever-increasing list of the very best games for iPhone. We're going to be updating this regularly with new content, so make sure you check back often, because you're not going to want to miss out on even one of the games we're including here. Trust me, they're that good.

You can click the links below to download the games from the App Store, and find out more about them. And if you've got some games you think should be included, feel free to chuck them into the comments section. Hopefully we can get a good bit of debate going!

Just like every Thursday, today we're taking some time to let you know what we think are the best games that have come out over the past week. We've had hands-on time with all of them, so you can trust us when we tell you that we're pretty clued up on this.

That said, you might disagree. That's cool, you can do that. But if you do, we'd love to hear why in the comments section at the bottom of the article. Maybe you've spotted something that you love, and you want to share it with the world? That's just one of the many services that the comments section can provide.

Click here and you can check out the games we thought were the greatest from last week. And now, without further ado, let's find out what the best games for iPhone and iPad that came out this week are.

Thursday is the day when most games come out on the App Store. So every week we like to spend Thursday telling you what the best of those games is. In a way we're providing a wonderful service, since it means you don't have to play anything rubbish in order to find the gems that have landed on iOS over the past seven days.

This week we've got a shooter, a twitchy arcade racer that features giant worms, and one of the strangest auto-runners that we've ever had the privilege of playing. Of course, with this being a pretty short list, there's a chance we've missed something out. If you think that's the case, then do let us know your own suggestions in the comments section at the bottom of the article.

Click here and you can check out what we thought were the best games that came out last week. And now, without any further words (except these ones), let's look at the three best games that came out for iPad and iPhone this week.

How has February already come to an end? That's craziness. Pretty soon it's going to be the summer and I'm going to be complaining about how hot it is all the time. So that's something to look forward to. That's not what we're doing here though - here's we're looking back to the three best games that came out in the second month of 2019.

It was tough choosing just three, and if you think we've missed out anything glaring then we'd love to hear from you in the comments section. Don't be mean about it, though, that's just mean. Hell, you might even agree with us - let us know about that too, it'll make us feel slightly better about the passage of time.

Click here and you can check out all of the other awesome lists we've been making over the past few months. Or, if you'd prefer, keep reading, and you'll discover what we thought were the three best iPhone and iPad games of February 2019.

Every Thursday here at 148Apps we like to make sure you're caught up with all the amazing mobile games that have come out over the past seven days. And today is no different - what you're reading right now is our break down of what we think are the top 5 games for iPhone and iPad that came out this week.

It's an interesting mix too, with an intriguing endless runner or two, a puzzler that's put its gloves back on, and an adaptation of a classic board game that's sure to get more than one or two fingers twitching with joy. If you think we've missed anything, then feel free to chuck your own suggestions in the comments section at the bottom of the article.

If you smash a click right here you'll be able to check out what we thought were the best games that came out last week. And make sure you check back regularly, because we're always making awesome content here at 148Apps and it'd proper suck if you missed any of it.

Well, once again we've reached Thursday, which means it's time to have a look at the awesome games that have popped up on the App Store over the past seven days. We've got horror, we've got vampires, and we've got at least one game we still don't really understand. So that's a first.

Obviously loads more games have come out this week, and there's a chance we might have missed something in our trawl of the App Store. If that's the case, and you know of another awesome game that people should be playing, do let us know in the comments section at the bottom of this article.

Click here and you can check out what we thought were the best iOS games that came out last week. And now, without further ado, let's check out what we think are the best new games for iPhone and iPad.

How is it already Thursday again? My oh my, doesn't time fly when you're playing the very best mobile games out there? We certainly hope it does, because we've gone ahead and written a list of what we think are the top 5 best games for iPhone and iPad that have landed on the App Store over the last seven days.

This week we've got two very different platformers, a .io game that shouldn't be anywhere near as much fun as it is, as well as a couple of games that like to play by their own rules. They're all really good though, and if it was up to us you'd read this article and then go and play all of them and have a lovely old time.

If you've got your own gaming suggestions for this week, feel free to chuck them in the comments section at the bottom of the article. And click here to check out what we thought were the best new games for iPhone and iPad that came out last week.

On Monday we told you that Apex Legends is, all being well, eventually going to end up on the App Store. That means you'll be able to play one of the best new battle royale shooters in months in the palm of your hand. However, it hasn't happened yet, which is why we've created this list of alternatives to tide you over until AL actually makes it across to iOS.

Obviously this is quite a short list, and there are games out there that might fit the bill as well. That's where you come in - let us know your own recommendations in the comments section at the bottom of the article, that way we're all going to be able to find something to countdown the weeks and months until Apex Legends comes out with.

Click here and you'll be able to check out all the other awesome lists we've been writing for you. Each one deals with a genre, a style, or just what we think are the very best games available for the devices you carry around in your pocket all the time. Right then, let's get on with these Apex Legends alternatives, shall we?