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:

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:

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

All told, I think 2018 was an ok year for mobile games. There were some truly great titles, but there wasn't any sort of deluge of amazing games as there have been in the past.

2019, however, is looking to be quite a stunner for mobile. There's a lot of releases just over the horizon that I really can't wait to get my hands on. See some of my top picks of most anticipated games below:

Space Haven

Space Haven was on my most anticipated games list last year, but I knew it was a bit of a stretch. There was no promised release date for 2018, and the game looks like an ambitious combination of Dwarf Fortress and FTL. Here's to hoping this game can come out this year, and here's to hoping it's the less-combat-forward version of Star Command that I'm hoping it will be.

The holidays are about being with family, but that doesn’t mean you can’t play games while you’re home with them. Mobile games are the perfect things to take with you as you travel to wherever you’re going, as they’re experiences you can always have with you and bust out at a moment’s notice.

In honor of the upcoming break, I’ve put together a list of the top four games I plan on bringing with me on my travels. All of these picks have their particular use cases, but all can be played in just about any situation, even if you are going somewhere that doesn’t have a good data or wifi connection.

Out of the Loop

Out of the Loop is a great little party game for 3-9 players with a really simple concept. Everyone playing is clued into a particular keyword based on a category (e.g. animal, household item, etc.), but one player is left quite literally out of the loop. Then, players are prompted to ask each other specific questions and the person who doesn’t know what the word is has to hope they aren’t found out.

This game is a great pick for holiday gaming if you want to get your whole family involved. The instructions for every step of the game are clearly written out on every screen, and the concept is so simple that everyone immediately gets how to play.

It can seem like most phone games now have in-app purchases of some kind, whether it's a small fee to remove ads from the game or buy a few gems, up to luxurious and expensive bundles that will ensure you have every piece of top-tier equipment in the game. It's just the way of things now. That doesn't mean that it's your only choice though, which is why we've written this list of our top 5 favorite iPhone games that don't have IAPs.

Tired of seeing those "limited time offer" windows popping up during your gameplay, sick of being asked whether you want to watch a video to get some more gems? Yeah, we know how that feels. Sometimes you just want to sit down with a game and play it, and these 5 let you do exactly that.

Click here to check out all of the other awesome lists we've been writing lately, there's some real good ones there. And if you think we've missed anything out here, feel free to let us know in the comments section at the bottom of the page.

Cyberpunk games have come and gone through the years, but CD Projekt Red’s upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 has reignited everyone’s interest in dystopian hacker worlds lately. It also got me interested in exploring the App Store to see what the best cyberpunk games on iOS are.

After a pretty exhaustive search, I have to say that there isn’t a huge pool of quality cyberpunk games on mobile. I’m not sure what the reason for this is, but it should be corrected. All you devs out there, get to making some great cyberpunk games! In the meantime, check out this list of quality cyberpunk titles that the App Store currently offers:

The idea of the “forever game” is a compelling one in general, but especially so on mobile. Being able to fire up the same game over and over again on your phone or tablet and be treated to new experiences and things to do each time is close to—if not the pinnacle—of mobile gaming. So, without further ado, see below for some of the best forever games on mobile:

Motorsport Manager Mobile 2

What is it?

This management game puts you in control of a Formula 1-style racing franchise. You manage almost everything involved in this process, including the drivers you hire, the sponsorship deals you take, the R&D of your cars, and even when drivers should take a pit stop mid-race.

What makes it a forever game?

The beauty of Motorsport Manager Mobile 2 is that it contains just enough variables to ensure the racing landscape is always changing. Even if you’re many years deep into the game’s career mode, you have to contend with different drivers, unexpected financial predicaments, and, of course, all of the other race teams that are trying to beat you.

Who’s it for?

Anyone who like management sims. Even if you aren’t into racing, Motorsport Manager 2 has a great set of mechanics under its hood that almost guarantees you’ll be playing it for a long time.

Read our Motorsport Manager Mobile 2 review

As mobile devices have gotten more and more capable, we’ve seen an influx of console ports and increasingly more complicated mobile games coming to the App Store. Many of these games are amazingly convenient to have on your phone or tablet, but few of them feel like games you can play while you are actually mobile—that is, when you are on the go and/or traveling. With that in mind, check out these recommendations for some of the best mobile games that you can truly play anywhere.

A Planet of Mine

Looking for a hardcore strategy game with tons of replayability and no data connection requirements that plays beautifully in portrait mode? Look no further than Tuesday Quest’s A Planet of Mine. What looks like a simple clicker is actually a real-time strategy game where you mine planets for resources in order to explore new worlds, encounter new species, and crush any enemies that stand in your way.

Even though the game moves in real-time, its pace is slow enough that it’s extremely easy to jump into an out of at a moment’s notice. As an added bonus, it’s not a graphically intensive game, so you can spend hours with the game without needing to recharge your phone.

Florence is a great little game about relationships that we absolutely adored. The only problem with it is it's over a little too soon. If you want some other games with some emotional range like Florence, check out these suggestions:

Will It Ever End?

If you want an experience that's eerily similar to Florence, check out Will It Ever End? This is a game about routine and relationships, and it conveys its narrative and ideas completely wordlessly. Its gameplay may be pretty simple, but it uses a lot of visual tricks and employs some great audio to get you wrapped up in the action.

2017 was a great year... for games at least. Putting together list of 10 of the best mobile games out there was somehow even harder than it was last year. After playing 350+ games this year and reviewing 213 of them for 148Apps though, I've somehow been able to put together a list of ten games that were my absolute favorites from this year. Check them out below.

When it comes to Pokemon GO, there's one unavoidable fact: Sooner or later, you're going to have to do some walking.

Yes, you can get it in the car and drive around to different Gyms to avoid using the old shoe leather express, but some exercise simply can't be avoided. For example, the game is smart enough to know when you're in a car versus traveling by foot, so driving the 10 km to hatch the Pokemon egg isn't going to work.

Then again, some additional exercise is never a bad thing, and Niantic and Nintendo should be commended for getting people off their couches and roaming around outside. Now the next step is to see how that additional physical activity is paying off for you.

Battle Champs is a build and battler out right now on iOS and Android that takes a lot of inspiration from the undisputed champion of the genre, Clash of Clans.

But to call it a clone is way off the mark. The developer of Battle Champs has made a serious effort to innovate on and, dare we say it, improve certain features of Clash of Clans.

As we're a kind bunch, we thought we'd write up a list of six ways that Battle Champs improves on the Clash of Clans formula so you can better decide whether or not it's worth your time.